History of Higgins
Cemetery
The Higgins Cemetery, located near the
intersection of the Rockville Pike and Twinbrook Parkway, survives
today as a reminder of how day to day life in America has changed. When
James Higgins settled on his farm in the 18th century, there were few
towns nearby and Washington D.C. did not exist. Travel would have been
a slow process by horseback, carriage, or more likely, foot. The
ability of the medical profession to accommodate the ill and infirmed
under these circumstances was at best spotty. Most people died at home
without the benefit of professional medicine or treatment. This
resulted in a high mortality rate among all age groups but especially
the old and the young. To accommodate the dead when mortuarial services
were nonexistent, the family was forced to deal with death themselves
in the privacy of the home. Bodies would be washed and prepared and
burial would take place within a day or two of the death depending on
the season of the year. It was not uncommon in the 18 th century for
burials to be wrapped only in a shroud without a coffin. Many of these
burials were marked with only a rock or a rudimentary wooden cross
which has rendered their exact locations very ephemeral. Although life
in the 19th century saw improvements on many fronts, the process
of handling death remained mainly within the family.
The Higgins Cemetery remained in the unchanged environment of the
estate until late in the 19th century. A plat dated 1891 entitled
Spring Lake Park, shows the plantation being subdivided into small
residential lots with the cemetery and the house site remaining on
larger albeit separate lots. This plat also showed a park and a
railroad station as part of the subdivision although neither is thought
to have ever been built. An aerial photograph of the site from the late
1930s show the roads of this plat have been installed and a number of
the lots have residential improvements on them. Both the main house and
the cemetery are visible in this photograph. The cemetery lot appears
much as the July 15, 1927 plat shows it.
Today, the main house has been demolished as have most of the small
frame bungalows. In their place are a number of one story,
predominantly concrete block buildings. Warehouse and storage uses seem
to predominate. While the larger lot on which the cemetery set in the
1891 plat has been subdivided, the Higgins cemetery sits within a
clearly definable lot of approximately one third of an acre. It is
surrounded on three sides by one story, concrete block building with
flat roofs. All of the walls overlooking the lot are blank. There is
approximately 120 feet of road frontage along Arundel Avenue, a public
street with a 50 foot wide right of way. Public sewer and water
services located within the public right of way services the buildings
on either side of the cemetery. A 10 foot wide alley along the back of
the buildings also provides access to the site.