The Old Methodist Cemetery
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The Old Methodist Cemetery, located at the intersection of South Aspen Street and West Congress Street, belongs to First United Methodist Church. The 1.62 acre site, enclosed by a chain-link fence, is about five blocks from the First United Methodist Church building on East Main Street in downtown Lincolnton.
Reverend James Hill, the first pastor of what is now First United Methodist Church, died in 1828 and was the first person to be buried in the picturesque cemetery. At the time of his burial, the Methodist church was known as the Lincolnton Circuit, and it was a part of the South Carolina Conference. Nancy Elizabeth Mullen, who died in 1944, was the last person buried in the cemetery. There are approximately 242 gravestones and monuments in the cemetery, and some unmarked gravestones are believed to be for slaves. Two or three of the gravestones are outside the fence.
After the last burial in 1944, interest in the cemetery declined greatly. Although the cemetery is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, by the second half of the twentieth century many church members were unaware of its presence.
In a 1958 paper, Dorothy Crowell wrote "The Second Quarterly Conference, April 9, 1944 reports the establishment of the "Old Cemetery Fund" to beautify the old church property after the war is over." Many people had contributed to this fund, especially those whose family members are buried in the cemetery, although they were not members of the church at that time.
Members of the congregation began a conservation project in 2015 with several members meeting at the heavily-shaded cemetery to learn how to properly clean gravestones. The group began their project by properly cleaning Rev. James Hill's soapstone tablet. They have repaired the gate that encircles the cemetery and have trimmed trees inside the cemetery. The revitalization project is ongoing, and First United Methodist hopes to have some church activities at the cemetery in coming years. An inventory of the cemetery's gravestones and monuments can be found in Appendix D of the church's new book First United Methodist Church Lincolnton, North Carolina - A Bicentennial History.
Many of the gravestones are firmly mounted to the ground, clean and lichen-free while others are illegible and in need of conservation. Some have sustained damage from vandalism or, more likely, from the growth of roots from large adjacent trees. The cemetery's gravestones are a combination of unmarked fieldstones and large marble and granite obelisks.
