From the intersection of PA Route 45 and 144 at Old Fort take PA Route 445 eastward approximately 6.7 miles (through Spring Mills) to Heckman Cemetery Road, which is an angled road on the right. (The Heckman Cemetery Road sign is also angled, and not very obvious when you are traveling east on Route 45.) Follow Heckman Road approximately one mile. The cemetery is on the left. Turn left at the corner of the cemetery, and there is a stone—grassy roadway into the cemetery next to the newest section, section three.

Heckman Cemetery is described as the oldest burial place in Gregg Township by John Blair Linn in his 1883 Centre County history. In 1785 John Shook set aside land, now section one of the cemetery, for a neighborhood burial ground. A child of his is believed to have been the first burial. The oldest marked stone found today is the 1799 stone of Johannes Schuck (John Shook) who was killed by a falling tree while he was working building his barn.

It was common practice in the cemeteries of the early 1800s to bury chronologically in rows rather than in family plots. Much of section one shows evidence of this practice.

A cemetery association named Liberty was formed in 1848 with the purchase of additional land. The association erected a "funeral chapel" used solely for preaching of funeral sermons. This building still stands although it is no longer in use.

Recently a third section has been added. This cemetery is an active cemetery in excellent condition.

The stones in section one appear to have been aligned sometime in the past to facilitate mowing. This resulted in many of the footstones from one row being intermixed with headstones of the adjacent row. We have included these footstones with the headstone which they match when appropriate.

Many of the stones in section two show signs of being moved there from somewhere else. They may have been moved from grassy roadway beside the chapel, or stones which were loose or on a pile at the end of the cemetery. There are very few unmarked fieldstones---they were probably discarded many years ago.