This eighteenth-century church and burial ground are located in the Society Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia. The Third Presbyterian Church was organized in 1761 and, three years later, Thomas and Richard Penn donated rural land for the building of a church, with burials commencing that same year. The church, designed by Robert Smith, was completed in 1768 and remodeled almost a century later. During the Revolutionary War, British troops occupied the church, using it as a hospital and horse stable. The burial ground envelops the church on three sides: The western section was the first to be used; two rows of graves were added to the east side in 1768, and interments began south of the church in 1782. Dug to a depth of nine feet, each grave accommodated as many as four burials. More than 3,000 interments took place during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. With municipal health ordinances in the 1830s and the founding of rural cemeteries outside the city, burials at Old Pine Street Church largely ceased. By 1900, the neighborhood was in decline and the congregation dwindled. In 1951, the Friends of Old Pine was formed and the church restored in ensuing decades. In 1983, the congregation created a Memorial Garden for cremated remains, accessed by a curved brick walkway in the southeastern corner.
Today, the churchyard is enclosed by an iron fence atop a granite base, with axial brick paths connecting the sections of the cemetery. Numerous mature sycamores and flowering ornamental trees are found throughout, while planting beds line the entrances. The church is a contributing property of the Society Hill Historic District, which was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
