Pottstown Daily News, Tuesday, July 11, 1876

(partial article)

The burial ground of the Potts family, on Chestnut Street, west of Penn Street, was laid out soon after Pottsgrove was founded. The land was given and devoted to burial purposes by John Potts, and he himself is buried there. His death occurred on the 6th of June 1768. May of the early residents of this place, of the Potts, Rutter, and Hobart families, and their connections, sleep their last sleep within the precincts of this enclosure.

The graveyard attached to Zion’s Reformed and Emmanuel Lutheran churches is next in point of age. Burials took place there before and after the Revolutionary War. The number of interments is very large, though many of the bodies were removed a few years since to Pottstown, Edgewood and Mt. Zion Cemeteries. The first settlers of Pottsgrove, such as the Wamback, Davidheiser, Fritz, Missimer, Miller, Kulp, Bechtel, Boyer, Sands, Bickel, Gilbert, Yocum, and other families, rest peacefully here.

The Pottstown Cemetery, to the north of the town, extending from Hanover to Charlotte Streets, was laid out and prepared for the repose of the dead, in 1853. The act incorporating the Cemetery Company was passed by the Legislature March 22, 1850. The first interment was that of John Hartranft, for many years an esteemed citizen of Pottstown, who died Nov. 17, 1854. The Cemetery comprises 12 acres of ground, with over 700 burial lots. The ground is owned jointly by the Trinity Reformed, Lutheran Church of the Transfiguration and Emmanuel Lutheran congregations. The population of this beautiful “city of the dead” is about two thousand. The officers are President Jos. Hencke; Treasurer, Jonas Smith; Secretary, A. G. Saylor; Superintended, Isaac Geist.

Edgewood Cemetery Company, whose grounds are east of town, was incorporated August 21st, 1866. The tract contains five acres. A bequest of $2,500 was given by the late William Mintzer to this Company. The number of interments is over one hundred. The preset officers are President Augustus Skean; Secretary and Treasurer, W. I. Rutter; Managers, Augustus Skean, A. D. Moser, H. P. Engle, N. P. Hobart, Jr., Isaac Royer, W. I Rutter, Superintendent, A. D. Moser.

The Mt. Zion Cemetery, on the opposite side of the river, was incorporated Nov. 10, 1876. Capital stock paid in $4,000. It comprises a tract of 40 acres, one-third of which is laid out in lots, the whole number of lots being about 2,000. Two hundred lots have been sold, and over one hundred inhabitants of the town and vicinity have been laid here to rest. The present officers of this Cemetery Company are President, B. F. Yost; Secretary, D. F. Reinert; Treasurer, Reuben Reigner; Managers, B. F. Yost, D. F. Reinert, Reuben Reigner, S. M. Bunting, William M. Antrim, James Maxwell, William Liggett; Superintendent, Jacob Bossert.

Submitted by Betty.