Salem Reformed Church Cemetery
of
Rockport / Laurytown, Pa.
Located on a bluff overlooking the village of Rockport in Carbon County, is the tiny cemetery of the Salem Reformed Church.  Though the most recent burials were in the 1930s, the cemetery is well cared for and most of the stones are still legible.  The earliest legible burial occurred in 1824, making this one of Carbon County's oldest cemeteries.  During that early era, Rockport was known as "Grog Hollow", and was a lumbering center for the area, the cut logs being sent by river to Mauch Chunk where they were used to construct the early canal boats.

                                                NAME                                     DATES                      "INSCRIPTION"/AGE        PLOT
 

 

    Frederick Schmeiscors was born in Prussia about 1829.  He came to America with his wife and children when he was still a young man and settled in Carbon County, locating in old Lausanne Twp., now Lehigh Twp.  He took a job with the Hazleton Railroad, and was put in charge of the section from the Hazle Creek Bridge to the Planes at Penn Haven.  He commanded this section very ably for many years, until the branch and the planes were abandoned.  Afterward, he moved to Hazleton and for a time was a track foreman for the Lehigh Valley Railroad, but eventually he tired of being a railroader, and about 1885 he returned to Lehigh Twp. where he took up farming.  He spent his final years in following that occupation, residing near Rockport.  He died January 11, 1892 at his home.  The cause of his death was from pneumonia.
     Frederick  was well known in the area as one of its most useful and enterprising citizens.  Among his surviving children, Henry was a well-known engineer on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, while son James Schmeiscors (who shortened the spelling to “Smithcors”) continued the working of his late father’s farm, surviving his father by only a few years.  Daughter Nora served as the postmistress at Rockport until that office’s closing.
     Frederick and his wife Elizabeth, as well as their son James and his wife Clara, are buried in the old Salem Reformed Cemetery in the Laurytown Valley, near Rockport.

Email:  Jack Sterling

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