If only those who are buried in cemeteries could tell stories. Three members of St. John’s Episcopal Church, in West Caln, on the Lancaster border in Pequea Valley/Compass, told me a little about what those buried in the church graveyard might say.
There were no evil spirits evident on a sunny day when I took a tour of the cemetery, behind St. John’s.
I toured with three church members who are conserving the graveyard.
“This is a hidden gem, getting out into that cemetery is like walking through a museum,” church member Don Faix said.
“If you know what you are looking for,” parishioner Liz Palwick-Goebel followed up and said.
There are more than 3,500 tombstones in the graveyard. The earliest dated stone belongs to George Boyd and dates to 1731.
The church was founded in 1729, along the main road from Philadelphia to Lancaster.
“This was the wilderness—there were still Indians,” parishioner Doug Skiles said.
“Everybody was helping everybody in the boonies,” Faix said. “They had to depend on each other, whether they were Indian, Black or white.
“Tories were the problem.”
People of color were enrolled as full church communicants and were buried in the cemetery as early as the 1830s. A tunnel unearthed when renovations were ongoing at the church might have been a station on the Underground Railroad.
“We are starting to uncover more information of people of color,” Faix said. “There is no other reason for the tunnel to be there.
“Given its age, it’s really in good shape, with no vandalism. Ten percent of the stones need to be fixed.”
All upright stones have been cleaned of moss and dirt. Sixty stones were dug up and new foundations were set straight.
Frost, time and earth movement, often loosen and take down tombstones.
“Every year new stones fall over,” Palwick-Goebel said.
Douglass Skiles resets the stones.
“I do the dirty work,” Skiles said.
“He loves to play in the dirt,” quipped Palwick-Goebel.
A crumbling stone wall surrounds the 2.7-acre burial ground where 53 trees were recently taken down.
Kings Highway, or Route 340, is out in front of the church and was originally an Indian trail. At one time, the road was named “Old Peter’s Road,” after Peter Bezellon, the founder of Coatesville, who is buried here.
Founded in 1729 as an Anglican Church, the church was originally a wood frame structure measuring 22 feet long by 20 feet wide. St. John’s was rebuilt as a stone church in 1762. The Episcopal Church was founded in the United States in 1789 after the Anglican Church separated from the Church of England. The current stone building was built in 1835 by Edward Buchanan, brother of Pennsylvania’s only president.
A 1766 pewter communion set is still in use today and the original gas lights that were electrified in 1938 are still used.
The community was probably evenly split between Loyalists and Colonialists and probably no more violence than fisticuffs took place. English Calvary occupied Chester County’s third oldest church as a barracks in the 1780s.
Some American flags had been placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution, on the graves of Revolutionary soldiers for Memorial Day when I visited.
Veterans of the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War, the Whiskey Rebellion, the War of 1812, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War are all buried at St. John’s. Also, World War I and II, Korea, Vietnam and other foreign wars, and U.S. service personnel not serving during war years, and even a member of the British Royal Navy, are interred here.
Typically only burials where a priest officiated were recorded. Such a list, “Eggles Notes and Queries, Historical and Genealogical Volume 1899” lists hundreds of names.
“People get added and people get erased,” Palwick-Goebel said. “It turns out they are not who we thought they were.
“It’s an ancient list. We comb for names and initials and try to match them up.”
Many Skiles are on the list and Douglas Skiles said that while some people have to go to five or six graveyards to visit those who passed, he needs to visit just one.
“It’s nice to have them in one spot,” he said. “I can talk to them and don’t get any answers.”
Helping to research the history is the West Caln Historical Society and Salisbury Township in Lancaster County.
St. John’s, at 1520 W. Kings Hwy., is a great place to contemplate our existence and to think of all those long gone– some whom we know, many we don’t. See you there.
The church will be celebrating its 300th anniversary in 2029. The three-member group is leading a 3- to 5-year project to conserve the historical cemetery for the benefit of future generations. A conservator has been hired to preserve the tombstones for another 150 years.
For more information on the 3- to 5-year project, to help out, to donate or assist with research, contact the church at 1729cemetery@gmail.com
Bill Rettew is a weekly columnist and Chester County resident. He loves the absolute silence of a graveyard. The best way to contact him is at brettew@dailylocal.com
