Champaign County OhArchives History .....Reformed Lutheran/Piety Hill Cemetery Champaign County Ohio 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/oh/ohfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Johnson-Heber gapeachprtnerz@bellsouth.net September 18, 2012, 4:38 pm

Reformed Lutheran/Piety Hill Cemetery Champaign County Ohio

Written by K.Johnson-Heber copyrighted.  No publication without written permission.

This is a small cemetery of .92 acres located on the northeast corner edge of
St. Paris on Kiser Lake Road.  For many years was known as Piety Hill.  It is
derived from a German Evangelical Lutheran Church which was established on the
site.  David Huffman, founder of St. Paris settled on what was called Section 18
of Johnson Township.   This land included the town of St. Paris and Piety Hill.
 A log church and school for the Lutheran faith was established on the land and
is no longer standing. The cemetery was .92 acres located on
In Urbana at the Recorders office is a deed dated 20-Dec-1813 of several towns
people and Trustees of the Evangelical Lutheran church purchased for the sum of
$25.00 one acre of ground to build a frame church and establish a cemetery. 
About 1830 the church was located in about the middle of the cemetery and in
1840 log school house sat just north of the church.

Complete records of interments of Piety Hill/Lutheran have not been discovered
as of 1-Oct-2011. There is cemetery map located in the transcription of
Champaign County Ohio Cemetery Plates Veterans’ Grave Registration done by a
Work Project Administration. This cemetery is township owned and maintained.  It
is a closed cemetery and burials are no longer permissible. An overview map was
drawn by Karen Johnson on Oct 2011.  There are approximately 17 rows currently
in the cemetery.  There have been several “readings” of this cemetery done at
various times. To this author’s research none totally agree with each other.  

The most current is a photograph reading done in October 2011 by K.
Johnson-Heber.  There are many markers which are unreadable, broken beyond
reading/photographing and many are in small pieces.  IN the back corner of the
cemetery many markers as they have fallen have been placed facedown.   This
cemetery has been vandalized many times. 

 Trees and brush in areas cover many markers.  There is no fence to enclose this
cemetery.  Even after photographing in 2010 and the return in 2011 one of the
large tall tree marker of Josiah & Mary Mott located  in the back section of the
cemetery has toppled over.  Many holes exist due to gophers and some are falling
over into the holes to be soon be covered and lost forever.

In the Piqua Daily Call dated 16-Nov-1973 pg 9 by an unknown author the St.
Paris Zion Lutheran Church celebrated its 130 years of service. The development
of the churches and the two cemeteries of St. Paris which are directly across
from each other and the Salem church cemetery which was incorporated into what
is now Spring Grove.  



File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/oh/champaign/history/other/reformed41nms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ohfiles/

File size: 3.3 Kb