Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church Cemetery

Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church Cemetery occupies about three acres on a steep hillside among farmlands near Speedwell, in southwestern Wythe County. Of its 250 to 300 markers, 42 are thick sandstone gravestones carved on both sides in a Germanic tradition. Although their dates range from the 1790s to 1840, inscriptions show they were all carved around 1835 to 1840, probably by a skilled carver who arrived in the mid-1830s. Typical stones have rounded tops decorated with six- or eight-petaled flowers, scrolls, spiral pilasters and pinwheels, while the footstones take more fanciful shapes. The congregation was formed in 1791, and John Stanger gave land for the first church in 1794. The present brick church dates from 1940. The stones are well preserved and recall the heavy German settlement of the area in the late 18th century. They also show that European craft traditions lasted there longer than elsewhere in Virginia.