Christ Church Burial Ground - Wikipedia

Historic site in Philadelphia For the cemetery in Quincy, Massachusetts, see Christ Church Burial Ground (Quincy, Massachusetts). United States historic place

Christ Church Burial Ground
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Benjamin Franklin's gravesite in Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia
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Location	5th and Arch streets,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Coordinates	39°57′07″N 75°08′55″W / 39.95194°N 75.14861°W / 39.95194; -75.14861
NRHP reference No.	71000062[1]
Added to NRHP	June 24, 1971

Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia is an important early-American cemetery. It is the final resting place of Benjamin Franklin and his wife, Deborah. Four other signers of the Declaration of Independence are buried here, Benjamin Rush, Francis Hopkinson, Joseph Hewes, and George Ross. Two additional signers of the Declaration of Independence, James Wilson and Robert Morris, are buried at Christ Church just a few blocks away.[2]

History

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The cemetery belongs to Christ Church, the Episcopal church, which was founded in 1695 and served as a place of worship for many of the most notable participants in the American Revolution, including George Washington. The burial ground is located at 5th and Arch streets, across from the Visitors Center and National Constitution Center in Center City Philadelphia. The Burial Ground was opened in 1719, and is still an active cemetery. The Burial Ground is open to the public for a small fee, weather permitting; about 100,000 tourists visit each year.

Benjamin Franklin gravesite

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When the burial ground is closed, Benjamin Franklin's gravesite is visible from the sidewalk at the corner of 5th and Arch Streets through a set of iron rails. The bronze rails in the brick wall were added for public viewing in 1858 by parties working at the behest of the Franklin Institute, which assumed the responsibility of defending Franklin's historic ties to Philadelphia after prominent citizens from Boston criticized the city's maintenance of the grave and erected a Franklin statue there.[3] Leaving pennies on Franklin's grave is a long-standing Philadelphia tradition.

Burials

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Other famous people buried at Christ Church Burial Ground include:

• John Andrews, (1746-1813), fourth Provost of the University of Pennsylvania
• Michael Woolston Ash (1789–1858), U.S. Congressman[4]
• Samuel John Atlee (1739–1786), delegate to the Continental Congress[4]
• Benjamin Franklin Bache (1769–1798), grandson of Benjamin Franklin, printer and publisher of the Aurora newspaper[4]
• Sarah Franklin Bache (1743–1808), daughter of Benjamin Franklin[4]
• William Bainbridge (1774–1833), Navy hero of War of 1812 and captain of the USS Constitution"[4]
• Francis Biddle (1886–1968), former U.S. attorney general
• James Biddle (1783–1848), Commodore in United States Navy
• Thomas Bond (1713–1784), co-founder (with Benjamin Franklin) of Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation's first hospital[4]
• Paul Busti (1749-1824), Agent General of the Holland Land Company
• Major General George Cadwalader (1806–1879), American Civil War general[4]
• John Cadwalader (1805–1879), congressman and judge[5]
• Matthew Clarkson (1733–1800), mayor of Philadelphia
• Joseph Clay (1769–1811), U.S. Congressman
• Tench Coxe (1755–1824), Continental Congress delegate
• William Henry Drayton (1742-1799), Continental Congress delegated and signer of the Articles of Confederation
• John Dunlap (1747–1812), printer of the Declaration of Independence[4]
• Lewis Evans (c.1700–1756), cartographer and surveyor
• Tench Francis, Jr. (1730-1800)
• David Franks (1740–1793), aide-de-camp to General Benedict Arnold during the American Revolutionary War[4]
• Samuel Hardy (1758–1785), delegate to the Continental Congress
• Michael Hillegas (1729–1804), first Treasurer of the United States[4]
• Thomas Hopkinson (1709–1751), father of Francis Hopkinson, president of the Philosophical Society, and one of the founders of The Library Company of Philadelphia[4]
• John Inskeep (1757–1834), mayor of Philadelphia
• Major William Jackson (1759–1828), Revolutionary War officer and secretary of the Constitutional Convention[4]
• Thomas Lawrence, five-time mayor of Philadelphia
• Major General Charles Lee (1732-1782), controversial Revolutionary War officer and second-highest ranking general after George Washington from 1776 to 1778.
• Charles Mason (1728–1786), astronomer and surveyor who laid out the Mason–Dixon line in 1763[4]
• George A. McCall (1802–1868), United States Army brigadier general and prisoner of war during the American Civil War
• William M. Meredith (1799–1873), United States Secretary of the Treasury[4]
• Philip Syng Physick (1768–1837), known as the "father of modern surgery"[4]
• John Hare Powel (1786-1856), Pennsylvania State Senator and agriculturalist
• Samuel Powel and his wife Elizabeth Willing Powel
• Henry C. Pratt (1761–1838) prominent Philadelphia businessman and builder of Lemon Hill
• Matthew Pratt (1734–1805) American colonial era portrait painter
• Col. Isaac Read (1739-1777) Virginia revolutionary and commander of the 1st Virginia Regiment, who died of disease during the Revolutionary War
• Benjamin Rush (1746–1813), signer of the Declaration of Independence and founder of Dickinson College, known as "the father of American psychiatry"[4]
• Annis Boudinot Stockton (1736–1801), poet
• Philip Syng (1703–1789), silversmith who created the Syng inkstand and early co-founder with Benjamin Franklin of several organizations[4]
• Henry Tazewell (1753–1799), U.S. Senator
• Commodore Thomas Truxtun, commander of the USS Constellation
• William Tuckey (1708–1781), composer
• John Goddard Watmough (1793-1861), U.S. Congressman
• Charles Willing, (1710–1754), three-term mayor of Philadelphia
• Anne Willing Francis (1733-1812) wife of Tench Francis and daughter of Charles Willing

