Old White Church Cemetery

Old White Church Cemetery is the oldest burying ground in Lincolnton, North Carolina. In 1788 the town's Lutheran and Reformed congregations acquired a tract of just over two acres for a union church, schools and burials. The log church, later whitewashed and known as the Old White Church, burned in 1893. The cemetery is now a plain, grass-covered rectangle with about 265 marked graves, the earliest dated 1801. It holds a large group of antebellum box tombs, two marble obelisks, and the John Hoke Family Tomb, a burial vault. Stones show German-influenced designs and the work of regional carvers and marble yards. The tract shrank in 1951, when the south half, long used for African American and other less affluent burials, was sold and 201 graves were moved to the north half. The cemetery was recognized for its early settlement history, its link to Lincolnton's prominent citizens, and its funerary art from about 1801 to 1944.