St. John Lutheran Church Cemetery
Llano, Llano County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The congregation of St. John Lutheran Church had been meeting in its new sanctuary for some four years when the death of one of its members, Anna Charlotte Lillie (Kowierschke) Bauer (1905-1930), led to the purchase of this half acre for use as the church cemetery. Her in-laws, J.W. Bauer (1874-1932) and Bertha (Flint) Bauer (1872-1956), are buried nearby in the same plot. The older grave of Christian Schneider (1838-1920) was moved here from an endangered location near the Llano River. Church members and family descendants care for this site that is a record of the lives of many of the Castell area's beloved citizens. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2001
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When a young member of St. John Lutheran Church died in 1930, the congregation purchased this half-acre for a cemetery, and an older grave endangered by the nearby Llano River was later moved here as well. Cared for by church members and family descendants, the ground holds many of the beloved citizens of the Castell area's German community. It was designated a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2001.
Why it matters
Rural church cemeteries like this one preserve the genealogy and heritage of immigrant farming communities, quiet archives of the families who settled the Texas Hill Country.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
St. John Lutheran Church
Castell, TX
German Lutherans along the Llano River were served by a circuit-riding lay minister as early as 1870, and formal congregations arose on both sides of the river in the Leiningen settlement in the following decades. The two churches merged in 1926 as St. Johannes Evangelische Gemeinde and built a new sanctuary, worshiping in German until the 1950s. As the community anglicized, the name became St. John Lutheran Church.
Trinity United Methodist Church Cemetery
Castell, TX
The oldest documented grave here, that of two-year-old Feodor Leifeste, dates to 1871, and two years later Carl Lehmberg deeded the land to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for a cemetery. Reflecting the region's strong German heritage, the burial ground served the Castell, Mason, and Llano communities with both marked and unmarked graves. Among those interred are German immigrants, Methodist ministers, and veterans of conflicts reaching back to the Civil War.
Castell School
Castell, TX
Schooling in the German settlement of Castell may reach back to 1852 by local tradition, but the written record begins in 1884, when Llano County designated it School District No. 6. The community built a two-room schoolhouse, expanded to three rooms in 1929, that taught ten grades — students finished high school in Llano, Fredericksburg, or Mason. Declining enrollment closed the school in 1948, after which the building lived on as a community center.
German Settlements
Castell, TX
In 1847 the German Emigration Company, led by Commissioner General John O. Meusebach, founded three settlements on the Fisher-Miller land grant. Castell, settled by Fredericksburg pioneers, became Llano County's first permanent town and the only lasting community the company established on the grant. Its neighbors did not survive: Leiningen vanished entirely, and Bettina — the first communal settlement in Texas — was abandoned within a year when supplies ran out.