Upper Burying Ground
A row of graves in the Upper Burying Ground.
Here are buried fifty-two known and five unknown soldiers of the Revolution, as well as eleven from the War of 1812 and one from the Mexican War. The burying ground was created in 1692 and the high front wall was completed in 1724. The burying ground was created from a deed by Paul Wulff. It had its own trustees who kept their own records, but didn't actually start keeping records until 1761. The burying ground was run by John Frederick Ax from 1724 to 1756.
Here lie many of the founders of Germantown, including William Dewees, sheriff of Germantown's independent government. Also buried here is Zachariah Poulson, who died in 1844 after having published The American Daily Advertiser, Philadelphia's principal daily newspaper for many years. One of the earliest stones is Cornelius Teisen who arrived in Germantown in 1684 and died in 1716 at age 63. The Lippard family is buried here, ancestors of the writer George Lippard, also a Germantown resident. There are Indians buried here and Germantown's "Methuselah," Adam Shisler, who died in 1777 and whose tombstone incorrectly reads, "age 969 years."
1. Photos by Greg Heller, Copyright © 2000 by the Independence Hall Association
2. Marion, John Francis. Bicentenial City: Walking Tours of Historic Philadelphia. Princeton: The Pyne Press, 1974.
3. Jenkins, Charles F. The Guide Book to Historic Germantown. Germantown Historical Society, 1973.
