Grave of Dr. Benjamin Rush

Buried here in this hallowed ground of Christ Church is Benjamin Rush (b. 1745), a signer of the Declaration of Independence, physician, abolitionist, education reformer, mental health advocate, and a founder of the Philadelphia Bible Society, America’s first. Rush heroically led and coordinated efforts to treat and contain the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793. Exposed to the contagion, he contracted the disease, and yet lived to fight on. Twenty years later he ironically died of typhus fever at age 68.