Milwaukee County Wisconsin Genealogy

St. Johannes Lutheran Also known as Union Cemetery

History

St. Johannes Lutheran church at Eighth and Vliet streets combined with Trinity Lutheran at Tenth and Highland. Grace Lutheran, an east side church at Juneau and Broadway, joined them in 1865 to form a cemetery association. Forty one acres of land was purchased on Cedarburg Road (now Teutonia). Today it covers one hundred acres of land.

The original purchase was the south end between North Teutonia and Hopkins streets. The added acres extend from Teutonia to North Twentieth. There are many prominent families buried in the south section with large monuments to mark the graves.

Buried here are victims of the Lady Elgin disaster, Sept. 8, 1860.

When the cemetery was first established, Cedarburg road was filled with mud and ruts at certain times of the year. Driving was impossible. Often caskets had to be carried on foot some distance into the cemetery.