Our next stop was Ebenezer Lutheran Church, which is located in the unincorporated community of Port Hudson or Leslie. It was organized on September 1, 1846.

The church’s original name was Deutsche Evangelische Lutheran Ebenezer Kirche, and the current structure was built in 1896 at a cost of just over $3,000. It is also a member of the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church.

The cemetery is very interesting, with some nice gravestones.

The one above, showing a hand clutching an anchor, which represents faith, has been buttressed by concrete.

We were also intrigued by these metal gravestones, such as the one above. It is certainly not iron, but instead zinc, I learned. They were pressed in molds from the 1870s to the 1910s. I would imagine the central portion could have letters typeset like a newspaper press so the names of the deceased could be easily changed. Interesting fact: the roofs of many Parisian buildings are zinc.

Most of the monuments are granite and limestone.

But there are many zinc monuments here and there, as you can see.

A beautiful church with an interesting discovery about historic gravestones, indeed.