Ruth Family Graveyard, Denver, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, USA

Notes:
Ruth Family Graveyard

Denver, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, USA

https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2578678/ruth-family-graveyard

Traveling west on Main Street out of Denver, pass the memorial park on right. Graveyard is on the farm across the road from memorial park. Graveyard is fenced with a stone wall and iron gate on hill west of the farm buildings. There is no driveway to graveyard and it sits in the middle of cornfields. Surnames in this Graveyard: Becker, Harnish, Hummer, Kurtz, Ranck, Ruth, Usner, and Weinhold.

The following information of this graveyard was taken from the research of ANNA RUTH SALZMAN who is a member of the BERKS COUNTY GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY Editorial Board, and also a GREAT,GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER OF CHRISTIAN RUTH AND HIS FIRST WIFE ELIZABETH KURTZ.

Printed in the Journal of the BCGS (Spring 1992) On the outskirts of Denver in Lancaster County, in the middle of a field, lies the Ruth private cemetery. This Ruth family originated in Berks County and many of its descendants migrated back to Berks.

The family is descended from the immigrant Peter Ruth of Walhausen, present-day Saarland, who arrived on Sept 18. 1733, at Philadelphia with his first wife Anna Sophia Lauer and four young sons: Michael, Jacob, Christian, and Peter. The immigrant Peter married secondly Catharine Meyer and had 10 additional children. He died in 1771 in Cumru Township (Berks.)

The youngest son, Francis Ruth (1750-1808) married Elisabeth Dester, daughter of Jacob Dester of Bern Township. In January 1800, Francis bought the 355-acre farm of the recently deceased Abraham Kurtz, and moved his family of six sons and five daughters from the vicinity of St John's (Hains) Reformed Church, Wernersville, to the Denver area of Lancaster County.

In 1808, Francis died and was buried at Muddy Creek Church, at which time his son Christian Ruth (1781-1848) became owner of the property on which the Ruth graveyard lies. It had originally been laid out and used for the burial of Abraham Kurtz, whose daughter later became Christian's first wife.

Christian retired from farming during the 1820s and was succeeded by his son Peter (1802-1842) but within a decade the farm passed out of the family.

The tombstones were read by Maude B Gerhart, a longtime historian of the Ruth Family Association and granddaughter of Moses and Elizabeth (Ruth) Weinhold, who are buried there.

ANNA RUTH SALZMAN recorded 30 graves in this graveyard. There are 39 listed on Findagrave. Some of them are likely footstones.

Latitude: 40.2371050, Longitude: -76.1467970