The Cemetery

Did you know that First Church has a cemetery? Its history begins with the burial grounds in the church yard around our first building.

In an effort to raise funds for a new building, church trustees voted in 1839 to divide the property into 80 burial lots. The cemetery was named “The Wesleyan Cemetery of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of the City of Lancaster.”

Initially the Wesleyan Cemetery provided income, but by 1850, the cemetery was described as being “a great care and even trouble to the church” and “far from what its projectors had expected…as a source of revenue.”

Just a few years earlier First Reformed Church established The Lancaster Cemetery on ten acres of farm land on the very edge of the city. Today, this cemetery is a vast collection of Victorian-era monuments. Many of Lancaster’s distinguished citizens are buried there, including Gen. John Reynolds, the first commissioned officer killed at Gettysburg, and the artist, Charles Demuth.

In 1851 First M.E. purchased a block of 72 lots in the new Lancaster Cemetery and transferred them to church members. Each lot was large enough for 6 – 8 burial plots. The bodies buried in the Wesleyan Cemetery were moved to the new cemetery and the Walnut St. property was sold. There are no records that show the number or names of those moved.

Perhaps the most prominent monument in “our” plot is the obelisk of the Samson family. Bonom Samson (1791-1850) was a trustee as early as 1827. He was a signer of the First Church charter issued by the Pennsylvania legislature in 1840. His wife, Florella (1796-1891) was granted the honor of turning the second spadeful of dirt at the groundbreaking ceremonies for our third (and present) building in 1889. At the time, she was our oldest member. We don’t know when this couple joined the church but they were certainly among our earliest members.

Monuments of others in our history appear in the cemetery:

• Robert Morrow was a trustee in 1892 when our present building was first consecrated and president of the trustees during our centennial in 1907.
• David Paul Brown was another signer of the 1840 charter, a member of the building committee of 1839, and Sunday School Superintendent, 1859-61.
• Lewis Paulick served on an 1850 committee that led to the establishment of a second M.E. church in the southern part of the city. This became today’s St. Paul’s United Methodist on S. Queen St.

Research is ongoing to determine how many of those buried in these plots were First Church members, and what their roles were in our history.