Lobach Cemetery Latimore Township Adams County, PA
The Lobach Cemetery is inconspicuously situated about 25 feet off the southeast side of Bushey School Road, between County Line Road to the north and Latimore Creek Road to the south, in Latimore Township, Adams County, PA, north of Gettysburg. It is surrounded by farmland and though in need of a new fence, weeding, and resetting of many stones, it is not endangered. The burial area measures roughly 85’ by 140’. A neighboring family has looked after it for three generations.
The earliest known gravestone is 1790; the most recent, 1933. Birth dates range from 1730 to 1864. The Cemetery was recorded in 1934 for the York County Historical Society by E. Beard, J. Beard, C. Zaner, & A. Starner, from which a wealth of useful information has been drawn. The recorders omitted inscriptions such as “in memory of” and quotations, but noted all names, dates, and relationships. In 2012, 76 of the 82 stones listed in 1934 were visible, most at least partially legible. The bases for Samuel Hollinger and Hetty Schultz Hollinger are still in place but their stones are gone, probably removed by descendants who thought that they were rescuing them from oblivion. Some of the other four might still be found.
All stones are meant to be set vertically. Most early ones are simple tablets made of red sandstone or slate, with the lower third or lower half buried. After 1860, many were marble, tab-in-socket, with the base partially exposed. Several of the oldest stones – Lobach 1790, Musselman 1802, and Borckholder 1810 & 1812 - are in German. All the lettering is Roman. In the mid-19th century several given names were carved with raised lettering; all other inscriptions are incised. There are several rough fieldstones – some with initials - which cannot be identified. Finally, there are some mystery stones with no apparent engraving which could be either accidental fieldstone or fieldstone placed as grave markers.
A few remains of a woven-wire and gas-pipe fence can be found. In 1995, much of the fence and gate was still on the road side. It was erected around 1930 by John B. Hinkle and Park Gardner, probably with funding from the the Flohr’s Schoolhouse Graveyard Fund established by E. Kenton Gardner, a Deardorff descendant. The fund was dissolved in 2012 with the proceeds going toward the current restoration.
This is a neighborhood cemetery not connected to any church. It was used by a dozen families who lived in the immediate area, many of them connected by marriage. They were all Protestants, including Lutherans, Brethren, and Mennonites. Lineal descendants may still be buried there. It is also known as the Lobach-Bushey Cemetery, Lobaugh’s, and Flohr’s. The land was originally part of Monaghan Township, York County. Adams County was created from York in 1800; in 1807, Latimore Township was incorporated. When the first burial took place, the property was owned by the Lobach family. The most recent deed records the 1856 sale of one neat acre by Joseph & Elizabeth Flohr to the Trustees of a School House and Burying Ground. The portion of this acre across the road, with a house, was sold in 1948, leaving a third of an acre for the Cemetery.
Anne W. Brown, 2012