Old White Church Cemetery Emmanuel Lutheran Church
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The first deed recorded in Lincolnton for a church was on January 10, 1788, and included two acres of land at a cost of ten shillings plus tax. This lot would be the site of the Dutch Meeting House, the Old White Church, and the first brick church. Reverend John Gottfried Arends arrived in Lincoln County in 1785 to organize the local Lutherans. Reverend Arends died in 1807 and was buried under the Dutch Meeting House. The first person buried in the cemetery is believed to be Thomas Perkins, but some say that his name is Thomas Hawkditch. We know that he was pushed or fell from a window of the old court house, and a rough unmarked stone covers his grave.
Emmanuel Lutheran Church Cemetery is enclosed by a decorative fence donated by Peggy and Mercer Simmons. Just inside the main gates, at the cemetery's west elevation, is the John Hoke Family tomb, which is currently being restored. This is a below-ground tomb with steps that lead to a large chamber where caskets were once held before burial.
The cemetery's earliest gravestone is a small soapstone tablet for Christian Zimmerman, who was buried on November 13, 1792. Reverend Arends, the church's first pastor, died in 1807, and the inscription on his gravestone is written in German. Elizabeth Schrum Little, buried on December 14, 2013, is the most recent burial. Other notable burials include Anna Mary Thomson who died September 25, 1851, John Cline on April 2, 1857, Charles Cotesworth Henderson on February 18, 1869 and Clara Rhodes Smyre on December 18, 1968.
The church's cemetery committee, along with their youth group, have been conserving gravestones and monuments in the cemetery.
