The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution honors an unidentified soldier of the American Revolutionary War, whose remains were unearthed in 1826 in Alexandria, Virginia. The memorial is in the churchyard Burial Ground of the Old Presbyterian Meeting House, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church that dates from 1772. The Meeting House is located at 323 South Fairfax Street, in Alexandria's Old Town National Historic Landmark District. Creation of the memorial In 1826, during construction of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, which is located immediately next to the churchyard of the Old Presbyterian Meeting House, the body of an unidentified man, clothed in a Revolutionary War uniform, was unearthed. The body was then reinterred within the current bounds of the Meeting House Burial Ground. The memory that the remains of an unidentified soldier had been reburied at this site was carried into the twentieth century by Mary Gregory Powell (1847–1928), a member of the Meeting House congregation and long-time historian of the Mount Vernon chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her father, William Gregory (1789–1875), had come to Alexandria from Scotland in 1807 and had served the Presbyterian Meeting House congregation for many years as an Elder and member of the Church Committee. Mary Gregory had placed flowers on the unmarked grave of the unidentified soldier as a child. Several events during the 1920s influenced the creation of this memorial to an Unknown of the American Revolution. One was the memorialization of soldiers who had died in World War I and remained unidentified. On the second anniversary of the signing of the treaty that ended World War I, Armistice Day 1920, memorials to unknown soldiers were dedicated in Great Britain and France. The United States dedicated its memorial to an unknown soldier of that war at Arlington National Cemetery on November 11, 1921. The sarcophagus-style monument that now sits atop the burial vault of the Tomb of the Unknowns was added in 1932. The 1920s also witnessed a surge of interest in honoring and preserving the nation's colonial heritage. Alexandria's earliest Colonial revival preservation effort was the restoration of the Presbyterian Meeting House, which began in 1925. As that project drew to its completion, Mary Gregory Powell contacted John B. Gordon, chair of the Meeting House restoration committee, about honoring the Unknown Soldier. The decision was made to formally mark the gravesite. Leadership in that