Lime Kiln Burial Ground

The final resting place  of many members of the Heller family, it is located about one mile north  of the Heller Homestead site on Creek Road. 

A Brief History of the Lime Kiln Burial Ground If  you've ever spotted the quaint Lime Kiln Burial Ground along Creek Road  you may have wondered who is buried there. Read on to find out. 
By Karen Samuels (Open Post) - October 5, 2011 3:46 am ET Hellertown-Lower Saucon Patch. 

 If you've ever spotted the quaint Lime Kiln Burial Ground on Creek Road  in Bethlehem, you may have wondered who is buried there. "How old are  those thin, crooked markers made of stone," you may have thought. "Are  they connected somehow to the neat brick schoolhouse next door?"

Looking  at a list of headstones shared with me by Sue and Jim Brown, the owners  of the historic schoolhouse, we find that the graves of many of the  founders of Hellertown and Lower Saucon Township are located within the  cemetery's 112 perches (a perch is equal to 16.5 feet of land).

Among  them are the graves of Christopher and Veronica Heller (1688-1778), and  their children, Simon, Michael, Daniel, Ludwig, Christopher Jr. and  Maria Magdalena, who are buried in the cemetery along with their  families. The Heller family is credited with founding Hellertown.

Dr.  B.F. Fackenthal, Jr., who in 1922 documented the tombstones in the Lime  Kiln Burial Ground, counted 18 headstones belonging to the Heller  family, including the graves of Continental Revolutionary War soldiers  Michael Heller Sr., and his sons Michael Jr. and David Heller.

The origins of the burial ground
Prior  to the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), Jacob Kram, a miller, directed  that a tract of his land be donated jointly to the Mennonite Society and  the German Baptist Society for use as a burial ground. Kram operated a  mill along the Saucon Creek in what was then known as Lower Saucon  Township.

Mennonites are named for an early leader, Menno Simons,  who was from the Netherlands. However, the religious group was begun in  1525 in Switzerland as the "Anabaptist" fellowship.

In the  ensuing decades the Anabaptists suffered great persecution throughout  Europe because of their pacifist stance to war, and in 1683, the first  Mennonite couple to emigrate to America helped settle the village of  Germantown near Philadelphia. That settlement became what is today the  oldest Mennonite community in the New World, and spawned additional  settlements throughout the region, such as one in Coopersburg that may  have influenced the Lime Kiln Mennonite group.

The exact date of  the Lime Kiln Mennonite group's founding is uncertain, but a Mennonite  meeting house was erected next to the cemetery in the early 1700s. The  building was used for Reformed Lutheran services until the Lower Saucon  Reformed Lutheran Church was erected in 1751 on Easton Road.

LIMEKILN SCHOOL HOUSE, Built 1802, Burned and Rebuilt 1854, Rebuilt 1891

In  1870, the property of the meetinghouse/school (not including the  cemetery) was sold to the Lower Saucon School District. In 1919, the  City of Bethlehem annexed the part of Lower Saucon Township in which it  was located, and the school became part of the Bethlehem School  District. In the 1950s, the building served as a non-denominational  Sunday school for a few years until it was sold in 1954 and converted  into a private home, which it remains today.

The gravestones in the cemetery
The  oldest headstone in the Lime Kiln Burial Ground that is legible is  identified as belonging to Catharine Rigelin and has the year 1771  written on it. Rigelin's native stone marker was carved in German  script.
The date of the most recent headstone that is legible is for  Sylvester Hillegas, who was born Sept. 18, 1846 and died Feb. 9, 1894.
In  total, the Lime Kiln Cemetery contains 51 headstones bearing the names  of Derr, Geissinger, Guth, Heller, Hillegas, Kauffman, Kram, Newkomer,  Riegel, Roth, Rothrock, Weber, Weinke and Weinick. Of the unmarked  headstones, some are of red shale. It is believed that a few local  members of the Lenni Lenape tribe are also buried in this cemetery on  the west bank of the Saucon Creek, not far from Lehigh University's  Goodman Campus and Stabler Arena.

The upkeep of the burial ground was in the care of the Boehm family, descendants of Rev. John Phillip Boehm, for generations.
However,  Hellertown Borough Council agreed to accept the donation of the  cemetery from owner Calvin Boehm and caretaker Jim Brown in 2003, and  today the borough maintains the historic burial ground.

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