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-~xx~--- MULTIPlE RESOURCE ___ xx ____ THEMATIC NOMINATION
HISTORIC Beck's Reformed Church Cemetery
STREET & NUMBER East side SR.2250 0 mi. South of jet. with SR2249
CITY. TOWN Silver Hill
STATE North Carolina
CLASSIFICATION
CATEGORY OWNERSHIP _DISTRICT _PUBLIC
_BUILDING(SI }LPRIVATE
_STRUCTURE _BOTH
xx VICINITY OF
CODE
STATUS
XOCCUPIEO
_UNOCCUPIED
_WORK IN PROGRESS
~SITE PUBLIC ACQUISITION ACCESSIBLE _OBJECT _IN PROCESS _ YES: RESTRICTED
_BEING CONSIDERED X- YES: UNRESTRICTED
N/A _NO
OF PROPERTY NAME
Beck's Reformed Church STREET & NUMBER
Beck's Church Road
"lCINITYOF
LOCATION OF LEGAL DE ON COURTHOUSE.
_NOT FOR PUBLICATION
CONGRESSIONAL OI~TRICT
COUNTY CODE Davidson
PRESENT USE
-AGRICULTURE _MUSEUM
_COMMERCIAL _PARK
_EDUCATIONAL _PRIVATE RESIDENCE
_ENTERTAINMENT _RELIGIOUS
_GOVERNMENT _SCIENTIFIC
_'NDUSTRIAL _TRANSPORTATION
_MILITARY ~OTHER Ceme tery
North Carolina 27292
REGISTRY OF OEED5.nc. Register of Deeds Office, Davidson County Courthouse STREET & NUMBER
Nor th Carolina
BY
Consultant
Survey and Planning Branch July 26, 1983 STREET It NUMBER TelEPHONE
Division of Archives and History 919/733-6545 DTV OR TOWN STATE
-XOAIGINAl DA Tf ______ _
Beck's Reformed Church Cemetery is a large cemetery, containing approximately 500 gravestones, located a few miles southeast of Lexington. The earliest of the some 75 gravestones which are of local manufacture is dated 1771. The cemetery contains a larger number of gravestones from the "Early Phase" of gravestone design than any other cemetery in the county. These date from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
. centuries, and represent the traditional German designmiom, with splayed sides and monogrammed or dated semicircular tympana. Most of· these are small, amateurish gravestones probably carved by family members of the deceased. This is the only early Lutheran congregation in south Davidson County, and, like Emanuel Church, it was outside of the sphere of influence of the most talented stonecutting workshops. Only three examples of the "Pierced Style," one gravestone by the Master of the Upper and Lower Case, one gravestone attributed to John Rickard, and no gravestones by the "Modern Master" are here. The following gravestones, grouped by schools, are the most significant:
Pierced Tradition
Susannah Smith Frederick Beck Leah Beck William A. Smith
Swisegood School
Peter Smith David Smith Elizabeth Garner
Attributed to known stonecutters
Elizabeth Bailey Delila Crouse Henry Alexander Headrick
Professional marble gravestones
Polley Smith Margare t Smi th Timothye Crouse B. Frances
Miscellaneous
Polly Hedrick
Anna Catharina Beck
1787-1825 1786-1847 1811-1847
-1827
1790-1830 1755-1825 1765-1835
-1815 1843-1848
1847
1788-1819 1763-1831 1847-1852 1852-1862
-1904
1790-1870
attr. to James Cavany, York Co., SoC. attr. to Master of Upper and Lower Case attr. to John Rickard: semicircular
tympanum,with sunburst
urn-and-willow style
one of last local stone headstones in cemetery
"Classical" style--locally made
NP'!') Form 10·000-. (3-82)
Beck's Reformed Church Cemetery Continuation sheet 7
Early Phase: l77l-ca. 1830
Semicircular monogrammed tympanum
Wilhelm Franck Mardin Franck Johannes Bol1enback Andreas Stockinger David Schiften Peter Hedrich Barbara Smith Rebecca Kab1y Gaste Smith Sherey Smith George Smith Margereta Dorrin Rosina Weberin Nicy Ann Marten John Peter Frank Sally Crouse Elisabeth Dorr John C1afer Ludwig Stockinger
Simple Geometric Shape
Barbara Franck Susanna C1afer/John C1afer Jacob Miller John Henry Miller Karen Wos Barnhart Swing Prissie Ann Swing
Crude Fieldstone
Henrich Dorr Julian A. Billing
Jacop Beier Julius Lucknbi1 S. L. AMAF H. Y.
