Minister Citizens Memorial Shaft - Middletown, MD
N 39° 26.642 W 077° 32.817
18S E 280826 N 4369149
This group of citizens are very important to this German influenced town as they were former minsters of the town's church. The church erected two monuments to these citizens early in the 20th century, both next to each other in front of the church.
Waymark Code: WMCD23
Location: Maryland, United States
Date Posted: 08/23/2011
Views: 6
Zion Lutheran Church (R), Main Street, was built in 1860 to replace an earlier church building erected about 1783, A 12-foot marble shaft in the yard is a memorial to 31 Lutheran ministers born in the Middletown Valley. --- Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State, 1940; page 334.
The shaft is white, tapered and has inscriptions at the top and bottom. The top inscription is the dedication text, the bottom, a list of names of deceased brethren. The top reads:
In
Memory
Of
Deceased
Lutheran Ministers
Born
In This
Valley
Resurgemus.
The name on the front face are:
H.L. Wiles, D.D.,
Died Sept. 4th 1902.
______
J.T. Gladhill, A.M.,
Died Jan. 12th 1902.
______
M.L. Young, PH.D.,
Died Dec. 12th 1904.
______
J.W. Poffinberger, A.M.,
Died Mar. 30th 1909.
______
J.L. Smith, D.D.,
Died June 21st 1913.
______
Josiah Kuhn, M.S.,
Died July 28th 1913.
______
At the foot of the memorial is a length inscription in cursive writing. The top part is pretty worn and the bottom I could not understand; something about resting from labors and the dead following someone somewhere.
I guess people kept dying because when they ran out of room on this one the erected a smaller one to the rear left of this shaft. This one is half the size, has 6 names, the first death being in 1949, the last, 1977. It is of some kind of white stone with a rectangular prism shaped socle on the bottom.