Buried In Georgetown: A Brief Look At Cemeteries and Burial Grounds in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

Book excerpt: A native of Ridgewood, N.J., and graduate of Marist College (BA Math) & Stevens Tech (MS Math / Computer Science option), Peter T. Higgins has been "at home" in Washington, D.C., since the late 1960s. While his career has taken him inside the science and technology side of the government and overseeing his own international biometric and program management consultancy, his avocation is history. In 1968, living on P Street in Georgetown, Higgins became interested in the local stories of its people, churches, and cemeteries. He researched Georgetown history-specifically churches and cemeteries-for several years both as a hobby and for his church, Holy Trinity, which was celebrating its 225th anniversary in 2019. In 2013 he started to write a book about Georgetown's churches and cemeteries. Three years later he divided the work into this book on Georgetown's cemeteries and one to follow on Georgetown's churches, temples, meeting rooms, and chapels.Appreciating the history of where he lives, Higgins has always researched little elements of the interesting facts behind things. As in many history research projects he learned of alternative telling of history. He enjoyed trying to sort fact from what people thought was fact. In some cases, he presents the multiple versions of history and the sources. Some of the unanticipated discoveries were the source of the name Chain Bridge, the first cemetery in the US protected by a Supreme Court Decision, the number of human-remains not removed when some cemeteries were abandoned, or sold, and the burial of a priest who tried to assonate Napoleon before fleeing to America and dedicating his life to God.