There is a lot of history about Pioneer Cemetery and Church located in my home town of New Berlin WI, but the history of this cemetery was only recovered about 6 years ago when a development crew stepped on the property and started to dig in order to build a community of new homes. Upon development, they started to find wooden caskets, small human bones, as well as wood and stone that they could tell was part of some sort of foundation at one point. With a little research, they were able to identify the area as a small, forgotten cemetery and church, officially the first cemetery of New Berlin, called Pioneer Cemetery and second church after Prospect Hill Church.
The cemetery is the resting place of 93 settlers, mostly very young children as well as babies, and prominently German, the first German settlers to arrive in New Berlin. The Cemetery’s first burial was a 13 day old boy who suffered from convulsions on October 10th 1842. This was a very common death of newborns in those days as well as fever. I did notice looking at the death records that most of the newborns had died of this and what I found to be very sad was that one of the stillborn child’s name matched another older gentleman’s name (most likely the father) who died 5 months after of “Unnatural causes followed by depression,” a polite way to say suicide those days.
Here is a link to the full burial records: http://newberlinhistoricalsociety.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=97%3Aburial-record&catid=45%3Acemeterys&Itemid=118
The following information was taken from: German Evangelical Protestant Cemetary and
Pioneer History by Laurie DeMoss and Sue Hemman of the New Berlin Landmark Commission on the New Berlin Historical Society’s website:
The first German church in New Berlin was Lutheran and this cemetery is the only evidence still remaiing. Many of New Berlin's early pioneers were industrious, thrifty German settlers, educated in German and bilingual in English, with the ability to pay in cash for land and stock.
When Frederick William III, ruler of Prussia, issued a decree to unite the Lutherans and the Reformed into one evangelical congregation, the forced Prussian Union caused many Lutherans to immigrate to America to seek freedom of worship. The first group of Protestant Germans arrived from Rhenish-Bavaria in 1840 led by Christian Damm, his wife Margaret (Wagner) Korn Damm and her sons Jacob and Henry Korn, along with Jacob's wife Katherine (Eiler) Korn. Christian Damm's family built a log cabin on the west side of Racine Ave. JacobKorn's family settled at the comer of Racine Ave. and Observatory Rd. Henry Korn's family later settled on Observatory Rd., near Woelfel Rd. In 1841, Henry Luke and Philip Strieder (Streeter) arrived. Henry Luke married Margaret, a daughter of Christian and Margaret Damm and settled along Racine Ave. east of and including the Little Grove School area at Swartz Rd. In 1842 the Kerns arrived from Hesse-Darmstadt and in 1843 the Swartzes and Grasers came from Bavaria and Alsace. George Sittel and his wife Anna arrived in New Berlin from New York in 1851, settling along Coffee Rd. Their headstones are among the very few still left standing in the cemetery.
It was in 1842 that those first Germans gathered in Christian Damm's log house to organize their church congregation led by a Lutheran pastor, the Rev. Friedrich Schmidt of Daldorf, Wuerrtemberg, Germany, who was a circuit-riding preacher. The first burial was that same year - Barbara Luke, 13 days old who died of convulsions. A few years after Pastor Schmidt moved to Michigan in 1844, Pastor Johannes Weinmann of Bemhagen, Wuerrtemberg, Germany was called to minister to the German settlers in New Berlin. It appears that Christian Damm, who had an original land grant along Racine Ave., donated the land for the cemetery and the first frame church that was built in 1848 and dedicated in 1849. In 1852 Christian Damm sold additional land to the congregation for $25. The first child baptized was George Wagner, born April 29,1850, son of Peter and Mary (Sittel) Wagner. The parsonage was erected by 1852 and a parochial school taught by the pastor was established. Johan K. Meidenbauer was the first secretary and historian of the church. Initially he listed 26 contributing families as members. Within three years this list had grown to 42 families.
Subsequent pastors were Pastor Daniel Huber, 1860-1863, Pastor John Zwolanek, 1864-1865 and Pastor Bartelt-1866. Doctrinal differences led to the breakup of the church in the late 1860s. A majority of the congregation wished to leave the Lutherans and form a German Reformed church, echoing the issues that had originally caused the Germans to seek religious freedom in America many years before. The founders of the new church were Jacob Wagner, Daniel Schley, Philip Streeter and Abraham Kem. Initially the new German Reformed group met in the Little Grove School.In 1865 Jacob Korn deeded land to the trustees about a half-mile north of their former church near Racine and Swartz Rd. A brick church was built there in 1865 at a cost of $800. A cemetery was dedicated at the new site and as the old Lutheran church was abandoned after 1867, the original Lutheran cemetery became nearly forgotten, overgrown and neglected.
Pioneer life was difficult and filled with hardships. Disease, illness and accidents were daily occurrences. Of the 93 interments in this cemetery, 65 were infants or children. As was mentioned, the first burial was a baby of Henry and Barbara Luke. Sadly, they buried a second newborn daughter in 1846, a 13 day old son in 1847, an 18 day old son in 1849, an 11 day old son in 1850, a 13 week old daughter in 1851 and a 10 week old son in 1858. Just as sad are the losses of Christoph and Margareth Krainer. They buried a 9 month old son in 1859, then between July 4 and July 14, 1863 they lost a 17 month old, a 6 year old and a 4 year old to throat angina. In 1865 another 13 month old son died. J.K. Meidenbauer and his wife Catherine had only one child. It was stillborn and is listed on the cemetery record, but they chose to bury the infant near a pine tree on their farm. [End]
Information for this history has been gathered from these sources: "German Pioneers of New Berlin" by J.H.A. Lacker; "History of St. John's Oakwood Evangelical Lutheran Church"; "Not as German as You'd Think" by Mary Ella Milham; collection of New Berlin Almanacks; NewBerlin Citizen, 4/87, and Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod records.
I often drive this direction and have past this cemetery many times, though it was kept hidden behind all the tress and growth so I had never seen it. It was not till a few years ago that I noticed that they had stopped the development and the area had been cleared out. With having moved last month very close to this location, I drive by this area even more now, and this time I noticed there was a “historical” sign in that area, so I went to check it out and came across this cemetery and its history.
While I was there I did not experience any strange feelings and nothing out of the ordinary happened thankfully because ghost children terrify me, but when I researched this area further I did come across old photographs of the town on one of the websites;
http://www.stjohnsoakwood.org/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=180006766&sec_id=180002983
I noticed that in one of them, an old log cabin that now resides at the New Berlin Historical society had been photographed with a young boy standing in front of it. Instantly I got goose bumps because years ago I had seen the apparition of a young boy running around to the other side of that cabin while being at the historical society. Another time, my mom was photographing the old lighthouse that stands near that same cabin and in the photograph, looking through the window was the foggy image of a boys face looking out at us! If you go to the website I have provided with further information regarding the cemetery which is on The New Berlin Historical Society’s website, you will see that cabin on the right hand side at the top of the page, the lighthouse is hidden behind it, but I do plan to post photographs of the historical society in a later blog with info regarding the haunting there.
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These are the images I took while there:
*I have added more links to further information about this location under "Local Haunts" in the sidebar.
