Legislative Day on the Hill: Gone But Not Forgotten

When lawn care professionals gather for the Professional Lawn Care Association of America’s annual Legislative Day on the Hill, one of the most encouraging and heartwarming portions of the two-day event is the Renewal & Remembrance Project held at Arlington National Cemetery.

This year, nearly 200 industry professionals dedicated their time and talents to renovating sections of Arlington with fertilizer and lime applications, as well as with sod installations around new gravesites. But with another mission, a group of participants also devoted their portion of the Renewal & Remembrance Project to a smaller and lesser-known Capital-area cemetery that desperately needs the attention.

Founded in 1807, the grounds now known as the Historic Congressional Cemetery is the burial site for hundreds of government officials who died in office, including several members of the 1st U.S. Congress. Among the 60,000 gravesites in Congressional are privates and generals of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, Mexican War, and Union and Confederate soldiers, craftsmen and architects of the Capitol, Indian chiefs and foreign diplomats, victims of mass tragedies, the infant and the aged – each with interesting stories, often known only to their families.

According to the Web site managed by the Association for the Preservation of Historic Congressional Cemetery (APHCC), for many years, Congressional remained a prominent place in the Capital City, but by the 1970s the cemetery had fallen on hard times. In order to rescue this once proud ground from further deterioration and possible abandonment, a group of ambitious, civic-minded citizens formed the APHCC. Since 1976, this tax-exempt organization has worked to repair, restore and maintain the cemetery. Thanks to the donations of its many friends and supporters, Congressional Cemetery is taking its place, once again, as a landmark of which the city and the nation can be proud.

Indeed, a group of hardworking PLCAA members contributed to the cemetery’s restoration on July 19. Among them were a crew from Calabasas, Calif-based Valley Crest; Holmdel, N.J.-based Lawn Doctor; and Kent, Ohio-based Davey Tree Expert Co. In collaboration, these crews treated the cemetery lawn with herbicides and fertilizers, removed dead trees and imposing plants around the property and beautified several of the more overgrown and unkempt gravesites.
 
The day’s work was well worth the effort and did not go unnoticed by the APHCC. “For the past several years, a group of dedicated and professional volunteers participating in PLCAA’s Renewal & Remembrance program have worked on our grounds and have made a huge difference,” wrote APHCC Board Chair Linda Harper in a letter thanking the group for its efforts.

“In 1997, when the National Trust for Historic Preservation included Historic Congressional Cemetery on its list of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Sites in America, the future looked pretty bleak,” Harper says. “The grass was waist high, dead trees were falling on treasured tombstones and pathways were unwalkable. Today, with the help of PLCAA, we are pleased to invite families and tourists to the site once more.”

Moreover, Harper notes that the cemetery will celebrate its bicentennial in 2007 and encourages PLCAA and other volunteer partners to continue their hard work. With help from talented professionals like those who participate in the Renewal & Remembrance Project, the Historic Congressional Cemetery can regain the integrity it knew 200 years ago.

The author is associate editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at lspiers@gie.net.