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he story is thatthe two men,who once hadan amicabler e l a t ionsh ip ,became ene-mies in the

1870s during Shepherd’s whirlwinddevelopment of Washington. Mem-bers of Shepherd’s family are buriedin both cemeteries – but when andperhaps why the decisions were

made to divide a family in deaththat had been close in life is told inthe gravestones.

Rock Creek Cemetery, founded bySt. Paul’s Episcopal Church in 1710for its parishioners, is bounded onthe east by North Capitol Street andlooks out on the Old Soldiers Homeand the cottage in which PresidentLincoln rested from his labors dur-ing the Civil War. The cemetery isbest known for the Augustus St.

Gaudens sculpture commissioned byhistorian Henry Adams, scion of thepresidential family, for his wife,Clover, who committed suicide inthe 1880s. The sculpture is a mute,shrouded bronze figure facing asemicircular bench of pink granite;the setting is devoid of text. A strollthrough the cemetery further revealsits role in Washington history –among the graves are those of Cros-by Noyes, owner of the EveningStar; two contemporary mayors ofWashington, Sayles Bowen andMatthew Emery; Shepherd businessassociate Lewis Clephane; Mont-gomery Blair, Lincoln’s postmaster-general; and many others.

Oak Hill Cemetery, less than fivemiles from Rock Creek Cemetery, lieson a quiet hill in Georgetown adjoin-ing Rock Creek Park. William Corco-ran, the local banker who made his

HistoryBy John P. Richardson

CEMETERIESTwo of Washington, D.C.’s oldest cemeteries – Rock Creek and

Oak Hill – contain silent reflections of the bitter antagonism

between two of the city’s most powerful personalities in the years

after the Civil War – Alexander R. Shepherd, builder of Washing-

ton’s modern infrastructure, and William W. Corcoran, a wealthy

banker and leader of the conservative forces in the city.

TALEWOA Of

T

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fortune selling U.S. governmentbonds to finance the Mexican War inthe late 1840s, founded the cemeteryafter purchasing the land from adescendant of George Washington. Itwas incorporated by an act of Con-gress in 1849. The cemetery’s Gothicchapel was designed by James Ren-wick, architect of the original Corco-ran Art Gallery and the SmithsonianCastle Building. A walk among thegraves reveals many distinguishedpersonalities such as John Nicolay,President Lincoln’s secretary andbiographer; Joseph Henry, first secre-tary of the Smithsonian Institution;Secretary of State Dean Acheson; andmore recently, Philip Graham, pub-lisher of the Washington Post.

The clash between Corcoran andShepherd did not come to a headuntil after 1870, but the rivalrybetween the two men grew out ofthe deep social and political cleav-ages in Washington after the CivilWar. Both men were born in Wash-ington, but Corcoran was a well-connected conservative Democratand strongly pro-Confederacy. Hisonly daughter, Louise, marriedGeorge Eustis, assistant to JohnSlidell, who represented ConfederatePresident Jefferson Davis in Franceduring the Civil War, and Corcoranfound it politically advisable to leaveWashington until war’s end. Shep-herd was a classic self-made man

William Corcoran paid for the construction of a Gothic Revival chapel in Oak HillCemetery. (Photo courtesy of Oak Hill Cemetery)

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18 American Cemetery • June 2014

who overcame limited formal school-ing and difficult family circumstancesto build a personal fortune andbecome the dominant figure in amassive public works program thatchanged the face of Washington inthe 1870s. It was his foresight andwork that made a reality of thenational capital long envisioned inthe plan of Pierre L’Enfant.

During Shepherd’s early economicand political rise, relations were ami-cable between the two men. Shep-herd served on the board of Oak HillCemetery for a brief period in 1869,and the two shared an interest in thecity’s economic improvement. But asthe scale of Shepherd’s developmentschemes became known after 1870,Corcoran became the rallying pointfor the city’s wealthy, conservativeresidents, many of whom lived inGeorgetown and feared higher taxes.They were uncomfortable with thebold plans of Shepherd, the nouveauriche former plumber, who socializedwith a different set, some relativenewcomers to Washington from theNorth and West eager to create anelegant and prosperous capital forthe reunited country.

The Shepherd family had devel-oped a link to Rock Creek Cemeterybecause St. Paul’s Church and itsadjoining burial ground were a shorthorseback ride from the farm pur-chased by Alexander Shepherd Sr.three years before his death in 1845.The elder Shepherd and his wife,Susan Davidson Robey, are interredtogether behind the church in a mar-ble sarcophagus whose inscriptionshave weathered almost to illegibility.Eventually three of Gov. Shepherd’ssiblings and other family memberswere buried in the same plot. The siteis surrounded by a wrought-ironfence and has a wrought-iron funer-ary urn in one corner.

Perhaps surprisingly, when Gov.Shepherd’s first-born child and origi-nal namesake, Alexander, died as aninfant in 1864, Shepherd turnedaway from Rock Creek Cemeteryand purchased a plot in Corcoran’sOak Hill Cemetery. The reason is notdocumented, but it could havereflected the ambitious Shepherd’s

The Shepherd Mausoleum in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington. (Photo courtesy ofJohn P. Richardson)

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wish to improve his social status andrelationship with the powerful Cor-coran. Within four years two moreShepherd infants, Alexina andWilliam Young, were buried in OakHill. Shepherd’s parents-in-law,William P. Young and Susan B.Young, who died in the late 1860s,are also buried there, as are Gov.Shepherd’s second namesake sonAlexander and his wife PhoebeElliott Shepherd. From the splitbetween Shepherd and Corcoranaround 1870 until 1943, no Shep-herd family members were buried inOak Hill Cemetery – all are in RockCreek Cemetery.

Gov. Shepherd and his wife lie in amassive granite mausoleum withraised marble letters and two pinkgranite sarcophagi. The building hasfour columns in front and a heavymetal door with the dates 1835-1902on an ornamental grill. On eitherside of the mausoleum are the gravesof two of Gov. Shepherd’s daughters,Isabel S. Wagner and Susan S.Brodie, both of whom married pro-fessional employees of their father inMexico, where Gov. Shepherdmoved in 1880 in an attempt torebuild his fortunes after leavingWashington, bankrupt and at leasttemporarily repudiated. A daughterand son-in-law of Isabel Wagner arealso buried in the same plot. A shortwalk across the quiet, hillside ceme-tery are the graves of two otherdaughters of Gov. Shepherd and theirhusbands: Grace S. Merchant (died1958) and Mary S. Quintard (died1948), whose husbands also workedfor Gov. Shepherd in Mexico. Aninfant Quintard daughter is alsoburied in this plot.

The information on Shepherd fam-ily gravestones in Oak Hill and RockCreek Cemetery establishes who wasburied where and when. The story ofthe Shepherd-Corcoran antagonismafter 1870 may provide the answerto “why.” The turbulent years inWashington, D.C. following the CivilWar left their mark on every aspectof the city’s history, even the placidhills and walkways of two of thecity’s oldest and most historicalcemeteries. •

The Corcoran Family Monument in Washington’s Oak Hill Cemetery. (Photo courtesy ofOak Hill Cemetery)

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