The German Evangelical Cemetery was established in 1846 as the "Deutsche Evangelische Gottesacker" [German Evangelical Cemetery]. The first burial was apparently Catharina Glatt who died 11 August 1846. The cemetery was composed of 9.70 acres on land bounded by Lemp Avenue on the east, Cherokee Street on the north, Wisconsin on the west and Potomac on the south. The cemetery is also sometimes referred to as the Lemp Avenue Cemetery. Samuel Shepard School [now closed] was later built on the site. A separate Baptist Cemetery [now defunct] was located to the north directly across Cherokee Street.

The German Evangelical Cemetery was established by the "German Evangelical Congregation of St. Louis". That church was established in 1843 after a break with the German Evangelical Church of the Holy Ghost over a doctrinal dispute. The German Evangelical Congregation eventually had two churches: one in north St. Louis at 15th & Carr and the other in south St. Louis at 3rd and Lafayette. For awhile the same pastor served both congregations, holding alternate services at both locations. About 1848, it was decided that there would be two separate full time pastors to serve the two distinct congregations. The congregation in the south would become known as "The Evangelical St. Marcus Congregation" and the northern one would eventually become "St. Peter's Evangelical Church". The following death records for St. Marcus Church can be found online: ; ; found at http://stlouis.genealogyvillage.com/Buecher6.htm(/a

For a time, the German Evangelical Cemetery was run jointly by a committee of church members from both congregations. It was soon apparent that the 9 acres of the cemetery were not enough to serve both growing congregations. The cholera epidemic of 1849, with its large number of burials, soon made that evident. St. Peter's church established their own cemetery on Lucas & Hunt Roads in 1855 known as Saint Peter's Cemetery, while St. Marcus church established its cemetery in 1856 at 6638 Gravois. That cemetery is now known as Old Saint Marcus Cemetery. Only a few of the stones still exist in that cemetery and can be found in the Find A Grave listing for that cemetery.

An excellent article about this German Evangelical Cemetery was written by Shirley Wotawa and published in the "St. Louis Genealogical Society Quarterly", Fall 2006, pp. 71-75.

[Information above compiled by Robert Buecher, September 2015, Revised August 2017 [email protected] ]