Cemetery

When the old Northkill Church was razed in 1791 and the red bricks were built into a newer edifice, the churchyard, with it’s ruined stone wall and it’s crumbling neglected headstones, was left intact. Over the dim mounds of broken squares of sandstone and marble, the grass grows and dies and grows again, and every year sees the disappearance of faint letters, and the history of a forgotten people sinking down into the earth.

Recently the Friedens Cemetery Committee has begun a journey to immortalize these people; the men who fought to give us Liberty and the fathers, the mothers, the sons and the daughters who worked the land and endured the hardships to create the town we now call Bernville.

Detailed History of the Cemetery

After compiling various records and spending hours on the cemetery, we have created the most recent story on the Old Northkill Cemetery:

Originally located adjacent to the Old Northkill Church, this quarter acre of consecrated ground was part of a land grant from Gottfried Fidler and Samuel Filbert, of one acre each, dated December 25, 1745, for the use of a location for a Lutheran church. The cemetery now lies behind Evangelical Friedens Lutheran Church, on the corner of Main and Washington Streets in Bernville, Pennsylvania.

The first known burial in the cemetery was in January, 1771. It was Susanna Filbert, the wife of Samual Filbert who had donated the land for the church. It is uncertain if there were any burials before this time as there are 10 illegible stones. There are 109 tombstones and 2 monuments located on the grounds of the cemetery. There are several more unmarked graves believed to exist, with 2 of them being Revolutionary War Veterans.

Sixteen other Revolutionary War Veterans have identifying markers. Their names are:

  • Georg Adam Geiss
  • Christoph Winter
  • George Belleman
  • Johann Nicholas Haag
  • Johann George Gieseman
  • Melichor Fiegel
  • Johann Micgael Fuchs
  • Samuel Filbert
  • Philip Filbert
  • Christian Gruber
  • Johann Adan Gruber
  • Samuel Strauss
  • Henry Shepler
  • Jacob Strauss
  • Johann Georg Haag
  • Valentine Reber

Revolutionary War Veterans believed to be buried in the cemetery but without stones are:

  • Mathias Schmidt
  • Baltzer Umbenhauer

The last known burial in the cemetery was Maria Catharine (Staudt) Umbenhauer, wife of Johann Thomas Umbenhauer, the founder of Bernville. She was buried in July, 1854. A stone wall, that had once surrounded the cemetery, was removed in 1961.

On April 12, 2002 a ceremony was held to unveil a memorial marker in honor of Johann Thomas Umbenhauer, the founder of the town of Bernville, who is buried in the Old Northkill Cemetery, along side his wife, Maria Catharine (Staudt) Umbenhauer. The Friedens Cemetery Committee is in the process of placing a memorial marker at the grave site of Maria Catharine Umbenhauer, as well. To date the Bernville Woman’s Club, The Bernville Heritage Society and the Bernville Grange have pledged monetary support for this project. Remaining funds to complete this project will need to be supplied from the community.

There was a story, published in the March 1911 edition of “The Pennsylvania German”, of a rounded sandstone, with a grotesque face, long neck and a pair of hand-like wings, carved upon it. It is written that time had been cruel to it bears the description- “hier ruhet Celia Zorndorf, geborn November 6, 1750. Gest July 3, 1776. Ach Gott…” the rest is unreadable. The story is of Celia Zorndorf, the daughter of a local farmer, who falls in love with Lt Granville Pencoyd, of his British Majesty’s 40th Regiment of Horse, who was sent to the tiny town of Bernville to find out the sentiments of the settlers in the surrounding area of Reading. Finding the area full of resentment on his presence he had to secretly meet Celia on the banks of the Tulpehocken, in the wooded area surrounding Celia’s father’s farm. On one such meeting the sound of gunfire interrupted the peaceful country solitude and Celia collapsed, dead, in his arms. It seems that a jealous farm hand had missed his intended, British target!

After the story was published, visitors throughout eastern Pennsylvania trekked to this Bernville Cemetery in search of Celia’s grave, which is said to have been, in 1910, broken, defaced and eroded, located in the northeast corner of the cemetery. After reading this old story, we too, looked among the forgotten stones, reminders to us all of those who once existed, and we found a rounded sandstone that time had totally erased the existence of a human being. Could this be Celia’s final resting place? We do not know for sure. Although we do know that we will do our best that no one else, who is buried in the Old Northkill Cemetery, will be forgotten, or erased from time.

Friedens Cemetery Committee has future plans to:

  • work with Potteiger Memorials, Strausstown, PA, to repair broken tombstones.
  • pull up and straighten sinking stones.
  • gain Historical status by submitting a request to the Pennsylvania Historical Commission on behalf of the church grounds as well as the cemetery.