AKA: 

Number of Burials (approximate): 12

Dates of Activity: 1815 - 1882

Documentation/Publication: 

CCGS, The Cemeteries of Gallagher, Pine Creek, and Wayne Townships (2005)

Directions/GPS: 

Traveling on PA Route 150, turn right onto McElhattan Drive and cross over the Susquehanna River.  At 0.5 miles, turn right onto Old Bridge Road (TR 572).  Turn right onto McKinney Road (TR 420) at 0.2 mile.  You are now driving along the river.  Pass the Lenni Lenape monument on your left at 0.1 mile.  Travel a total of 1.7 miles on this road, which becomes dirt.  Just before the Route 220 overpass, turn right onto an almost indistinguishable farm lane that parallels Route 220.  Follow this back to the back of the field, where it meets a swamp, and bear right, following the swamp.  The path is very rough and can be very muddy, necessitating four-wheel drive.  The cemetery is at a point where the woods juts out into the field somewhat.  The gravestones are in an area surrounded by a wrought-iron, double-rail fence.  Most of the area appears to have no existing gravestones.  This area is snake infested and should only be visited in colder weather.  The cemetery is in a low-lying farm field, and the area floods heavily to a depth of several feet during flood-prone times of the year.

N41 10.010 W77 20.705

Landowner / Caretaker:

Alfred B. and Wanda Munro

503 South Broad Street

Jersey Shore, PA 17740

Condition/Needs: 

Very Poor / Heavy brush must be cleaned out and stones re-set

History:

Adam Stech was an early settler in Wayne Township.  He maintained a farm near the river, and a little cemetery was established on his property.  The sons of Adam Stech never married, and the name died out.  All stones found on the site in 1951 and 1956 are still there today.

Local commentator Jake Haiden (aka Jacob Huff) wrote in 1911 that,

On our return, we ran across a private burial ground we had known nothing about. Here lie the two generations of Stechs. John Stechwas buried in 1815. [sic, John appears to be a son of Adam Stech, the founder]  His sons and daughters lie sleeping at his side. The sons never married, and the name of Stech died out of the neighborhood. Not a man bearing that good old German name is known in this county. The valuable farm has fallen into the hands of strangers, and the private burial place is overgrown with briars and trees, and the top of the marker fallen to the ground. Nobody cares. These two bachelor brothers should have married and left some one to carry their name and to care for their graves.  I do not advocate Rooseveltian families - the age for large families has passed away-but I do believe every sane man should leave a life behind in place of the one he takes away when he steps out. These forgotten and neglected graves in the Stech burial ground show that the Stechs neglected their duty during life. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap," is true in all phases of earthly existence.  In less than a century ninety-nine-percent of the world's dead are forgotten on earth. We, too, will be forgotten. Is there a record kept elsewhere? Are there more durable tablets than these rough mountain stones and granite?