Washington Square

There are mass graves under this park, and the monument at its centre is a tomb.

Washington Square was laid out in 1682 as Southeast Square, one of the five original squares William Penn's surveyor Thomas Holme placed on the city grid. It covers 6.4 acres in Center City, Philadelphia, across the Washington Square West and Society Hill neighbourhoods.

By the early 18th century it was being used as a burial ground. Two creeks divided it into triangles: the northwestern portion was the potter's field, and the southeastern section was for the burial of Catholics. Where the creeks joined there was a fishing pond, and neighbours grazed their cows on the grass.

In 1776 it became the resting place of Washington's fallen soldiers. Long mass grave trenches the width of the square were dug first along 7th and Walnut Streets and later extended along the south side. During the British occupation of Philadelphia in 1777 the dead from the neighbouring Walnut Street Jail were buried here too. Many victims of the 1793 yellow fever epidemic followed, and the square went on being used for cattle markets as well.

The National Park Service took over ownership and management in 2005, through an easement from the City of Philadelphia, and it is now part of Independence National Historical Park. The Park Service's own invitation to the square is to visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution, which stands here.

It is one of the pleasantest green spaces in the city and one of the most heavily occupied pieces of ground in it. Both things are true at once, and the second is easy to walk across without noticing.