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The Historical Society
of the Phoenixville Area is located in one
of the best spots in the Borough of
Phoenixville, PA at the intersection of Main
and Church Streets.
This piece of land has an interesting
history.
The property was a Mennonite place of
worship starting in 1794, with a meeting
house and cemetery for this group on site
until the 1870s at which time the property
passed hands to a Lutheran congregation.
Over the following decades the
cemetery, which was the resting place of
approximately one hundred Mennonites, was
disturbed by construction and expansion of
the Central Lutheran Church.
This plot is currently occupied by a
large and elegant church constructed in an
English Gothic style in 1873, with a small
parsonage in one corner of the parcel.
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GEL 358 students survey the site with the
GSSI SIR 300 GPR system with 400MHz antenna.
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Students survey the site with the Geometrics
G-858 Magnetometer.
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Records from 1905 indicate that bodies
unearthed during construction efforts were
either transferred to the local Morris
Cemetery or reinterred in the churchyard.
The church building currently houses
the administrative offices, museum, and
archives for the Historical Society which
acquired the property in 1980.
Today, the churchyard stands cleared
of not just some, but all grave markers.
It is unknown if the bodies were
moved with the grave markers or if they are
still in place within the churchyard.
Geophysical investigations were
performed to provide subsurface images for
the Historical Society using a
400MHz GSSI
SIR 3000 GPR system and a
Geometrics
G-858 magnetometer in gradiometer mode.
Survey results indicate that the
former cemetery was not cleared of burials
and several of the original interments may
still be in place.
News coverage of the surveys can be found at
the following links:
Daily Local 1
Daily Local 2 |