Graceland Cemetery was a cemetery located in the Carver Langston neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was founded in 1871 as a privately owned secular cemetery open to the public, but it primarily served the city's African American community. From 1884 to 1885, more than 1,200 bodies were transferred to Graceland Cemetery from Holmead's Burying Ground. When the cemetery encountered financial problems, the owners attempted to sell the land. This led to a lengthy and bitter battle involving the Graceland Cemetery Association, lot holders, the government of the District of Columbia, and the United States Congress. Graceland Cemetery was closed by an Act of Congress on August 3, 1894. Removal of remains was also bitterly contested, but a court ruled in the summer of 1895 that the lot holders did not have the right to prevent their removal. Most of the bodies at Graceland were reinterred at Woodlawn Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
A portion of Maryland Avenue NE runs through a portion of the former cemetery. Most of the cemetery was purchased by Washington Railway and Electric Company and turned into a powerhouse and streetcar operations complex. This land later became Hechinger Mall.
Creation Graceland Cemetery was created due to the need for a large, rural cemetery for African Americans in Washington, D.C., in the late 1800s. At the time, nearly all non-Catholic cemeteries in the city were racially segregated, with whites-only burial grounds refusing to inter black citizens on their property.Richardson, Steven J. "The Burial Grounds of Black Washington: 1880–1919." Records of the Columbia Historical Society. 52 (1989), pp. 304–326 By 1850, there were 16 cemeteries in the city of Washington, but only three served African Americans: (Eastern Methodist Cemetery, or "Old Ebenezer Cemetery"; the Harmoneon Cemetery, and Mount Pleasant Plains Cemetery). On June 5, 1852, the D.C. City Council enacted legislation to prohibit interments at any burying ground inside the limits of the Federal City and to ban the establishment of new burial grounds within the Federal City.
The city's rapidly increasing African American population desperately needed a new cemetery. In 1870, a group of progressive white citizens decided to buy a plot of land just beyond the border of the Federal City and build a racially integrated cemetery. Graceland Cemetery was chartered by an Act of Congress in Section 5 of the Act of May 5, 1870 ("An act to provide for the creation of corporations in the District of Columbia under general law", 16 Stat. 106). It was incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia on September 30, 1871. Two weeks later, on October 16, 1871, the Graceland Cemetery Association acquired for a burying ground on a tract of land bounded by Bladensburg Road NE, K Street NE, 17th Street NE, and Benning Road NE.
Operation From 1871 to 1873, Graceland Cemetery was landscaped and numerous trees were planted. Winding walkways were laid out through the cemetery's gently rolling hills, and an expensive caretaker's house was constructed. The southern half of the property sloped to the south. There were several springs here, and this area was somewhat marshy. The eastern terminus of the Columbia Railway, one of the city's largest streetcar companies, was across the street. The cemetery was on top of a hill, which gave it excellent views of the city and United States Capitol.
Graceland Cemetery was governed by a Board of Directors. The board consisted of a president, secretary-treasurer, and three directors. A seven-member Advisory Board was also established to advise the Board of Directors on cemetery operations.
The cemetery opened about April 1873. In its first nine months of operation, about 40 burials occurred. Nearly all of these were along the cemetery's southern boundary, which ran along Benning Road.
About 42,000 burial lots existed at Graceland. Lot prices were initially held low, to encourage burials. Lot prices ranged from $3 in the marshy southern area to $22 for a prime hilltop site. Burial costs were also low: Opening and closing a grave cost just $4, while handling the body cost $5. (Grave markers, burial vaults, fences, and other improvements cost significantly more.) In comparison, at the highly popular (and almost all-white) Rock Creek Cemetery, opening and closing a grave cost $6.50.
Although at times popular with the city's black community, Graceland never quite caught on. The Columbian Harmony Cemetery was the city's most popular African American cemetery, with Payne's Cemetery in the Marshall Heights neighborhood east of the Anacostia River the second most popular. Graceland Cemetery was not very popular, however, until 1890. A total of 4,722 African Americans were buried there between 1880 and 1894 (just 4.7 percent of all black burials in the city), but it was the top burying ground for African Americans in 1890 and 1891. At the time it closed, several hundred (perhaps thousands) of as-yet unused burial plots at Graceland were owned by blacks. Although only 1,073 whites were buried at Graceland from 1880 to 1894 (just 0.8 percent of all white burials in the city, this was actually quite a substantial number for a racially integrated cemetery. Nonetheless, by February 1893 there were 5,700 interments at Graceland. Most of these were in a wide strip along the southern border. Lots here were the cheapest in the cemetery, largely due to its marshy nature.
