Harmony Society Cemetery
Posted by: renruts
N 40° 48.088 W 080° 07.408
17T E 573938 N 4517087
Drive along route 68 through Harmony, PA and you will see a fortress bordering the road...stop and take a peek!
Waymark Code: WM3Q7F
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 05/03/2008
Views: 118
Within the walls lies a cemetery. Johan Georg Rapp was a German-born American ascetic who founded the Rappites (Harmonists), a Pietist sect that formed communes in the United States. The Harmonists only stayed here for a decade, but this cemetery holds the graves of the 100 society members that died during that decade (1805-1815).
The Harmonists did not believe in marking their graves with headstones, but rather they marked the graves with a pile of rocks and put a fence around it. In 1869, Elias Zeigler was paid $6,030 to wall it in. The revolving gate to the cemetery is a unique mosaic tablet that weighs more than a ton.
If you enter the gate, you will see one marker. It is not marking a grave, but rather, it is propped up against the wall. This marker was donated by non-harmonists when Johannes Rapp, son of Johann Georg Rapp, was involved in a fatal industrial accident. The society reluctantly accepted the donation and the stone is there for you to see.
Cemetery is open 9am to dusk and is currently maintained by Historic Harmony Inc. It isn't quite abandoned anymore, but it remains to tell the story of the harmonists.
Earliest Burial: 01/01/1805
Latest Burial: 12/12/1815
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Visit Instructions:
Take a photo of at least one grave marker and including a qualitative and quantitative description