Designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the monuments were originally used to mark the burial sites of Congressmen who died in office (and a number of then stand on the hill to the right of these pictures). As transportation improved it became the custom to remove the remains to the congressman's home state, but a cenotaph was placed in Congressional Cemetery in his memory. The practice ceased in 1876 when Senator Hoar defeated a bill to appropriate funds for additional monuments with the statement:

It is certainly adding new terrors to death to propose that in any contingency, whatever may be the poverty or degradation of any Member of Congress, his body should be put under a structure similar to the cenotaphs now there, which are only excusable on the ground that nobody is buried under them. I cannot conceive of an uglier shape to be made out of granite or marble than those cenotaphs now there.

Several photos indicate that the cenotaphs were periodically white-washed to enhance their appearance.