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Prospect Hill Cemetery, Washington, DC
 German Roots in Washington

  • Entrance to Prospect Hill Cemetery, North Capitol Street, October 2010. Image Credit: Goethe-Institut Washington/William Gilcher

    Entrance to Prospect Hill Cemetery, North Capitol Street, October 2010.

  • Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010. Image Credit: Goethe-Institut Washington/William Gilcher

    Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010.

  • Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010. Image Credit: Goethe-Institut Washington/William Gilcher

    Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010.

  • Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010. Image Credit: Goethe-Institut Washington/William Gilcher

    Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010.

  • Graves of William and Anna Petersen, owners of the House Where Lincoln Died, Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010. Image Credit: Goethe-Institut Washington/William Gilcher

    Graves of William and Anna Petersen, owners of the House Where Lincoln Died, Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010.

  • Typical gravestone with information about where people were born. Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010. Image credit: Goethe-Institut Washington/William Gilcher

    Typical gravestone with information about where people were born. Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010.

  • Some gravestones, like this one for a member of a Masonic Order, were carved in German. Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010. Image Credit: Goethe-Institut Washington/William Gilcher

    Some gravestones, like this one for a member of a Masonic Order, were carved in German. Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010.

  • Ruppert family graves, Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010. Image Credit: Goethe-Institut Washington/William Gilcher

    Ruppert family graves, Prospect Hill Cemetery, October 2010.

This historic German-American Cemetery was founded in 1858 by the German Evangelical Society, Concordia Lutheran Evangelical Church. Located on the east side of North Capitol Street near Rhode Island Avenue, the cemetery's peaceful grounds are the final resting place for many of Washington's German-American families. 

At the time of its founding, the cemetery was outside the city limits. Now, it is a quiet island in a densely populated urban landscape. Many immigrant families marked the names of their home communities in Europe on the tombstones - giving a note of pride in their particular origins while sensing perhaps that future generations would lose track of this information. The cemetery association maintains a website with considerable social and cultural history about the German-American community in the 19th and 20th centuries as well as the names of the families interred on the grounds. Prospect Hill is supported by donations from the descendents of those buried there and by contributions from others.
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