Welcome To Washington Memorial Chapel Cemetery Tour
The Churchyard (Cemetery)
25 Acres
Designed in 1911 by landscape architect Thomas Sears
Open to all
We are bordered by the Valley Forge National Historic Park
Some of our residents
General Muhlenberg section
Thomas Sears: Landscape Architect; designed the Washington Memorial Chapel churchyard in 1910. From Massachusetts. Graduated from Harvard in 1903. Graduate in 1906 of Harvard’s first Landscape Architecture School (Lawrence Scientific School). Studied photography, worked for Olmstead Brothers in Brookline Mass and RI. Est. firm in Philadelphia (Sears and Wendell). Designed Mt. Cuba center in Delaware, the Reynolda Gardens in Winston-Salem NC (estate of R.J. Reynolds), formal gardens at Appleford in Villanova and in St. Davids and redesigned Philadelhia’s Washington Square in 1952. Scott Amphitheater, Swarthmore College. Listed on National Register of Historic Places.
Location: Heading back east (toward the Chapel) on the middle churchyard drive, about 50 yards east of the Burk cross is a plain rock boulder sometimes marked with an American flag next to Schuylkill (downhill) side of the drive is the Sears gravesite. The name “SEARS” is on the downhill side.
William “Buck” Taylor: The FIRST “King of the Cowboys” from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Orphaned during Civil War (father in the Texas cavalry.) 6’4” tall. Played Custer in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. Drove cattle north from Texas. Cody cast him as “King of the Cowboys” and the name stuck. Performed before Queen Victoria in 1887 during European tour. Subject of many
“dime novels” of the time by Prentiss Ingraham.
Location: Middle churchyard drive, on the same side and about 50 feet east of the Sears rock and about 70 feet downhill from Oswald/Voorhees graves is the Buck Taylor grave, marked with a bronze portrait of him.