Raleigh's City Cemetery, established in 1798 just outside the city limits on East Street, was the city's first public burial site and served as the principal burying ground for Raleigh's citizens until the late nineteenth century. After Raleigh was established in 1792 as the state capital, the state General Assembly in 1798 authorized city commissioners to use up to four acres of adjacent state-owned land for a public burying ground. The cemetery was laid out in four squares divided by driveways, with the north two for citizens, the southwest one for strangers, and the southeast one for Negroes and persons of color. Expanded in several stages to 7.46 acres, it was enclosed in 1898 by a decorative cast-iron fence that had formerly surrounded Capitol Square. About 1,800 monuments fill its park-like grounds, generally arranged in family plots with masonry borders, and by the late 1800s the plots were sold out.