National Register of Historic Places
Woodward Hill Cemetery
Lancaster, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
The record
- Listed
- February 24, 2005
- Type
- Historic district
- Address
- Bounded by Strawberry St., S. Queen St., and Chesapeake St., Lancaster
- County
- Lancaster
- State
- Pennsylvania
- Period of significance
- 1850 to 1949
- Contributing resources
- 1 structure
- Coordinates
- 40.02571, -76.30030
- Reference number
- 05000098
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
The outline is the area recorded for this listing in National Park Service map data, drawn approximately.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesBarry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesBarry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
The story
Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com
Woodward Hill Cemetery is a 32-acre cemetery district in Lancaster, bounded by Strawberry St., S. Queen St., and Chesapeake St. Its chapel is Gothic Revival and its caretaker's house is Victorian.
Why it's listed
It was listed under criterion C, with local-level significance in landscape architecture and art. The nomination gives its period of significance as 1850 to 1951, reflecting its establishment in 1850 by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity.
Physical character
Gently curving paths and drives cross the grounds, which hold several thousand grave markers. There are eight mausoleums, including those of L.B. Keiper and L. L. Bush; the tomb of James Buchanan, fifteenth president of the United States, is also here. Monuments include a Gothic Revival monument to Christopher Hager and one to C. C. Herr by the Haldy firm. The cemetery has a wrought iron entrance on South Queen Street and an iron railing, and its gateway was replaced about 1910.
Historical context
In 1850 the church's congregation bought twelve and a quarter acres and a legislative charter was secured; in 1851 the cemetery property was transferred to an independent board. The chapel dates from about 1851, and later additions include a Benson / Hitchcock family mausoleum erected in 1981 and a noncontributing maintenance shed erected in 1995.