St. Mary's Church and Fitzgerald Graves

The small churchyard of St. Mary's Catholic Church is one of the more quietly moving literary sites on the East Coast. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda are buried here beneath a simple flat gravestone, and visitors regularly leave pennies, flowers, and copies of their books as tributes.

The church itself dates to 1817, making it one of the oldest Catholic churches in Maryland. The surrounding historic district — officially the Third Addition to Rockville and Old St. Mary's Church and Cemetery — is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is a short walk from the Metro and the historic town centre, and the whole stop takes no more than half an hour unless you want to linger.

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A story
F. Scott Fitzgerald was originally buried in Rockville's Union Cemetery after dying in Hollywood in 1940 — the Catholic Church initially refused him burial in consecrated ground, considering him a lapsed Catholic. He was reinterred at St. Mary's in 1975 alongside Zelda, who died in a fire in 1948. The shared headstone is inscribed with the final line of The Great Gatsby: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."