Sharon Lutheran Church and Cemetery

The present church replaced one built on this site in 1821. Typical of many rural late-nineteenth-century churches, it is a large, rectangular, frame structure with a projecting front tower topped by a pyramidal roof. Unfortunately the building lost much of its character with the addition of aluminum siding, but it still retains its early-twentieth-century, round-arched stained glass windows and original cast-metal oil-burning chandeliers. A cemetery immediately southwest of the church has a rare group of about sixty boldly carved headstones. Representing the folk culture and stone-carving skills of a large eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century German settlement in Wythe and Bland counties, the thick stone slabs are decorated on both sides with carved heart, pinwheel, and six-pointed star motifs. Other early Lutheran cemeteries are located in nearby Wythe (WY18) and Tazewell (see TZ18) counties, but none is as extensive as this burial ground.