A MARKER OF HONOR FOR REVOLUTIONARY WAR SOLDIER BY Linda Wheeler Washington Post Staff Writer The gravestone for Revolutionary War Soldier Joseph Nevitt was nowhere to be found in the old Holy Rood Cemetery in Georgetown when Margaret D. MacKenzie searched for it last year. As state historian of the D.C. Daughters of the American Revolution, it was her job to find it. "My husband and I looked everywhere," she said. "Then we looked behind all these vines and shrubs and saw a piece of it." Surrounded by a carpet of freshly cut stems and trunks, the chipped and earth-stained stone was fully visible yesterday when the DAR held a ceremony to unveil a plaque honoring Nevitt. Such ceremonies used to be common during the first half of the 1900s, when the patriotic organization marked most of the graves of Revolutionary War soldiers across the country. "This is really rare for us to find a grave we haven't marked," MacKenzie said. She found out about Nevitt from amateur historian, Carlton Fletcher, who had been tracing the history of his neighborhood, Glover Park, which at one time included the old cemetery. Fletcher said the name Nevitt showed up repeatedly on property records. Tracing Nevitt's life through the National Archives and other sources, Fletcher found that he had been born in St. Mary's County between 1749 and 1752, fought the British along the Potomac River and moved to Georgetown in 1791. He married Barbara Willet, daughter of a tavern owner, in 1805, at Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown. Fletcher said records after that are scant, but Nevitt sold some of the first houses in Glover Park, according to newspaper ads. He obtained a military pension from the federal government for $70. a year just before he died in 1834. He was buried on the far side of the hilly cemetery at 2126 Wisconsin Ave. NW in the Holy Rood Cemetery, owned by Georgetown University. The DAR verified the research Fletcher did and arranged for the plaque and ceremony. Yesterday, a basket of red, white and blue flowers arranged around a small American flag was placed next to the new bronze marker as were several bouquets of garden flowers brought by Glover Park residents. An eight-generation descendant of Nevitt, Donna Burrows Rose, was there also. She had been contacted by Fletcher during his research and he invited her to join them. "I always knew about Nevitt because his name was in the family Bible, but I was not aware of his military record." Rose said. "He was an ordinary person, just like most of us, who did something extraordinary." Nevitt's marker tilts toward the front and is missing a chunk of stone on the left side. That makes his stone one of the better ones in the cemetery where dozens of stones have toppled and been left as they fell. MacKenzie paused at the DAR plaque before leaving. "We do this to honor these soldiers," she said. "Now when someone walks by here, they will say, "My word. There's the grave of a real Revolutionary War soldier." Hope everyone enjoys this story. June