Settlers from Posen and Pomerania, Germany, came to this area in 1848 and formed St. John Lutheran Church in 1853. A smallpox epidemic in 1873 claimed the lives of 11 members, and they and other area victims were interred on the property of church member Henry Raatz. Most of these burials were unmarked, but Wilhelm F. Petrich's was the earliest marked grave. In 1878, Raatz donated this land to the church for a graveyard, and after more than a century, the community still uses the historic cemetery, which is maintained by an association formed in 1973.