Sam Wollaston set aside 10 acres of his farm in 1843 to begin Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery. Founded in 1843, it began when Sam Wollaston set aside 10 acres of his farm outside the city to create one of Delaware's first non-sectarian burial grounds. The venture grew quickly: the next year Wollaston formed a company to expand and landscape the site with Willard Hall serving as president, and engineer George Read Riddle was hired to design the grounds.
Walk toward the entrance and you’ll notice the cedar of Lebanon James Canby planted in 1850 marking the way. Today the cemetery holds over 21,000 burials across about 25 acres, and one quiet corner — Soldier's Graveplot — contains the remains of 121 U.S. Civil War soldiers who died of wounds or war-related illnesses at the old Delaware Hospital. Pause by the chapel, designed by Elijah Dallett Jr. and built in 1913 of Foxcroft stone with window sills of Indiana limestone, and imagine the hands that shaped it.
In 1917 the grounds received remains once interred at the 18th-century First Presbyterian Church in Rodney Square. Picture the stones, the trees, and the chapel, with that cedar marking the entrance.