| Show lost 0 0 I 1 Y e pr A r ile rhe Cong ese ional burying ground by SCOTT WATSON OST lost BOO Cong congressmen I 1 such Is the wording ot of a headline or a want rid dol which might have appeared in the newspapers throughout the country recently thereby providing newspaper parag raphers with ample material tor for one of their wa beloved jests at the expense of our representatives in the national legislature although such buch a statement has nothing to do with the men and women who are now in session at washington it Is true nevertheless ask anson wold I 1 anson wold Is the roan man who lias has just seen his great work biographical directory of the american con gress 1927 go to press mr wold who was brou brought glit to washing ton from minnesota 29 years ago by senator knute nelson was for many years a clerk in the census bureau four years ago the congressional joint committee on printing headed by senator moses of new hampshire authorized zed the publication of a new congressional gress lonal directory and mr wold weld secretary of the committee was assigned to the task for the last four years he and his assistant F r L fridley have been at work on the gigantic task of compiling the biographies of men and women who have served in the two houses of our national leg Islat Isla lve tive body now their work Is done find and within a few weeks libraries throughout the country will receive copies of the work which libraries say Is one of the most used volumes in their collections but despite the fact that mr wold and mr fridley have sent out something like letters communicated with persons in nearly every part of the world and tolled toiled unceasingly to make the directory complete in every detail there are la in it blo biographical graph blanks that they still are trying to fill the roster of those who served in congress of course Is complete but the blanks have to do with birthdays burial places professions and politics take for instance the case of william wilson lie he Is listed in the directory thus and his Is the shortest biography in the book wilson wit wil liam ilam a representative from pennsylvania was elected to the fourteenth and fifteenth congresses march 4 1815 march 3 1819 or this one woodruff thomas al a representative from new york elected as a democrat to the twenty ninth congress march 4 1845 1945 march 3 1847 1947 engaged in tile the furniture business in new kew york city where he be died about 1854 2854 or 1853 here are some ome other tn unsolved solved mysteries alexander wilson was a representative from virginia to in the ninth and tenth congresses but neither the date of his birth or the date of his death Is known for that matter it Is not even known where he lived la in virginia asariah boody a representative from new york died as recently as 1885 and yet his burial place la is unknown alfred moore gatlin of north carolina served in the eighteenth congress then he be moved to florida which was then a wilderness and no further trace of him has ever been found As an illustration of the difficulties difficult les which the two congressional biographers have experienced take this case for two years they searched tor for a granddaughter of francis scott key who alio wrote the star spangled banner hoping that she might be related to or know something about two other keyes who were maryland representatives senta tives in congress they found her eventually but learned that she knew nothing about either of the two men then there is the case of a distinguished marylander Maryland cr john hanson who was president of the continental congress in 1781 sa 82 and who Is often referred toas the first president of the united states since he served as president under the articles of confederation the directory says that banson Is buried at lill hill in prince georges county maryland but mr wold admits that this may tie be only tradition since Uan jansons II ansons sons grave has never been found maryland historians have tried to solve the mystery without success and a boy bok scout organization has dedicated itself to make a search and help locate the grave not only has the progress on the directory been hampered by tile the absence of reliable information but by rec receiving ehing information which turned out to tie be misinformation frequently this was supplied to them by well meaning relatives or descendants who had no more authentic data than that offered by fatally family tradition which la Is notoriously unreliable curl curiously outly enough some relatives or descendants danto refused to supply any information tit al all declaring that the congressional relative or ancestor had dishonored the family name one such case concerned a representative who had with ih drawn from congress when his state seceded from the union at the opening of the civil war other difficulties are explained in the foreword to the biography by mr wold prior to ISM apparently no effort was made to publish a directory of congress the earliest known directory Is entitled places of abode of the members of both houses of congress first session of the eleventh congress tills this was a pamphlet pamp lilet of 15 pages published by R 0 weightman in 1809 and contains the names and locations of boarding houses arranged alphabetically which are followed toy by names of senators and representatives residing therein directories containing added congressional information compiled and printed under contract by private firms the foreword continues ap feared from time to time though still printed by contract the congressional directory for the first session of the thirtieth congress issued in 1848 by J G S gideon assumed an all official air by bearing the title page words compiled lind and published tor for the use of congress by the postmaster of the house of representatives slin sim liar ilar information was carried on titles up to and including the first session of the thirty eighth congress at the beginning of the second session of the thirty eighth congress a joint resolution approved february 14 1865 was unanimously adopted providing for the compilation and cation of the first congressional di rectory under the supervision of the joint committee on public printing the committee held numerous sessions obtained and examined like publications licati ons issued in foreign countries and finally decided upon a work slon sim liar hiir in essentials to the biou se of commons published in london since 1832 biographical sketches of senators and representatives appeared to in in the first edition of the congressional directory for or tile the second session of the fortieth cong congress gress in the compilers note it is called a proof edition and has approximately bl ogra phles of senators representatives and territorial delegates it it is referred to as being incomplete and in IM was replaced by a second edition which contained a few more sketches the directory for the tha third session printed in 1869 contains approximately biographies the work of preparing and publishing lishin a blo biographical graphical directory to include tilt all the preceding congresses was first undertaken by charles lanman in 1859 it bears the imposing title directory of the united states congress there have been at least six subsequent editions which were intended to gie gi e up to date and authentic biographical data since mr air lan list last volume however the succeeding compilers appear to have done little more than to add such information as could be obtained from the congressional directories published during each session of congress it seems that no effort to correct revise or perfect tile the work of former compilers was ever attempted and thus original errors were perpetuated filling in some of the blanks la in the lie new directory would have been easy though for the compilers if ell all of the dead congressman had been buried in the congressional cemetery established for that purpose in the tha early days of the republic that cemetery is one of the most interesting find and historical spots in the city of washington today in 1807 christ episcopal church in washington ton first established this burying ground and a few years later it was chosen as a place of burial for senators and depre se natives who died while in office since that time government officials have been buried there and mon men have been erected over a hundred of those graves in addition 8 85 zi cenotaphs have been placed la in honor of members of congress congress who have beet buried in other cemeteries up to 1835 1833 practically every men her of congress who died in office was burl burled e d there means of transportation were so limited that few families were able to convey the bodies ot 01 their dead from the capital rut but a transportation facilities grew grev better this ibis practice finally ceased by or an act of may 23 1876 congress hed the custom of erect erecting lag cenotaph i and provided that thereafter monuments monument should be authorized only when the deceased congressman was actually buried in the cemetery the first congressman to be burled was darby of new jersey who died january 28 1808 george olin clin tot ton vice president of the united states wits was first burled buried there and years elapsed before his body was tak en to his old home in new york but other notables still sleep there one of them Is 13 tobias lear the faithful private secretary to george washing ton ion near by are the graves of push mataua ma ta ua ha the noted choctaw chief scarlet crow another famous too liar warrior william wirt an all at attorney torne general genera of tile united states and abel V P upshur a former secretary of state stale and secretary of tile the navy one bonu has a particular romantic interest beneath it side by side ride in a single grave rest the bodies of capt beverly bennon and ahel abel parker upshur ale victims of an explosion of a gun aboard the american frigate princeton to lc 1844 1944 both were natives of virginia and the two men formed ferried a friendship in early youth that bat lasted until the grave |
