Diller Genealogy - Page 51

The following data is extracted from The Diller Family, By JL Ringwalt.

APPENDIX

THE FAMILY GRAVEYARDS ON LOCH PLATZ.

Reference is made on one of the preceding pages to the family grave yard on Loch Platz, established there in accordance with a custom common among the early settlers in the vicinity of New Holland, in which Caspar Diller is presumably buried. As that farm, after remaining in the possession of various members of the Diller family for more than a century, was transferred during the last few years to new purchasers, the following statements, forwarded to me by Mr. Levi A. Diller, suggest the desirability of a removal of the remains of some of the early Dillers to one of the public graveyards in New Holland, if such a step is feasible. Under date of December 11, 1877, he writes as follows:

I have just returned from a visit to the graveyard mentioned in your letter, which I received last evening. I found there the tomb of Adam Diller, born December 23, 1783; died February 16, 1835. Beside him is buried Julianna Dietrich, who died in 1876; one tomb of Diller Hoover, a young man, a son of John and Diana Hoover, the latter was a sister of Mrs. Dietrich; also a tombstone of another young child, which I could not decipher, being in German, and very indistinct; besides all these there are three or four more graves, with nothing but common stones at head and foot to indicate that they are graves. This and nothing more could I make out in this particular graveyard. But Mr. Abraham Smoker (a con of Isaac Smoker, who for many years lived on the Philip Adam Diller farm), who has lived all his life on a farm adjoining the Adam Diller farm, in fact, it is part of the original tract of the Philip Adam Diller farm, pointed out to me the spot where Han Martin Diller was buried. This information he got when he was a boy or young man, and he had often seen the grave-stone there. It is a few hundred yards south of the Adam Diller graveyard. The story, as he heard it, was that Han Martin would not be buried in the old graveyard for some reason, and before his death selected this spot, under a chestnut tree, not far from the Welsh Mountains. It is all cultivated now, and has been for some years. The chestnut tree is gone, and nothing whatever remains to mark the spot. He (Mr. Smoker) recollects seeing the grave or graves there, but can only recall the name of Han Martin Diller as one of the occupants of those graves. I asked him whether he ever heard of Caspar Diller in connection with the graves. His reply was, he often heard the name of Caspar mentioned by the old Diller folks, but whether it had any connection with that burial-place he cannot recollect, but the name, Han Martin, he recollects distinctly, being told often by the Diller boys ( viz., Peter, Adam, and Enos) who was buried there, and how he came to be buried there, and not

Source: The Diller Family, By JL Ringwalt

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