Holy Rood Cemetery

Holy Rood Cemetery. Established 1832. , Holy Trinity Catholic Church established Holy Rood Cemetery as its parish cemetery on high ground above Georgetown in 1832. The cemetery was expanded in 1853 to the 6.5 acres it is today. Originally known as the Upper Graveyard, in 1886 the cemetery was renamed Holy Rood, taken from the Scottish holy ruid, meaning Holy Cross. In the years following the Civil War, Holy Trinity added a house for the sexton, a hillside holding crypt to accommodate caskets during the winter months, a new gate, a stone retaining wall, and an entrance along High Street, now Wisconsin Avenue., Holy Rood was an active cemetery until the late 20th century. It contains approximately 7,000 burials, many of them European immigrants who came to America to build the C&O Canal and the city of Washington. It is also the oldest burial ground in the District of Columbia for African Americans, both free and enslaved, including the family of the pioneer educator Anne Marie Becraft. Of additional historic interest is the grave of Joseph Nevitt (1752-1834), an American Revolutionary War veteran. His plot is located along the fence at the western edge of the cemetery., In 2010, Georgetown University, current owner of the cemetery, and Holy Trinity began a joint effort to restore and improve the cemetery grounds. To further this work, the University granted an easement allowing Holy Trinity to build a columbarium at Holy Rood for parishioners, university alumni, faculty and staff, families of those interred at the cemetery, and others. The columbarium and the first phase of the cemetery restoration project were completed in 2019., The Holy Trinity Columbarium is located in the restored holding crypt and in a new granite wall opposite the crypt, in the southeast quadrant of the cemetery.