Oppel / Opple Cemetery at Oppelville

This cemetery is located in Black Log Valley, a long, narrow depression between the Black Log and Shade Mountains in northern Lack Township. There was a post office located “at Oppelville, so called from an educated German farmer who lives there and keeps the office. There is a Methodist Episcopal Church at Oppelville, built principally . . . . as a Lutheran Church, nearby there is also a graveyard” [1]

This cemetery, about 75 feet x 90 feet, contains perhaps as many as thirty graves, many marked with only mountain stones. Other graves may be recognized by depressions in the ground. In 1970, the engraved tombstones were recorded by the Historical Society. Ten stones with the surnames of Steel, Vaughan, McKee, Gender, Parsons and Oppel were identified. Of these, the earliest burial occurred in 1847, the latest in 1914. Civil War Veteran Thomas H. Vaughan of Co. F 19th Regiment, PA Volunteer Cavalry is buried in this cemetery. There is no maintenance of the plot, which lies on Pennsylvania State Game Lands.

[1] History Of That Part Of The Susquehanna And Juniata Valleys Embraced In The Counties Of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union And Snyder In The Commonwealth Of Pennsylvania,
Volume I, Philadelphia, Everts, Peck & Richards, 1886, page 738.