Complaints about operations Although Graceland Cemetery was intended to be a rural cemetery, well away from development, housing, and other buildings were soon built around it. As early as June 1873, a three-story, 25-room hotel was constructed across the street from Graceland. By January 1878, a large number of new homes had been constructed near the burying ground. The stench of decomposing bodies and the smell and foul taste of burials left in the local water supply greatly alarmed local residents, who suffered an outbreak of typhoid in 1877. The D.C. Board of Public Health was worried, too, and it commissioned a study of the cemetery in late 1877 to study the issue. Although the Board found in January 1878 that the cemetery was not responsible for the typhoid outbreak, it expressed its concern that a major burying ground was so near to homes.
The complaints did not end, however. In April 1892, a large number of local residents as well as physicians complained about the foul-tasting and smelling water in the vicinity of Graceland Cemetery. More than 200 local residents signed a petition asking the Board of Public Health to close it. Another typhoid outbreak in the summer of 1892 intensified the pressure to close Graceland. Investigation by city health officials found that the soil in the southern part of the cemetery was so marshy that graves often filled with water when dug (and had to be bailed out before a coffin could be lowered). Officials asserted that the graves were also dug too close to one another so that the walls between graves often collapsed—allowing germs and disease from a nearby decomposing body to wash into the new, open grave. Eventually, pressure to close the cemetery became so strong that legislation was introduced in the waning days of the 52nd United States Congress to close the cemetery. The D.C. City Commissioners supported the bill, H.B. 9874, which was introduced by Senator Jacob Harold Gallinger (R-New Hampshire) and Representative John J. Hemphill (D-South Carolina). Even The Washington Post editorialized in favor of the bill. The legislation was strongly opposed by Frank Presbrey, the president of Graceland Cemetery, and the Graceland board of directors. The bill died when Congress adjourned on March 3, 1893.
With congressional action having, for the time being, failed, city residents pressured the city to act under power granted to the District of Columbia under Joint Resolution 4 of 1892. Section 2 of the Joint Resolution gave the city commissioners broad power to make "police regulations". But questions were raised as to whether the Joint Resolution actually conferred the power to close Graceland Cemetery (e.g., was closure a police power?) In late March 1893, the D.C. Assistant Attorney said he doubted that closure fell under the general police regulatory power.
Closure New legislation to bar further interments at Graceland Cemetery was introduced into the 53rd United States Congress. The House bill was H.R.6915, and the Senate bill (once more sponsored by Senator Gallinger) was S.2245. Once again, the legislation was strongly supported by the city commissioners. The House Committee on the District of Columbia favorably reported the bill on July 5, and the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia followed suit on July 6. The full Senate passed the bill on July 23, and the House on August 3, 1894.
Section 1 of the Act revoked the charter of the Graceland Cemetery Association. However, the board of directors was permitted to continue in order that it might carry out the provisions of the law. (It was also permitted to fill vacancies on the board by unanimous vote.) Section 1 also barred any further interments at the burial ground as of the date of enactment. A fine of $100 to $500 was imposed for violations of the law.
Section 2 of the Act required the Graceland Cemetery Association to remove all the bodies from the burial ground and reinter them at some other suitable cemetery or cemeteries in the District of Columbia. The board was authorized to subdivide and sell the land for any purpose. Proceeds from the sale were to be used to pay the debts of the cemetery association. Afterward, five percent of the proceeds went to the board of directors as compensation for their services. The remaining funds were then to be distributed among the lot holders on a pro-rate basis. Once disbursement was made, the board was ordered to dissolve.
Final disposition of Graceland Cemetery An unknown but small number of burials occurred at Graceland Cemetery after its August 3 closure. These occurred after the city government and Graceland Cemetery Association board of directors failed to adequately communicate with the sextons at the cemetery. But no burials were recorded after August 23, 1894.
Removing nearly 6,000 bodies from a cemetery was a task never before undertaken in Washington, D.C. Protecting public health, especially in the wake of complaints going back 15 years, was paramount. On September 5, 1894, the city commissioners adopted health regulations governing the disinterment of bodies at Graceland. The regulations prohibited disinterments in June, July, August, and September (the hottest months of the year, and the months in which corpses would be decomposing most rapidly), and required reinterments within 24 hours. If the deceased had died of diphtheria, the open grave was required to be saturated with chloride of lime and left open for a minimum of 24 hours before the corpse could be removed. The commissioners also moved to ease the grief that some might feel as their loved ones were disinterred; the regulations prohibited the disinterment of anyone under the age of 12 unless one year had passed since their death. The regulations barring disinterment in the hot months were temporarily rescinded in June 1895, after a lengthy heat wave dried out the marshy ground (making corpses less likely to be in advanced decomposition). (Despite concerns, the dry weather indeed prevented decomposition and there were no odors emanating from the cemetery despite the large number of disinterments).
Meanwhile, several of Graceland Cemetery's directors formed the Woodlawn Cemetery Association, which was incorporated on January 8, 1895. They subsequently purchased a plot of land adjacent to Payne's Cemetery across the Anacostia River. Burial plots were quickly laid out on this property, and Woodlawn Cemetery opened on May 13, 1895.
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