Home > United States of America > Pennsylvania > Lancaster County > Lancaster > Nissley Cemetery

Nissley Cemetery

Memorials	:	0
Location	:	Lancaster, Lancaster County, USA
Coordinate	:	40.0415580, -76.3029130
Description	:	This cemetery is DEFUNCT. There are no headstones to view and it is located underneath a neighborhood in Lancaster. The graves were apparently never relocated (definitely not the Native American burials). Nissley Cemetery was also historically known as the Mennonite Cemetery or Mennonist Burial Ground, and also Indian Burial Ground. The latter name was due to the fact that twenty Conestoga Indian bodies (two names are unknown) were dumped in a single mound after they were slaughtered in 1763 by the Paxtan Boys in what is now referred to as the Conestoga Massacre. Historians have traditionally believed that Jacob Nissley's farm... Read More	This cemetery is DEFUNCT. There are no headstones to view and it is located underneath a neighborhood in Lancaster. The graves were apparently never relocated (definitely not the Native American burials). Nissley Cemetery was also historically known as the Mennonite Cemetery or Mennonist Burial Ground, and also Indian Burial Ground. The latter name was due to the fact that twenty Conestoga Indian bodies (two names are unknown) were dumped in a single mound after they were slaughtered in 1763 by the Paxtan Boys in what is now referred to as the Conestoga Massacre. Historians have traditionally believed that Jacob Nissley's farm cemetery was the site of their mass burial. The Nissley land was patented in 1747, and a section was partitioned for use as a family burial ground as was the customary practice of eighteenth century Anabaptists. This area should be situated in downtown Lancaster roughly two blocks north of St. James Episcopal Cemetery. The farm originally occupied the western edge of a rectangular plot of land running east to the Conestoga River. The northeast corner of the original farm ended at the entrance to Lancaster Cemetery (not developed until 1836). The southwest corner was approximately where the Lancaster railroad station was later built. A large section of Jacob's farm was later owned by his son-in-law Valentine Metzler (1726-1783), who is also buried here. Sometime in the spring of 1833, workmen cutting a new line for the Pennsylvania Railroad disinterred the Indian bones. Lancaster historian John W.W. Loose believed that the workmen hauled away some of those bones, along with other fill, to the railroad embankment behind McCaskey High School. The laborers kept the remainder of the bones they uncovered, placed them in a large packing case, and reburied it at the cemetery. According to newspaper accounts, these bones may have been reburied at least two more times. For many years the mound of earth removed from the mass grave marked the original burial mound location on Cherry Street between Chestnut and Walnut. This is the present-day site of an auxiliary parking lot for the Lancaster Elks Club. According to an article published in the Lancaster County Historical Society Journal in 1930 by Jacob Hill Byrne, regarding the piece of land in question, “The Old Graveyard between Walnut, Chestnut, Lime, and Cherry Streets, Lancaster...Its exact location is fairly well determined by the description . . . the distance from Cherry Street to the West side of the alley leading to the Grave Yard, was 130 feet; and the distance from Lime Street to the East side of the alley was 165 feet. The width of the alley was not given. From Chestnut Street to the point of the South corner of the Grave Yard, along the east side of the alley, was 82 feet, 6 inches; and to a point on the Southwest line of the Grave Yard, along the West side of the alley, was 99 feet.” Blogger Linda Stienstra delineated the graveyard on a map. Her mapped location was described as being next to the old railroad station, which places it on the site where the Lancaster Police Station was formerly located. But recent research by T. Martin Keen in the July 2013 edition of Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage indicates that the Indians may have been buried outside the cemetery. Such land would have been considered 'neutral' because it was owned by Lancaster's proprietor, James Hamilton. His deeded land at the time included acreage adjacent to and near the cemetery, including the lot that now holds the Elks' Club main parking area. This conclusion was reached after carefully searching through deeds. Keen says the Nissley Cemetery was located just south of where the Indians were buried. Nonetheless, at the present time, a decision has been made to include the Indian Burial Grounds as a plot within Nissley Cemetery. It is unclear what happened to the remains of several generations of the Nissley family and other non-Indians buried in the graveyard. The list of Indians buried here is from historical records of the massacre. Only three members of the Nissley-Metzler family have been identified as being buried here through references in genealogical records. It has been speculated that perhaps some relatives returned in later years to move coffins to nearby cemeteries. Or maybe the remains have all been paved over and built upon since the final burials in the 1830's. The last time the burial site was mentioned in a deed was when the land was transferred from George Ross and his wife to Jacob Long (Book QQ page 492 dated 12 March 1794). Keen suggests that Nissley Cemetery is actually located under the contiguous present addresses of 139, 141, 145, and 147 East Chestnut Street (there is no 143 address). In other words, Keen has determined that Nissley's lay just south of the railroad cut, a location just north of East Chestnut Street, rather than farther north as Lancaster historians previously believed. Thus, the cemetery may have actually contained a significant number of graves (considering it was possibly spread over three quarters of an acre of land). [This information comes largely from investigative reporter Jack Brubaker. He published a book in 2010, Massacre of the Conestogas: On the Trail of the Paxton Boys in Lancaster County.]

frequently asked questions (FAQ):

Where is Nissley Cemetery?
Nissley Cemetery is located at near 219 North Duke Street; alternatively underneath 139, 141, 145, & 147 East Chestnut Street Lancaster, Lancaster County ,Pennsylvania , 17602USA.
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0 memorials
Where are the coordinates of the Nissley Cemetery?
Latitude: 40.0415580
Longitude: -76.3029130

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Nissley Cemetery

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