German Gothic script
David Bauerer Siegfried Billing
1804 1802 1781
1801-1804 1720-1787 1733-1798
-1804 1773- ?
.. 1804 1798-1801
1804 -1789
1720-1794 1810 .. 1831 1774 .. 1828 1817-1834 1754 .. 1825 1758-1794 1776 .. 1806
1738-1815 d. 1791
1826 .. 1827 1836-1838
1842 1788-1849
-1849
1816 1733-1804
1771 1785 1821 1787
1801-1839
1802-1802 1730-1801
Item number 1
(has foils like stones by David Sowers)
(pointed arch tympanum with monogram) (pointed arch tympanum with sunburst)
_...;:XX~ __ NATIONAL STATE
PERIOD AREAS Of SIGNIFlCANCE .. CHECK AND JUSTIFY BELOW
_PREHISTORIC
_1400-1499
__ 1500- 1 599
-ARCHEULUGY·PREHISTORIC _COMMUNITY PLANNING _LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
_1600-1699
K.17OO-1799
;K.18QO-1899
:K..1900-
-ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC
-AGRICULTURE
-ARCHITECTURE
X-ART
_COMMERCE
_COMMUNICA TlONS
SPECIFIC DATES various
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
_CONSERVATION _LAW
_ECONOMICS _LITERATURE
_EDUCATION _MILITARY
_ENGINEERING _MUSIC
_EXPlORA TlON/SETTlEMENT _PHILOSOPHY
_INDUSTRY _POLITICS/GOVERNMENT
_INVENTION
STONECUTTERS: unknown
LOCAL
_RELIGION
_SCIENCE
~SCUlPTURE
_SOCIAUHUMANI1*.RIAN
_ THEATER
_TRANSPORTATION
_OTHER (SPECIFY)
Founded in 1787, Beck's Lutheran and Reformed Church was organized under the Reverend Mr. Schneider. Dr. John Billings, L. Smith and others gave 53 acres of land for the church in 1787, and the first church was a log structure located near the road. The church operated as a union church until 1878, when a large frame church was built north of the cemetery for the Reformed congregation and the Lutheran congregation established a separate church a few miles away. The present brick Reformed church was dedicated in 1951. 1
Footnote
lMonument erected by congregation in Beck's Church Cemetery; Sink and Matthews, Pathfinders Past and Present: A History of Davidson County, North Carolina, 20-21.
CRITERIA ASSESSMENT
A,C Derives primary significance from the unique collection of folk gravestones by local stonecutters erected here in the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. These highly decorative soapstone gravestones with folk symbols for resurrection and eternity represent the height of folk art accomplishment within the craft community of the Anglo-German farmers of north Davidson County.
Contains the largest number of early, traditional German gravestones in one cemetery in Davidson County, illustrating the broad stylistic spectrum and decorative possibilities present in the local German design idiom.
SITE PLAN
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not to scale
DMAJOR BIBUOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Monument erected by descendants in Beck's Church Cemetery.
Sink, M. Jewell and Matthews, Mary Green. Pathfinders Past and Present: A History of Davidson County, North Carolina. (High Point, N.C.: Hall Printing Company, 1972.)
ACREAGE Of NOMINATED PROPERTY Approx. 2 1/2 acres UTM REFERENCES
AllJJ 1517,010,0.0113,915,711,9,01 ZONE EASTING NORTHING
clLJ I I I .I I t I I , I I I I • .J aLt.J I I , !
ZONE EASTIN
oW I I I I VERBAL BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION
I • I • I NORTHING
I I I I « I
The cemetery boundaries include an area of roughly 2 1/2 acres with the approximate dimensions of 250 feet oy 375 feet by 225 feet by 400 feet in a misshapened rectangular figure as shown on the U.S. Geological Survey map, Lexington East, N.C. Quadrangle.
