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Pass through the gates of Lancaster Cemetery and you will discover Lancaster's history — from the beginning.
Sunday afternoon, more people than usual were drawn to the cemetery, where many local artists and photographers displayed and sold their work on the fence along Lemon Street during the seventh Lancaster Cemetery Victorian Day and Art on the Fence Show.
"We figured it would be a good way to raise money and get the public involved and invested in the cemetery," said cemetery board president Jerry Smoker.
The event also offered guided tours by members of Historic Lancaster Walking Tours. Guests enjoyed various historic vignettes and met re-enactors portraying people such as George Sanderson, who was mayor of Lancaster from 1859 to 1869.
"I was surprised they were doing this, but I liked the idea," said Austin Erdman of Lancaster.
Erdman, 15, showed photographs he has taken of local landscapes as part of the art exhibition.
"This is actually our first year here, but we'll probably come back next year," said his mother, Deana Erdman.
The Lancaster Cemetery was established in 1845 when the vestry of the German Reformed Church acquired a 10-acre property along the New Holland Turnpike north of the city. The first interment took place in 1848.
Since that time, the cemetery has expanded to more than 22 acres. It has 18,000 recorded burials and it averages 14 to 17 burials a year.
It is also a showplace of sculpture and architecture. The carved images of roses and lambs represent the rich and distinguished history of Victorian art, values and sentiment in stone.
Inside the gates lie the graves of many of Lancaster's settlers, builders and notable citizens, such as artist Charles Demuth and Civil War Gen. John Fulton Reynolds, one of the Union Army's most respected senior commanders, who died on the first day of the battle of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863.
Lancaster Cemetery was the first of Lancaster's "rural cemeteries," a style of burial ground that uses landscaping in a park-like setting.
The headstones not only reveal names and dates for locally significant individuals and families, but also provide tender, tragic or humorous glimpses into the lives of earlier generations.
"This is living history. I don't like to think of it as dead," Smoker said.
During Sunday's event, re-enactors from the 1st Pennsylvania Reserves, Company B, and ladies of the Patriot Daughters of Lancaster helped illustrate the cemetery's rich history.
The task of preserving a cemetery can be overwhelming, and repairing historic grave markers is perhaps the most difficult of all cemetery work. Most of the repairs are extremely complicated and costly.
Sunday's event was an opportunity to raise funds for a limited endowment to maintain and preserve the cemetery as a significant cultural and historic resource for the Lancaster community.
The Lancaster Cemetery has been designated a local historic landmark by the Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County. It remains as a functioning public cemetery and has about 300 plots available.
Contributions to the cemetery may be mailed to: The Lancaster Cemetery, 205 E. Lemon St., Lancaster, PA, 17602. For more information, contact Jerry Smoker at 397-8052.
