Salem Lutheran Cemetery
Tomball, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This burial ground began as the Scherer Family Cemetery. The Scherers were among the early settlers of Rosehill, a rural community in northwest Harris County. The first German settlers began arriving by way of Galveston in 1846. Through the efforts of founding pastor Johann Heinrich Braschler and local residents Jacob and Henry Theis, C. W. Winkler, and George Scherer, Salem Lutheran Church was established as a congregation in 1851. By the late 1880s, in addition to the church, the area also had a post office, seven cotton gins, three general stores, a sawmill, a gristmill, a blacksmith and a wagon maker. The first burials here were of Helena Scherer (d. 1859) and her brother, Reinhardt Johann Scherer (d. 1860). The first non-family member buried here was Eva Achenback Theis (d. 1861). In 1864, three men who died in the Spring Creek Powder Mill explosion were interred here. In 1869, George Scherer transferred property including the cemetery to Salem Lutheran Church; the cemetery changed its name at this time. Those buried here include veterans of military conflicts dating to the Civil War. Others interred include many early Rosehill residents and other individuals who attended the church but lived in nearby communities such as Cypress Top, Decker Prairie and Willow Creek. Cemetery features include vertical stones, obelisks, interior fencing, grave slabs, statuary and German-language markers. Set among trees and vegetation, Salem Lutheran Cemetery remains active while continuing to serve as a record of the area's early settlers. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2008 SUPPLEMENTAL PLAQUE: In the 1890s, two cousins were both named William Theis. Misdirected mail resulted in William from Klein adding an "s" to the spelling of Theis.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This burial ground began as the Scherer family cemetery among the German immigrants who settled the Rosehill community of northwest Harris County beginning in 1846, arriving by way of the port of Galveston. The families who worshipped at Salem Lutheran Church laid their dead here, including three men killed in an 1864 powder-mill explosion and veterans reaching back to the Civil War. When George Scherer deeded the ground to the church in 1869, the cemetery took the congregation's name, and its German-language stones and obelisks still record the community's founding generation.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a stone archive of German immigrant settlement in Texas, preserving in its inscriptions the language, faith, and losses of the pioneers who built the Rosehill community.
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Related people
- · George Scherer
- · Rev. Johann Heinrich Braschler
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Salem Lutheran School
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