Rocky Spring Presbyterian Church

I thought I would start this blog with my favorite cemetery: Rocky Spring Presbyterian Church in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Why is it my fave?

First, it is located just north of the town of Chambersburg, adjacent to Letterkenny Army Depot, which also places it relatively close to where I live. Since I moved to the Chambersburg area 8 years ago, the little town has seen an outlandish amount of growth, spurred, in part, by national retailers, such as Target, building humongous distribution warehouses along Interstate 81. When I first moved here from the Washington, D.C. metro area, Chambersburg still had a bit of a backwater feel. There was little traffic and one could drive for miles through open farm land. Now, housing developments dot the once-stunning landscape and traffic is no picnic.

The location of Rocky Spring is really special. Not far from a heavily-travelled highway, the road on which the church is located meanders past some older farmhouses, an apple orchard and even a very small trailer park but the church and cemetery are almost by themselves along a curving section just past the orchard. Every time I park along the small, one-car sized pull off, I feel like I’m a hundred miles away from anyone else.

Second, you can feel the history associated with Rocky Spring as soon as you walk up the little rise on which the church sits. The large red brick building was erected in 1794 but the congregation was authorized to build its original log church in 1738 according to History of the Rocky Spring Presbyterian Church and Addresses Delivered at the Centennial Anniversary of the Present Church Edifice, August 23, 1894. Many of those early settlers buried in the cemetery battled the native residents for the right to farm the surrounding land and then watched their children join the battle for the burgeoning nation’s freedom. Quite a number of the men’s gravestones are accompanied by Revolutionary War markers and several of those men went on to further serve the young country in public service roles. Reading the headstones reminds me that the foundations of this country were not focused solely on Philadelphia and Boston – how many of these little communities, forgotten to time, must there have been?

Also, Sarah Wilson (b. 1795 d. 1871) is entombed at Rocky Spring. Another name forgotten to larger history, Sarah Wilson lent her name (and large donations) to the private, liberal arts Wilson College. Wilson College was one of the first higher learning institutions in the U.S. to accept only women. Each year, the young women from the college make a pilgrimage to Rocky Spring and pay tribute to the college’s namesake.

Finally, I could talk about the beauty of the site and the large trees that dot the landscape but I think the photos speak for themselves. Instead, I will choose as my final favorite thing is that Martha Stewart is buried at Rocky Spring. Okay, not that Martha Stewart (I hope) but can’t you see the present-day Martha Stewart designing a setting like this for her final resting place?

I discovered Rocky Spring several years ago and, every year since, I return and walk through, reading the gravestones again. I understand that the Daughters of the American Revolution own the property and pay for the upkeep. For that, I am grateful.