Alexandria, Virginia is full of history, making it a wonderful place for a history buff to wander about. My early morning walk took me to the Alexandria National Cemetery and the neighboring St. Paul’s Cemetery. Honoring the Union dead was a given, but the lure of my trip was the tragic tale of a young woman visiting the region who died in 1816 shortly after her arrival. The story goes that she and her husband gathered the doctors and nurses before she passed away to have them swear never to reveal her name. They honored her wish and went to their own graves having never told her name. Her husband spent a small fortune on an elaborate tabletop gravestone and then skipped town before the bill was paid. The mystery of the Female Stranger lingers to this day. It’s said that her ghost still haunts the Gadsby’s Tavern, where she apparently died.
Atop the gravestone is engraved the following:
To the memory of a
FEMALE STRANGER
whose mortal sufferings terminated
on the 14th day of October 1816
Aged 23 years and 8 months
This stone is placed here by her disconsolate
Husband in whose arms she sighed out her
latest breath, and who under God
did his utmost even to soothe the cold
dead ear of death
How loved how valued once avails thee not
To whom related or by whom begot
A heap of dust alone remains of thee
Tis all thou art and all the proud shall be
To him gave all the Prophets witness that
through his name whosoever believeth in
him shall receive remission of sins
Acts. 10th Chap. 43rd verse.
The unique gravestone is easy to spot, and yet I always seemed to be looking in the other direction as I walked through the St. Paul’s Cemetery. The Female Stranger is not the only soul interred at the cemetery, and I spent some time reviewing the lives of her neighbors on my walk before finally circling back to give my respects to this young lady who’s spirit still haunts the region more than two centuries later. The tokens and coins left behind by other visitors indicate she is more famous in her anonymous death than she ever might have been had her name simply been revealed.
