Congressional Cemetery Tours and Activities

Founded in 1807, the Congressional Cemetery is the only “cemetery of national memory” founded before the Civil War. The Congressional Cemetery occupies nearly 36 acres and has been designated a National Historic Landmark, while serving as the final resting place for more than 65,000 people, including many notable founders of the United States and the city of Washington in the early 1800s.

The cemetery honors 171 members of Congress who died in office with cenotaphs, or tombstones at empty graves. Some of the most notable individuals interred at the Congressional Cemetery include Vice Presidents Elbridge Gerry (the only signer of the Declaration of Independence who is buried in Washington DC) and George Clinton, J. Edgar Hoover (the first FBI director) and Tom Lantos (the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress).