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Title: Pennsylvania Dutch Guide-Book
Author: Anonymous
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Pennsylvania Dutch Guide-Book" ***
STATEMENT OF THE POLICY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH TOURIST BUREAU IN OUR
RELATIONS WITH THE AMISH
_We recognize that the Amish way of life is based on the literal
application of the Word of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ
to their everyday life, with the result that many of their customs and
beliefs have a religious significance not immediately apparent to those
not of the Amish faith._
_It is our purpose to give to those beliefs and customs of the Amish,
which are matters of religion, the same respect and reverence which we
give to symbols of other religions._
_Exodus 20:4 states: “Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor
the likeness of anything that is in heaven above or in the earth
beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth.”_
_The Amish believe that the taking of photographs violates this
commandment if the face of the individual photographed is recognizable
as that individual. We agree not to violate that rule without the
permission of the person photographed._
* * * * * * * *
This Official Guide-Book of the Pennsylvania Dutch Tourist Bureau has
been prepared solely for the purpose of making the tourist’s visit to
Lancaster County the interesting and enjoyable experience it should be.
Situated but a few hours drive from many of the great cities of the
eastern United States, the Pennsylvania Dutch Country offers more to the
tourist than perhaps any other area of our country. Honeycombed with
fine hard-topped roads, Lancaster County is the happy hunting ground for
the visitor, who wishes to concern himself with the quaint and the
historic. It is the ideal spot for quiet leisurely travel through the
most picturesque and well-tended farm land to be found anywhere.
Inasmuch as the Plain People of Lancaster County are of great interest
to the tourist considerable space in the Guide-Book has been devoted to
them. Certainly, these fine agrarians, with their quaint customs and
their somber dress, will command much of the visitors’ attention but
they are by no means the only reason for spending much time in this
section of Pennsylvania. You are urged to make a careful study of this
Guide-Book, so that you will be fully aware of all that the Pennsylvania
Dutch Country has to offer.
* * * * * * * *
_The Pennsylvania Dutch Tourist Bureau does not suggest travel in
strictly Amish farm areas on Sundays, because of possible interference
with the Amish observance of the Sabbath._
PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH
GUIDE-BOOK
_Compiled and Edited by_
A SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF THE
PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH TOURIST BUREAU
[Illustration: Tourist Bureau Logo]
_Published by_
THE PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH TOURIST BUREAU
1800 Hempstead Road
Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17601
Phone 717 393-9705
Copyright 1962
Revised 1972
Pennsylvania Dutch Tourist Bureau
When traveling in Lancaster County—Look for this Emblem.
[Illustration: Tourist Bureau Logo]
The Official Emblem of the Pennsylvania Dutch Tourist Bureau members.
Show your friends what you have seen in the land of the Plain People
“_Lancaster County Heritage_” OR “Beautiful Lancaster County”
Your choice of 2 beautiful 16 mm, 27 minute, sound and color motion
pictures of Lancaster County are available for showing to your club,
social group, P.T.A., etc.
For reservation dates, write to:
The Pennsylvania Dutch Tourist Bureau
1800 Hempstead Road
Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17601
We are interested in showing the film,
[_] “_Lancaster County Heritage_”
[_] “Beautiful Lancaster County”
PLEASE CHECK YOUR FIRST CHOICE
___________________________________________________
(Name of Organization)
on ____________ to ____________
(Date) (Approximate no. of people)
___________________________________________________
(Your Name)
___________________________________________________
(No. and Street)
___________________________________________________
(City and State)
___________________________________________________
(Zip Code)
Highlights of Lancaster’s History
By DR. H. M. J. KLEIN
_Oftimes referred to as “Mr. Lancaster,” Dr. H. M. J. Klein has made a
contribution to virtually every facet of public life. Teacher, minister
of the Gospel, and counselor in affairs of City and State._
Lancaster County soil was fertile Indian territory long before the
discovery of America. Before the coming of William Penn, French traders
bartered with the native Shawanese. In the later days when there was
trouble between the French and the English in America, the governor of
the province, John Evans, visited these Indian settlements in order to
establish their loyalty to Queen Anne.
As early as 1709 a colony of Mennonites came from Switzerland under the
leadership of Hans Herr—whose house is still standing, the oldest in the
County—and began to make this district the richest agricultural region
in the United States. Then came the French Huguenots, the Scotch-Irish,
the Quakers, the Welsh, the Palatines.
At the time when Pennsylvania had only three counties, Philadelphia,
Bucks and Chester, from the last-named county a section was separated,
to which John Wright, a native of Lancaster, England, one of the first
settlers in this region, gave the name of Lancaster County. This
separation took place in 1729. Out of the original Lancaster County,
York, Cumberland, Berks, Northumberland, Dauphin and Lebanon counties
have since been taken, leaving Lancaster County today an area of 928
square miles of territory which for beauty, fertility and
picturesqueness is unexcelled.
On a plot of ground owned by Andrew Hamilton, and divided by him into
town lots, there sprang up two hundred and thirty years ago an embryo
village called “Hickory Town” or “Gibson’s Pasture” which was the
beginning of what is now known as Lancaster City. When Andrew Hamilton
laid out this village in 1730 on the 500-acre tract of land he owned,
there were less than two hundred inhabitants in the town. It was through
his son, James Hamilton, that the village was turned into a borough in
1742. The first Burgess of Lancaster was Thomas Cookson, an Englishman,
whose remains are interred in the church yard of St. James Episcopal
Church.
A number of important Indian treaties were made at Lancaster in 1744
between the chiefs of the Six Nations and the rulers of Pennsylvania,
Virginia and Maryland. In the formulation of these treaties, all the
disputes between the whites and the Indians came up for discussion.
During the French and Indian War, through the influence of Benjamin
Franklin, hundreds of wagons and pack horses were sent from Lancaster to
General Braddock. Many officers and soldiers from this section served in
the battalions which marched with Forbes and Bouquet to the Ohio. In
this list of Lancaster County men who served in the French and Indian
Wars are found the names of Shippen, Grubb, Atlee, Hambright, Reynolds
and a roll of five Presbyterian clergymen serving as chaplains.
The Indian history of Lancaster County ends in 1763, when a band of
sixty men called the Paxton boys came to this city, stormed the jail and
workhouse, then located at the northwest corner of West King and Prince
Streets, and massacred all the Indians confined there for protection.
In the days of the American Revolution, Lancaster was an important
center of patriotic activities. After the closing of Boston Port, a
meeting of protest was held in the Lancaster Court House. Her deputies
attended the Pennsylvania Convention in Philadelphia and joined in a
call for a Colonial Congress. After Lexington, the citizens at a public
meeting pledged their lives and fortunes to the cause of all the
Colonies, and companies of expert riflemen were organized. William
Simpson of Captain Smith’s Lancaster company, was the first Pennsylvania
soldier who fell in the Revolutionary War. Many British prisoners were
brought to Lancaster, among them being Major Andre, kept for a time at
the Cope House, corner of Grant and North Lime Streets.
When the British were on the point of occupying Philadelphia,
Continental Congress and the Executive Council of Pennsylvania were
removed to Lancaster. The members of Continental Congress arrived here
on September 27, 1777, the very day on which General Howe entered
Philadelphia. The records and treasury were removed to Lancaster by way
of Reading. One session of Congress was held here; but the members,
believing that they might be interrupted by the enemy, resolved to
remove Congress to York.
The Executive Council of Pennsylvania met here on October 1, 1777 and
its sessions continued to be held in this city for nearly nine months,
during which time the President of the Council, the Hon. Thomas J.
Wharton, Jr., died, and was interred in Trinity Evangelical Lutheran
Church.
Lancaster furnished a signer of the Declaration of Independence in the
person of George Ross. Another son of Lancaster, who brought distinction
to his native soil, was David Ramsay, the historian of the Revolution.
William Henry conducted a gun factory to manufacture and repair arms for
the Continental army. His son, John Joseph Henry, took part in the
expedition against Quebec and immortalized the campaign by his accurate
and interesting account of the hardships and sufferings of that band of
heroes who traversed the wilderness in an attempt to take Canada for the
Colonial cause.
[Illustration: ROCK FORD
Restored Home of General Edward Hand
Open to Visitors Built 1796]
The greatest military hero of Lancaster during the Revolution was
General Edward Hand, one of Washington’s most trusted aides, who fought
in the battles of Trenton and Long Island, succeeded Stark in command at
Albany, and accompanied Sullivan’s Expedition against the Six Nations in
1779. His home “Rock Ford” still stands along the Conestoga River in the
southeastern part of the city. Under the roof of this hospitable
mansion, General Washington, Lady Washington and many soldiers and
civilians famous in the early annals of our nation found shelter and
congenial companionship.
In Revolutionary days the Moravian brethren at Lititz cared for many
wounded soldiers, Continental, British, and Hessian, in a building that
is still standing. Peter Miller among the Brothers and Sisters in the
Ephrata Cloister translated the Declaration of Independence into many
foreign tongues.
Lancaster is the home of Franklin and Marshall College. This institution
developed out of what was originally Franklin College, founded at the
suggestion of Benjamin Franklin. The Legislature of Pennsylvania granted
the College its first charter in 1787. Among the first trustees were
four signers of the Declaration of Independence and seven officers of
the Revolutionary Army.
George Washington visited Lancaster on several occasions, the most
notable of which fell on the fifteenth anniversary of American
Independence, July 4, 1791.
Lancaster was the capital of Pennsylvania from 1799 to 1812, when the
state capital was removed to Harrisburg. The State Legislature met in
the Court House, which at that time was known as the State House, and
stood in the center of the square, where the Soldiers’ and Sailors’
Monument now stands.
Old Lancaster, with its Conestoga wagons, its story-and-a-half
buildings, its colonial architecture, its historic associations, was the
largest inland town in the colonies up to the time of the formation of
the nation. It had 678 houses and 4,200 inhabitants in 1786. On its
streets Robert Fulton played as a boy. The original Fulton birthplace is
still standing in southern Lancaster County. The oldest continuous
business firm in the county was the Steinman Hardware Company
established in 1744 and closing in 1964. It was the oldest hardware
store in the United States. The Demuth Tobacco Shop on East King Street,
established in 1770, is the oldest tobacco shop in the United States.
The Hager store is the oldest department store in America continuing on
the same site and operated by the Hager family throughout the whole
period of its history. One of Lancaster’s daily newspapers has been in
existence for over a hundred and sixty-nine years.
Old Lancaster became New Lancaster when, after a period of seventy-six
years under burgess rule, the town was incorporated as a city by a
charter granted in 1818. John Passmore became the first Mayor of the
city.
In the hundred and forty-eight years since its formation as a city,
Lancaster has been the scene of widespread activities. It has developed
into a progressive modern city under the leadership of men, many of whom
have exerted a nation-wide influence. Foremost among these men was
President James Buchanan, who first came into prominence as a young
Lancaster lawyer in 1814, through a speech he delivered at a public
meeting in this city after the city of Washington had been captured by
the British. He was among the first to register as a volunteer with a
company of dragoons, who marched from here for the defense of Baltimore.
He represented this community in Congress when he was barely 29 years of
age. From here he went to St. Petersburg under an appointment of
President Jackson as Minister to Russia. Upon his return, he was chosen
United States Senator and filled that office for ten years, after which
he became Secretary of State under President Polk and later United
States Minister to England under President Pierce. At the time of his
election as the 15th President of the United States, he lived in the
fine old colonial mansion known as “Wheatland” built in the suburbs of
Lancaster. Few persons visit Lancaster for the first time without
getting a glimpse of this historic spot, which has lost none of its
generous hospitality. In Woodward Hill Cemetery, South Queen Street,
five blocks from Penn Square, rests the remains of James Buchanan. The
recently restored gravesite includes an exact replica of the marble tomb
in granite. It is now a worthy shrine for Pennsylvania’s only native
President. School children throughout the State contributed to the
restoration, which was sponsored by the Pilot Club.
[Illustration: WHEATLAND
Restored Home of President Buchanan
_A National Historic Landmark_
Open to Visitors Built 1828]
Lancaster has many associations with the Civil War. The first bloodshed
in the United States caused by the Fugitive Slave Law, occurred in
Christiana, Lancaster County.
President Lincoln, on his way to the White House from Springfield,
stopped at Lancaster and delivered an address from the balcony of the
Caldwell House, now the site of the Hilton Inn. When he passed through
this city again on April 21, 1865, Lincoln’s body rested in a
heavily-draped funeral car, and the sorrowing crowds stood with
uncovered heads while the train passed. But between these two events,
Lancaster showed its loyalty to Lincoln and his cause by a remarkable
response to the call of the Union for troops in the war of the
Rebellion. Soldiers from Lancaster County were found in sixty regiments
of Pennsylvania. The well-known seventy-ninth regiment commanded by
Colonel Hambright was composed wholly of volunteers. Shortly before the
battle of Gettysburg, when General Early reached York and the brigade
was sent to hold the bridge at Columbia, and the bridge was set on fire
in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Southern Army,
long lines of refugees passed through Lancaster. At Gettysburg, Major
General John Fulton Reynolds, worthy son of Lancaster, commanding the
Pennsylvania reserves, was among the first to lay down his life on his
country’s altar. His body was carried to Lancaster and lies buried in
the family enclosure in the Lancaster Cemetery. Every visitor to
Gettysburg knows of the handsome statue erected to the memory of General
Reynolds on that immortal battlefield.
