The Wall at God’s Acre

On a bitterly cold day in February 1784, General Peter Muhlenberg, enroute to Ohio, stayed at the Kucher homestead near present-day Lebanon, Pennsylvania. The home was built two decades earlier by the then-occupant’s parents, Johann Peter and Anna Barbara Kucher.

Like many 18th century immigrants, Peter and Barbara were sadly familiar with child mortality. They lost two sons in a single year and buried them on their property in Hebron — which today borders Lebanon proper. They wanted perpetual care of their children’s graves and, although they were Lutheran, saw a growing local Moravian congregation in need of permanent sanctuary. So they gave them the land to build a church and establish a cemetery around the graves of the children. The original church is long gone, but the congregation and God’s Acre, as they call it, remain.

Hebron God’s Acre

The old Kucher homestead is also gone, but not completely. Visit the Hebron Moravian Cemetery and take notice of the wall there. The stones are from the Kucher homestead and if you look back and to the left as you enter the gate, you’ll see two sandstones set inside the wall. At first glance, they look like gravestones but are in fact the hand carved date stones originally placed in the Kucher home’s gable ends during construction.

Kucher homestead date stones

When I was last there, the stones were covered in moss and lichens, but they’ve since been cleaned — one with a heart and the date 1761 followed by the names of the builders; the other with a round (moon?) face and six-pointed star.

Kucher homestead date stone

St. James, The Bullfrog Inn