(2/3) Happy 4th of July! I'm directly descended from 23 (and a half!) Revolutionary War veterans: gunnarmiller.substack.c…. There were three cemeteries I wanted to visit all within a reasonable driving arc with special relevance to today. I'll make three separate posts, and pepper in some regional photos for sense of place.

Right down the road at New Jerusalem (Dunkel's) Church greenwichtownshippa.org… outside Lenhartsville was a two-fer:

My 6th-great-grandfather Valentine Fischer (1752-1833) findagrave.com/memorial… and family were all in one row. He was a Pvt., 3rd Cl. 6th (Cpt. Boocher's) Co. 5th Douglas Township Bn. Berks Militia.

Right next to them was my 5th-great-grandfather Johannes Jacob Lenhart (1736-1793) who was a Fifer, 1st. (Lt. Col. Samuel Ely’s) Bn. 1780, 2nd (Cpt. Jacob Ladich’s Greenwich Twp.), Berks County Militia, 1780. His son Heinrich Lenhart (1773-1837) was the founder of Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania gunnarmiller.substack.c… .

My ancestors were thoughtful enough to be such early settlers that they 1) have front-row graveyard seats, and 2) were smart enough to have picked a shady plots on a 99F day.