Welcome to Rock Creek Cemetery. As with all cemetery caches please be respectful. This is one in a series of caches designed to highlight notable gravesites in the region.
N 38 AB.CDE W 77 0.FGH
The posted coordinates will bring you to the grave of Harlan Fiske Stone. Born in New Hampshire in 1872, Stone became a prominent lawyer and dean of Columbia Law School. He was appointed Attorney General in 1924 by his former college classmate President Calvin Coolidge. While serving in that post, Stone oversaw several important antitrust investigations. He also appointed J. Edgar Hoover to lead the Department of Justice's Bureau of Investigation, which would later become the FBI. In 1925 Coolidge nominated Stone to the Supreme Court, where he would be considered one of its more liberal members. Due in part for his support for the New Deal, in 1941 President Franklin Roosevelt nominated Stone to the position of Chief Justice. In this position Stone would side with Roosevelt in Ex parte Quirin (a case involving the trial of Nazi sabatours in the United States) and in Korematsu v. United States (involving the legality of internement camps for Japanese Americans). Stone's positions in these cases (especially in Korematsu) have come under criticism for giving the governement too much power in wartime and for allowing racial discrimination. Chief Justice Stone died in 1946, after serving as Chief Justice for just under five years.
A = The last digit of the third year on Stone's grave
The next stage will bring you to the grave of Stephen Johnson Field. Born into a prominent Connecticut family in 1816, Field became a lawyer and moved to California during the Gold Rush. After serving in the California State Assembly and as both an Associate Justice and Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, Field was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. During his time on the high court, Field wrote over 500 opinions (more than only one other justice). While proclaiming that all children born in the U.S. should be U.S. citizens in an 1884 ruling, Field was also a proponent of excluding Chinese immigrants from the U.S., a position widely regarded as racist. Field would serve on the court for an unprecedented (for the time) thirty-four years, retiring in 1897. He died two years later in 1899 at the age eighty-two.
B = The digit of Stephen Johnson Field's day of birth plus three
The following stage will take you to the grave of Gore Vidal. Born in 1925 into an important political family, Vidal wrote his first novel at the age of 19. Known for his novels as well as his essays, Vidal was openly bisexual in a time when same-sex relationships were viewed as unatural by most of the population. Vidal also wrote several screenplays, including an uncredited rewrite of the script for the 1959 classic Ben-Hur. Some of his most famous works include The City and the Pillar (a controversial novel at the time as it featured a sympathetic gay protagonist), Julian (a piece of historical fiction about the last pagan Roman Emperor), and Myra Breckinridge (a satire on sexuality and gender norms). Gore Vidal was also known for his public feuds with other prominent writers such as Truman Capote and Norman Mailer. He died at the age of 86 in 2012.
Next to Gore Vidal and his partner Howard Austen is Lieutenant Gilloegly.
C = The last digit of Lieutenant Gilloegly's birth year
The next stage is at the grave of William H. French. A West Point graduate orignally from Baltimore, French served as an officer in the Mexican-American War. In 1861 shortly after the start of the Civil War, he was promoted to brigadier general in the Union Army and received command of a brigade. French would lead this brigade throughout the Peninsula Campaign where he distinguished himself despite the ultimate Union failure. This led to command of a division which French would lead at Antietem, making an unsuccessful attack on the Sunken Road. In spite of this, French was promoted to Major General in late 1862. After fighting at the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, French would distinguish himself again at Gettysburg, where he took command of the III Corps after its commander was seriously wounded. However his career would come to a halt in late 1863 when he was accused by his commanding general (Gen. Meade) of moving too slowly and thus limiting the effectiveness of a Union offensive. French would remain in the Army until his retirement in 1880 and died the following year.
Next to Gen. French is the grave of Charles H. Baldwin.
DE = The last 2 digits of Charles H. Baldwin's death year plus 17
The next stage will take you to the grave of Upton Sinclair. Born in Baltimore in 1878, Sinclair became famous for his novel The Jungle. Published in 1906, this book was an expose of the meat-packing industry and the horrible conditions therein. Sinclair spent over a month working undercover in a Chicago meat-packing plant to gather reseach for The Jungle. Sinclair would go on to write almost 100 books such as King Coal, Oil!, and The Brass Check. Sinclair was also known as a prominent socialist, even founding a short lived "utopian" community in New Jersey that was only open to whites "of good moral character" (non-Jewish). He was also interested in telepathy and the occult, with his own experiences experimenting with such matters described in his book Mental Radio. In 1934, Sinclair was the Democratic nominee for governor of California where he lost to the incumbant while still gaining over 800,000 votes (a significant improvement over Democratic candidates in prior elections). Sinclair died at the age of 90 in 1968.
Near the graves of Upton Sinclair and his third wife Mary is the grave of Dorothy H. Gill.
FG = The last 2 digits of Dorothy H. Gill's year of death minus 30.
The next stage is at the grave of Willis Van Devanter. Born in Indiana in 1859, Van Devanter became a lawyer and moved to Wyoming. There he would serve as chief judge on the territorial court. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Van Dervanter as a federal appeals court judge. After serving in this capacity for seven years, in 1910 Van Dervanter was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Taft. On the high court, he was known for his defense of limited government and opposition to FDR's New Deal policies. Van Dervanter also wrote many opinions in cases regarding Native Americans, most notably declaring that they were "intellectually and morally inferior" in 1913. Suffering from writer's block, Van Dervanter wrote few opinions when compared with his colleagues. He retired from the Supreme Court in 1937 and died four years later in 1941.
Near the grave of Willis Van Devanter is the grave of Lena J. Miller.
H = The third digit in the year of Lena J. Miller's birth
The final is a short drive away. Parking could be difficult, but the cache itself should be an easy find.