Female Stranger

The Grave of the Female Stranger is a famous historical oddity, local landmark and visitor's attraction in the cemetery of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Virginia, United States.

The grave is the resting place of an unnamed individual who died in 1816 and was elevated to national intrigue by the mysterious headstone and romanticized tale.

Accounts of the Female Stranger increased in oddity over time and helped to incite further speculation as to the identity of the person buried in the grave.

The reported location of the woman's death, Room 8 at Gadsby's Tavern, is also a visitor's attraction, and her ghostly visage can supposedly be seen standing at the window.

In addition to various articles and reports, there have also been novels including Narrative of John Trust (1883) by William Francis Carne, author of George Washington's Boyhood.

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

[1] The earliest appeal to the national audience was in 1836 when columnist "Lucy Seymour", a pen name for Dallam Morgan, recorded the account in The Philadelphia Saturday Courier.

In September 1886, the Hyde Park Herald published Frank George Carpenter's piece about Alexandria, including a section about the Stranger.

This telling includes a doctor sworn to secrecy, two French maids and a reclusive English husband who would not allow anyone to see his wife's face or attend her funeral.

The author touched on how Alexandria was a wealthy trading port at the time, and it would not have been odd for foreign diplomats to land there, giving a plausible reason for Theodosia to visit the city.

[5] By 1887, Col. Fred D Massey of Alexandria wrote to the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette (which was later published nationally) that while the legend was well spread, it only helped to further tangle the story and add to the confusion.

In May 1898, the Washington Evening Star reported that two elderly people visited the grave and told the church superintendent that the Stranger was a "connection" of theirs, an English noblewoman who ran away with a British officer for love.

It tells of the brig Four Sons en route from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the West Indies, diverting her course for the Potomac River and letting off a small lifeboat carrying a man and a woman.

Another theory suggests that the woman was Sarah Curran, fiancée of Irish Revolutionist Robert Emmet, who may have been forced to marry a British naval officer.