• Benjamin Rush's grave
• The grave of John Taylor (right), a long-time grave digger at the cemetery.
• Edwin De Haven's headstone
• Commodore William Bainbridge's tombstone

References

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1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
2. ^ Mary C. Means (June 1970). National Register of Historic Places Registration: Pennsylvania SP Christ Church Burial Ground. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved January 3, 2026. (Downloading may be slow.)
3. ^ Dixon, Mark (April 19, 2017). "How Franklin's Grave Became a Monument and Philadelphians Were Persuaded to Like It". Hidden City Philadelphia. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q "The Graves". Christ Church in Philadelphia. Archived from the original on August 11, 2011. Retrieved September 3, 2010.
5. ^ United States Congress. "John Cadwalader (id: C000011)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

External links

[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to Christ Church Burial Ground.

• Official website
• Official Map of Christ Church Burial Ground (archived 28 September 2007)
• Christ Church Burial Ground at Find a Grave

v t e Benjamin Franklin
President of Pennsylvania (1785–1788) Ambassador to France (1779–1785) Second Continental Congress (1775–1776)
Founding of theUnited States	JOIN, or DIE. (1754 political cartoon) Albany Plan of Union Albany Congress Hutchinson letters affair Committee of Secret Correspondence Committee of Five "...to be self-evident" Declaration of Independence Model Treaty Franco-American alliance Treaty of Amity and Commerce Treaty of Alliance Staten Island Peace Conference 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution Libertas Americana Treaty of Paris, 1783 Delegate, 1787 Constitutional Convention Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly Postmaster General Founding Fathers
Inventions,other events	Franklin's electrostatic machine Bifocals Franklin stove Glass armonica Flexible urninary catheter Gulf Stream exploration, naming, and chart Lightning rod Kite experiment Pay it forward Associators 111th Infantry Regiment Junto club American Philosophical Society Library Company of Philadelphia Pennsylvania Hospital Academy and College of Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia Contributionship Union Fire Company Early American currency Continental Currency dollar coin Fugio cent United States Postal Service Street lighting President, Pennsylvania Abolition Society Master, Les Neuf Sœurs Gravesite
Writings	The Papers of Benjamin Franklin Founders Online Silence Dogood letters (1722) A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain (1725) The Busy-Body columns (1729) The Pennsylvania Gazette (1729–1790) Early American publishers and printers Poor Richard's Almanack (1732–1758) The Drinker's Dictionary (1737) "Advice to a Friend on Choosing a Mistress" (1745) "The Speech of Polly Baker" (1747) Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc. (1751) Experiments and Observations on Electricity (1751) Birch letters (1755) The Way to Wealth (1758) Pennsylvania Chronicle (1767) Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One (1773) Proposed alliance with the Iroquois (1775) A Letter to a Royal Academy (1781) Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America (1784) "The Morals of Chess" (1786) An Address to the Public (1789) A Plan for Improving the Condition of the Free Blacks (1789) The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1771–1790, pub. 1791) Bagatelles and Satires (pub. 1845) Franklin as a journalist Franklin's phonetic alphabet
Legacy	Bibliography Franklin Court Benjamin Franklin House Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology Benjamin Franklin Parkway Benjamin Franklin National Memorial Franklin Institute awards medal Benjamin Franklin Medal Royal Society of Arts medal Depicted in The Apotheosis of Washington Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence 1767 portrait Treaty of Paris (1783 painting) Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky (1816 painting) Revolutionary War Door Boston statue Chicago statue Columbus, Ohio, statue University of Pennsylvania statue Portland, Oregon, statue San Francisco statue Stanford University statue Washington D.C. statue Jefferson Memorial pediment Refunding Certificate Franklin half dollar One-hundred-dollar bill Franklin silver dollar Washington–Franklin stamps other stamps Cities, counties, schools named for Franklin Benjamin Franklin College Franklin Field Franklin Tree Mount Franklin State of Franklin Sons of Ben (Philadelphia Union) Ships named USS Franklin Ben Franklin effect
In popular culture	Declaration of Independence (1938 film) Ben and Me (1953 short) La Fayette (1961 film) Ben Franklin in Paris (1964 musical play) 1776 (1969 musical 1972 film) Benjamin Franklin (miniseries) (1972) A More Perfect Union (1989 film) Liberty! (1997 documentary series) Liberty's Kids (2002 animated series) Benjamin Franklin (2002 documentary series) John Adams (2008 miniseries) Sons of Liberty (2015 miniseries) Benjamin Franklin (2022 documentary) Franklin (2024 miniseries) The American Revolution (2025 miniseries)
Related	Age of Enlightenment American Enlightenment The New-England Courant The American Museum magazine American Revolution patriots Syng inkstand
Family	Deborah Read (wife) William Franklin (son) Francis Franklin (son) Sarah Franklin Bache (daughter) William Franklin (grandson) Benjamin F. Bache (grandson) Louis F. Bache (grandson) Richard Bache Jr. (grandson) Andrew Harwood (great-grandson) Alexander Bache (great-grandson) Josiah Franklin (father) James Franklin (brother) Jane Mecom (sister) Mary Morrell Folger (grandmother) Peter Folger (grandfather) Richard Bache (son-in-law) Ann Smith Franklin (sister-in-law)
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