Developing the Cities of the Dead

Oak Hill Cemetery is one of the oldest landscapes in Washington, D.C. By the standard of historic gardens, though, it is a pretty young thing. It was founded in 1849 by William Wilson Corcoran, a philanthropist and art collector who bequeathed the land to Congress in concert with the act creating the Oak Hill Cemetery Company. It is still a working cemetery today.

For the nation’s capital, Oak Hill Cemetery is hallowed ground, a repository for the memory and remains of many great Washingtonians. One of them is Ben Bradlee, the longtime executive editor of The Washington Post. Bradlee steered the newspaper through its greatest era, during which it published portions of the Pentagon Papers and took down President Richard Nixon. Bradlee died in October 2014; his mausoleum, now under construction at Oak Hill Cemetery, is suitably grandiose.