Prospect Hill Cemetery, also known as the German Cemetery, is a historic German-American cemetery founded in 1858 and located at 2201 North Capitol Street in Washington, D.C. From 1886 to 1895, the Prospect Hill Cemetery board of directors battled a rival organization which illegally attempted to take title to the grounds and sell a portion of them as building lots. From 1886 to 1898, the cemetery also engaged in a struggle against the District of Columbia and the United States Congress, which wanted construct a main road (North Capitol Street) through the center of the cemetery. This led to the passage of an Act of Congress, the declaration of a federal law to be unconstitutional, the passage of a second Act of Congress, a second major court battle, and the declaration by the courts that the city's eminent domain procedures were unconstitutional. North Capitol Street was built, and the cemetery compensated fairly for its property.
In the 20th century, Prospect Hill Cemetery sold unneeded land, dismantled its chapel, and repositioned the cemetery's main entrance toward North Capitol Street and away from Lincoln Road NE. Established as a burying ground for members of the Lutheran faith, it gradually became a secular cemetery. Prospect Hill remains an active cemetery, and continues to accept burials.
Founding of the cemetery and management issues
Founding the cemetery
The German Evangelical Lutheran Church was organized by German immigrants to Washington, D.C., on January 27, 1833. The small Lutheran and Reformed congregation first worshipped at City Hall along with Catholics and Jews. In 1853, the Reformed and Lutheran elements of the congregation erected a church building at 20th and G Streets NW and changed the name of the congregation to Concordia Church. The growth in the church was due to the burgeoning German community in the city as well as the influence of Reverend Samuel D. Finkle (or Finckel), who assumed the pulpit on December 27, 1846. The church had a small burying ground adjacent to it. The congregants soon built a parsonage and parochial school, and established a German Evangelical Church Society in 1847 to assist with administration, fundraising, and other church affairs.
In 1858, the German Evangelical Church Society decided to purchase a cemetery for Concordia Church. The society bought a site, but then discovered that the title to it was not clear. A second site was then sought. Seventeen acres of Moore's Farm, located in the Glenwood neighborhood (now known as Edgewood), were purchased for $7,000 ($ in dollars) on September 23, 1858. Title in the land was invested in two members of the German Evangelical Church Society, although the deed of transfer specified that the title should be transferred to an appropriate corporate organization once a charter was obtained from Congress (which, at that time, chartered corporations in the District of Columbia). The whites-only cemetery was dedicated on September 26, 1858, with a parade featuring a band and three German membership associations. Reverend Finkle, who led the ceremonies and blessed the grounds, declared the cemetery open to all classes and members of any religious sect.
Construction of the cemetery
It is not clear why the cemetery was named Prospect Hill. The name was a common one for cemeteries in the mid-1800s, but the District of Columbia Preservation Review Board suggests that the name was probably inspired by the burying ground's location. Prospect Hill Cemetery is indeed on high ground, and it has excellent views of the United States Capitol and the adjacent neighborhoods of Eckington and Bloomingdale. (It also has a superb view of the Washington Monument, although the monument was not complete at the time the cemetery was founded.)
Prospect Hill was designed as a garden cemetery (also known as a rural cemetery). Until the early 1800s, most burying grounds (the word "cemetery" did not come into use in the United States until the 1840s) were next to churches. They were very overcrowded and unhealthy, with graves stacked upon each other or emptied and reused for new burials. As a reaction to the urban cemetery, the first "garden" cemetery—Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris—opened in 1804. The concept quickly spread across Europe. Garden/rural cemeteries did not have to be outside the city limits. When land within a city could be found, the cemetery was enclosed with a wall to give it a garden-like quality. These cemeteries were often not sectarian, nor co-located with a house of worship. Inspired by the English landscape garden movement, they often looked like attractive parks. The first garden/rural cemetery in the United States was Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston, Massachusetts, founded by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1831. It was followed by Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia in 1836, and Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn in 1838. Prospect Hill was designed as a typical garden cemetery, with winding roads and paths, a high stone wall, and (in time) many trees and bushes. Its main entrance was on Lincoln Road. The cemetery's most prominent feature was an ellipse, bounded on the outer edge by a road and featuring two paths: one an inner, oval path paralleling the road and the other a straight, cruciform path. The ellipse was aligned with Lincoln Road, and most burials here faced east. The District of Columbia Preservation Review Board has described the layout of the cemetery as "characteristic and a relatively early example of the garden cemeteries created in the United States beginning in the 1830s". According to the Historic American Landscapes Survey, Prospect Hill Cemetery, along with Glenwood Cemetery (1854) and Mount Olivet Cemetery (1858), "changed the dynamics of cemeteries in the city" by setting a new standard for cemetery design and layout.
