Harmonist Society Cemetery in Harmony, Pennsylvania

About

Get directions Harmony, Pennsylvania, USA

Coordinates: 40.80147, -80.12347
Cemetery ID:

Members have Contributed

About these numbers These percentages indicate the number of Find a Grave memorials that have a grave photo or GPS coordinates. We don't know the total number of burials in a cemetery, so we cannot calculate a percentage of those with memorials, photos or GPS coordinates.

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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.

Earliest Burial: 01/01/1805

Latest Burial: 12/12/1815