Preserving the Bardo: Archive, Architecture and Landscape at Oak Hill Cemetery

Presenter: Laura Thoms, Archivist and Collection Manager, Oak Hill Cemetery

Since its founding, Oak Hill has been the final resting place of historical personages from government, business, politics, the arts, law, and the military, and interments continue today. Located along Rock Creek in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, the Cemetery was established in 1849 on land contributed by W.W. Corcoran, founder of the Riggs National Bank and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The grounds were laid out by Captain George F. de la Roche in the style of a garden park cemetery, and James Renwick, Jr. designed the Cemetery’s stone gates and its historic Chapel. After a brief history of the cemetery, this talk will highlight the preservation challenges on this site. When Archivist Laura Thoms left working at the Library of Congress to start the Archives at Oak Hill in 2023, she thought that she would be solely managing the book and paper records of individuals interred at Oak Hill. After six months she realized that the “collection” was also all of the trees and landscape, all of the monuments and buildings, and all of their related documents. This talk will cover how her landscape, building and monument documentation projects to fill gaps in the Archive also supported the restoration of the 28th St Gate, the Linthicum Mausoleum, and a 2025 DOI Save America’s Treasures grant to restore the Renwick Chapel. Featured projects will also shed light on connections between Oak Hill and the art and architecture in the federal buildings of Washington, DC. If the date permits, the talk will include Lisa Fager, Executive Director of the Black Georgetown Foundation, to discuss the shared research between Oak Hill Cemetery and the neighboring Mt Zion Female Union Band Society Cemeteries, and the preservation challenges faced by this important African American Cemetery.

One (1) AIA general CEU pending.