U.S. President John Quincy Adams and Maine Gov. John Fairfield have something in common. Adams, who died in 1848, and Fairfield, who died in 1847, both have gravestones in a cemetery at 1801 E St., Southeast, in Washington, D.C. But neither is buried there.

Adams, like his father, President John Adams, actually is buried at First Parish Church in Quincy, Mass. Fairfield’s remains were interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Saco. Each earned his special gravestone in Washington, D.C., a pedestal monument with a cube and dome on top, having died in office as a member of Congress.

John Quincy Adams served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 17 years after his 1825-1829 term as president. Fairfield was a member of the U.S. House 1835-1838, Maine’s governor 1839-1843 and a member of the U.S. Senate 1843-1847.

The cemetery — as opposed to a “graveyard,” the term for a burial place next to a church — is actually called the Congressional Cemetery, according to a recent special I watched on C-SPAN 3. It originally was known as the Washington Parish Burial Ground.

More than 50,000 people are buried in the 35-acre Congressional Cemetery, but only 170 others have the special sandstone monument that is identical to Adams’ marker. The first congressman buried there, and honored with the large gravestone, was Sen. Uriah Tracy of Connecticut, who died in office in 1807.

Back then, transporting a body home would have been prohibitively expensive. Just as important was that embalming wasn’t yet a common practice. So it is that 55 of the 171 congressional monuments, erected 1807-1877, actually have bodies buried beneath them.

The other 116, including the monuments for Adams and Fairfield, are “cenotaphs,” gravestones which honor someone who is buried elsewhere, or a person whose remains could not be located.

The cemetery stopped authorizing the special gravestones in the 1870s, when the deceased was more likely to be sent home for burial. In addition, many legislators thought the bulky markers were unattractive.

In the last 125 years, only one of these special stones has been authorized, and this one also is a cenotaph, a marker with no remains under it. In 1981, one congressional gravestone was authorized and erected as a joint honor to the memories of U.S. Rep. Hale Boggs of Louisiana and U.S. Rep. Nicholas Begich of Alaska, who were killed in a 1972 plane crash in Alaska.

Interestingly, the TV program on the cemetery featured its program director, Rebecca Roberts, who is Boggs’ granddaughter and remembers visiting his monument as a child.

The Congressional Cemetery, which still does burials of some people from the area, also was used as a park for many years, and continues to be used as such. Dogs are allowed on the premises. In fact, when the cemetery had fallen into disrepair, it was dog walkers who spurred its renewal by voluntarily paying a fee for the privilege of walking their dogs there off-leash.

The thousands of people buried include 22 Irish immigrant women killed in an explosion at the Civil War arsenal where they worked in the city in 1864. The women died when shells that had been left out in the sun to dry exploded.

Others interred include Civil War photographer Mathew Brady; Robert Mossbacher, a commissioner in the Reagan administration; William Thornton, who convinced the British not to burn the U.S. Patent Office in 1814; newspaper publisher Anne Royal; and Belva Lockwood, the 19th century civil rights lawyer who wrote the legislation to allow women lawyers to argue cases before the Supreme Court. She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and also ran for president in 1884, though women couldn’t vote until 1920.

Also buried here are Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; and Stephen Pleasanton, who saved both documents from the British in 1814 by taking them first to Georgetown, then to Leesburg, Va.

The 9/11 Memorial for the sixth district of Washington is located in the Congressional Cemetery, as well, after being located briefly at the Pentagon.

One of the most-visited gravestones in the cemetery is that of John Phillip Sousa, composer of famous songs such as “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Among the frequent visitors are high school bands, for whom Sousa marches have long been a staple. Sometimes they contact the cemetery office to let officials know they plan to come, but just as often the young musicians arrive unannounced, step off their buses and form up before “playing for” Sousa, then leave for their next stop while visiting the nation’s capital.

The Congressional Cemetery has a nice website at http://www.congressionalcemetery.org. You can search names on the site or browse the alphabetical index.

The cemetery on E Street borders 17th Street in the Southeast section of the city. Four of my trips to Washington have been for Continental Congress of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution at 1776 D St., Northwest, a three-building complex bordered by 17th and 18th streets. My only other trip was to the World War II Memorial, which also is on 17th Street, between Constitution and Independence avenues.

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The Wassebec Chapter of the Maine Genealogical Society will meet at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 12, in the conference room at Mayo Regional Hospital Conference on Main Street in Dover-Foxcroft.

Walter Macdougall will give a program about Brownville native Alice Zwicker, a nurse in World War II who was among those held captive by the Japanese for three years at Santo Tomas College, Manila, Philippines.

Her release in 1945 when the mostly civilian POW camp was liberated was big news in Maine. My grandmother was one of those who clipped the newspaper article to save in her scrapbook.

Among those in the camp with Zwicker, I might mention, was Sam Hamilton, now of Orono. His father was a businessman in Manila, and Sam spent three years with his parents and two brothers as captives in Santo Tomas.

All are welcome to attend the Wassebec meeting. For more information, call Estella Bennett at 876-3073.

For more information on researching family history in Maine, see Genealogy Resources under Family Ties at http://bangordailynews.com/browse/family-ties/. Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402 or email familyti@bangordailynews.com.