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
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 historic cemetery district in Lancaster, bounded by Strawberry Street, South Queen Street and Chesapeake Street. Its features date from 1850 to 1951 and include Gothic Revival and Victorian styles.
Why it's listed
It was listed under Criterion C and Criteria Consideration D, with local-level significance in landscape architecture and art. Its period of significance runs from 1850 to 1951, reflecting the cemetery's founding that year.
Physical character
The Gothic Revival Chapel was built around 1851, the same year a sexton's house went up, and the cemetery gateway was replaced around 1910. Its buildings stand on stone foundations, with brick walls and slate roofs, and the grounds have curving paths and drives, an iron railing, and an English walnut tree more than two centuries old. Several thousand grave markers and eight mausoleums stand in the cemetery, including the tomb of James Buchanan, the fifteenth president of the United States, and monuments to John A. Shulze and Christopher Hager.
Historical context
Trinity Lutheran Church's congregation bought twelve and a quarter acres in 1850 to establish the cemetery, and the property passed to an independent board in 1851. Lewis Haldy started a stonecutting business in 1849, and the Haldy firm made the monument to C. C. Herr; William P. Frailey ran a monument works tied to the cemetery.