Initially, Prospect Hill Cemetery featured two structures, a small farmhouse (used as the resident superintendent's house) and a barn. Both predated the establishment of the cemetery. In 1873, a gatehouse designed by August Schoenborn, a noted German-American architect who lived in the city, was built near the main gate on Lincoln Road.
Most of the early burials at Prospect Hill were reinterments of remains from the Concordia Church cemetery. A marker inscribed with a death date of 1844 represents the oldest burial at the cemetery, but is a reinterment. Many of the mausolea and markers reflect the styles of adjacent Glenwood Cemetery, established in 1854. The earliest mausolea are the Abner and Baumann structures, which are in the northern part of the cemetery on the slope facing the North Capitol Street gate.
The 1860 charter On June 13, 1860, Congress approved a corporate charter for the Prospect Hill Cemetery corporation (PHC). The legislation named eight members of the German Evangelical Church Society as incorporators of "Prospect Hill Cemetery": Christopher Friess, John Guttensohn, Friedrich "Fred" Heider, Augustus E.L. Keese, B. Ostermeyer, George Schultz, John G. Stork, and John Walter. The charter allowed PHC to hold up to but not less than of contiguous land as a cemetery in perpetuity. Section 3 of the charter specifically forbade the construction of any new street, alley, or canal through the property. The new corporation was to be led by a president, secretary, and six directors, who were to be elected annually by majority vote of the shareholders. The shareholders included the eight incorporators and each lotholder (who received a single vote, no matter how large their lot). The board of directors had the ability to appoint individuals to vacancies between elections.
Management struggles and the 1886 charter amendment Management of Prospect Hill Cemetery was haphazard in its early years. Only seven directors (which included the president and secretary) were elected rather than the required eight, and the real decision maker governing the burial ground was the German Evangelical Church Society (which changed its name numerous times during the next 30 years). Furthermore, title to the cemetery was not immediately conveyed to the new corporation, as required by the deed of transfer. (Transfer did not occur until June 10, 1873.) Fundraisers to benefit the cemetery were held in June 1865 and May 1866.;
In 1867, PHC reported that it received income of $1,500 ($ in dollars) in the past six months, expended $500 in improvements and repairs, and was in excellent financial condition. The board elected that year included August Meiners, president; John Vogt, vice president; Frederick Schweiring, secretary; Michael Langman, treasurer; and Christopher Freiss, F. Haiden, Christopher Just, H. Kaiser, John Killian, and August Lipold. By 1870, however, the cemetery faced a problem: A significant number of individuals had purchased lots but failed to pay. Beginning on February 9, 1870, PHC announced that lotholders in arrears must complete payment by June 30, or the cemetery would seize their lot and sell to it to someone else. Nearly all lot sales in the past had been to members of the German Evangelical Church Society, but now sales to non-members, including many who were neither German nor Lutheran, expanded rapidly. Throughout most of the 1870s, the cemetery's superintendent was Christopher Buechler.
Internal struggles at PHC began in the late 1870s, and culminated in 1885. The issue was that Concordia Church and the German Evangelical Church Society controlled the cemetery association, even though few members owned lots. Other lotholders were denied the right to vote at annual meetings, and many suspected that cemetery income was being diverted to church use. These "independent" lotholders marshaled sufficient votes in 1884 to force the appointment of a committee to study the issue and make recommendations to the lotholders the following year. The committee failed to report in February 1885, and a resolution was adopted by the lotholders to force it to make a report and recommendations in 1886. In March 1885, an agreement was reached in which Concordia Church and the German Evangelical Church Society conceded that the independent lotholders had the right to vote.