National Cemetery Administration

Visitation Hours: Open daily from sunrise to sunset.

Office Hours: Monday thru Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Closed federal holidays except Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

This cemetery has space available to accommodate casketed and cremated remains.

Burial in a national cemetery is open to all members of the armed forces who have met a minimum active duty service requirement and were discharged under conditions other than dishonorable.

A Veteran's spouse, widow or widower, minor dependent children, and under certain conditions, unmarried adult children with disabilities may also be eligible for burial. Eligible spouses and children may be buried even if they predecease the Veteran.

Members of the reserve components of the armed forces who die while on active duty or who die while on training duty, or were eligible for retired pay, may also be eligible for burial.

» Eligibility for Burial in a VA National Cemetery

Fax all discharge documentation to the National Cemetery Scheduling Office at 1-866-900-6417 and follow-up with a phone call to 1-800-535-1117.

For information on scheduled burials in our national cemeteries, please go to the Daily Burial Schedule.

The 205-acre national cemetery in southeastern Pennsylvania will serve veterans' needs for the next 50 years. The cemetery is located in Bucks County, north of the city of Philadelphia, about three miles northwest of Interstate 95, and less than three miles from Washington Crossing Historic Park.

In January 2008, VA awarded a design contract to Cairone & Kaupp, Inc. of Philadelphia. Completing a 12-acre early burial area with temporary facilities (Phase 1A) followed by the second construction stage of the project (Phase 1B). The 64-acre Phase 1 development provides 15,500 full casket gravesites, including 15,100 pre-placed crypts, and 6,500 in-ground cremation sites and 4,100 columbarium niches. The cemetery also includes an administration and public information center complex and public restrooms, a maintenance facility, a cemetery entrance area, a flag assembly area, and committal shelters for funeral services. Other infrastructure design elements include roadways, landscaping, utilities, and irrigation.

For educational materials and additional information on this cemetery, please visit the Education section, located below.

You can place fresh cut flowers on your loved one's grave throughout the year.

Floral items will be removed from graves when they become faded or unsightly. They may also be removed to allow mowing. Government supplied plastic flower containers are available for your use and located within the cemetery.

You can place artificial flowers on graves from November 1st through April 1st. Artificial flowers are also allowed five days prior to Memorial Day. They will be removed five days after the holiday.

From December 1st through January 10th, holiday wreaths less than 18 inches in diameter and no higher than the headstone and grave blankets that are less than 2 feet by 3 feet may be placed on graves. Holiday wreaths and grave blankets will be removed after January 20.

To preserve the dignity and appearance of your loved one's final resting place, the following items aren't allowed at headstones or columbariums:

• Alcoholic products
• Balloons, candles, or vigil lights
• Decorative and breakable glass, plastic items, or objects
• Non-government supplied floral containers (pots, planters, glass vase, etc.)
• Objects such as rocks or other durable items, beads or wires that when mowing or performing maintenance could become projectiles or become entangled in equipment that may cause injury
• Offensive items or those deemed contrary to honoring Veterans
• Permanent in-ground plantings
• Pinwheels or windchimes
• Statues or stuffed animals
• Weapons of any kind, explosives, or ammunition

Please note:

• Floral items or decorations may not be secured to headstones.
• In-ground floral containers may not be placed in new cemeteries or new sections of national cemeteries.

In 1681, King Charles II of England granted a sizable piece of his land holdings in America to William Penn to satisfy a debt owed to the Penn family. The next year, Penn established the three original counties in the Pennsylvania Colony, including Bucks County. Immigrants, primarily from the British Isles and Germany, arrived and settled on small farms, producing potash, wheat, salted pork and other products.

During the Revolutionary War, in the summer and fall of 1776, General George Washington's Continental Army suffered a series of losses in New York and New Jersey. By December, the British offensive forced General Washington and his troops to withdraw into Pennsylvania and decamp in Bucks County. The general was in desperate need of a military victory to resuscitate the morale of his army and the American public.

General Washington suspected that the British were complacent after their successes, and sought an offensive maneuver that might catch them off guard. On the night of December 25–26, 1776, Washington led his troops across the Delaware River in the first movement of a surprise attack against Hessian forces in British service. The Continental Army won the subsequent Battle of Trenton and provided the Americans with a much-needed victory.

The Delaware River crossing was more than a strategic triumph. It grew to symbolize both Washington's heroism and the resiliency of the burgeoning republic at one of the darkest hours of the revolution. German artist Emmanuel Leutze depicted this momentous event in his 1849 painting Washington Crossing the Delaware, to inspire supporters of democracy and greater political representation in Germany in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Revolutions of 1848. The idealized and historically inaccurate scene has become an iconic depiction of the crossing; copies hang in the White House and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Today, both sides of the Delaware River are preserved as part of the Washington Crossing National Historic Landmark district, composed of Washington Crossing Historic Park on the Pennsylvania side, and Washington Crossing State Park in New Jersey.

The character of Bucks County continued to be primarily agricultural throughout the 19th century and into the next, with pockets of industrial activity near the Delaware River. Suburbanization accelerated after World War II as the economy expanded, automobile ownership increased, and the extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike stimulated local housing construction. Levittown, an early subdivision developed by the pioneering suburban developer Levitt & Sons, is located in the southern part of Bucks County. In 1951, U.S. Steel opened a mill in Bucks County, which sparked even more growth.

Today, Bucks County is suburban in areas nearest to the Delaware River. The northern region is more pastoral, and is popular with tourists in search of natural scenery, historic covered bridges, and the location of General Washington's crossing.

Washington Crossing National Cemetery is located approximately three miles southwest from the location where General Washington crossed the Delaware River. The cemetery is located on land that William Penn deeded to Euro-American settlers in 1698, and was used as farmland for centuries. In 2008, the Department of Veterans Affairs purchased the property from Dolington Land, L.P., a subsidiary of the homebuilding company Toll Brothers. The cemetery was formally dedicated in 2009 and opened for burials the following year. Washington Crossing National Cemetery is the fourth national cemetery established in Pennsylvania and the 131st in the national cemetery system.