On the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, now standing in Center Square,
the names of the following battlefields are carved in high relief:
Gettysburg, Antietam, Malvern Hill, Vicksburg, Wilderness, Chaplin
Hills, Chickamauga, Petersburg. These names are a testimony to the
martial valor of Lancaster County in the Civil War.
Lancaster has furnished many notable men and women to our national life.
Thaddeus Stevens, the Great Commoner, lived in this city during the
greater portion of his life. He was elected by the Whig Party to
Congress in 1848, and threw himself into the arena as the aggressive foe
of slavery. Throughout the Civil War he was one of the most strenuous
advocates of emancipation and an able counsellor of President Lincoln.
After his death in 1868, a noted historian said, “In the Congress of the
United States from the time of its first officer, Frederick Augustus
Muhlenberg, to this day, there was just one man who when he occupied a
seat in that body held more power than any man in the government, and
that man was a citizen of Lancaster County, Thaddeus Stevens.”
Among the many other notable personages associated with Lancaster were
Benjamin West, the famous painter; Lindley Murray, America’s foremost
grammarian; Lloyd Mifflin, one of the finest sonneteers of modern times,
and Barbara Frietchie, who was born here.
To education, Lancaster has given the services of three State
Superintendents of Public Instruction, James P. Wickersham, E. E. Higbee
and Nathan C. Schaeffer; also Thomas W. Burrowes, the father of the free
school system of Pennsylvania. In art, Lancaster has contributed the
portrait painter, Jacob Eichholtz, who painted more than two hundred and
fifty portraits, among his subjects being Chief Justice Marshall and
many others of the foremost people of his day. The well-known Baron
Stiegel was for many years a resident of Lancaster County and
established in the town of Manheim a glass factory, the wares of which
are highly cherished by antiquarians.
There is a remarkable mingling in Lancaster County of the old and the
new—an atmosphere of quaintness, friendliness and cordiality. The county
is full of the beauty and bounty of God, as the old of yesterday and the
new of tomorrow meet in the Lancaster area whose influence reaches far
and wide in the shaping of the larger life of the nation.
Some Historic Churches in Lancaster County
By DR. H. M. J. KLEIN
In response to William Penn’s invitation, a large number of European
people left their homes during the first quarter of the eighteenth
century and came to Pennsylvania in search of religious freedom and
economic opportunity.
Following the rivers and the Indian trails from Philadelphia they soon
found their way to the rich soil which is now Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania.
As early as 1709 a small group of Mennonites, followers of the martyr
Menno Simons—“Switzers” as they were called—arrived in Penn’s Province,
found their way to the Pequea creek and took up 10,000 acres of land.
They were the direct descendants of the bitterly persecuted Anabaptists
of the 16th century. They brought with them their lay ministers and
their Bibles, and worshipped at first in their log houses. Later when
these pioneer farmers began to erect meeting houses, they divided the
building into two apartments by a swinging partition suspended from the
ceiling. One apartment was used for religious, and the other for school
purposes. Today, large Mennonite ‘meeting houses’ as their church
buildings are called, are found everywhere in Lancaster County: at
Willow Street, Mellingers, Strasburg, Manheim, Warwick and Brecknock as
well as in a score of other congregational centers. Their ministers are
now educated in the Mennonite colleges and seminaries. Two customs,
however, have been strictly maintained: feet-washing in connection with
the communion service, and the prayer head-covering among the women of
the church.
The Amish are an offspring from the Mennonites on the practice of
shunning. They came to America later. The names of Amish families are
found among the early settlers of Lancaster County as early as 1725.
About 1740 an Amish congregation was established near the headwaters of
the Conestoga and Pequea creeks in Lancaster County. This settlement has
continued to be a prosperous Amish community, and today this region
constitutes one of the largest Amish settlements in America.
The early Amish settlers worshipped in private houses. They believed
that to erect houses of worship was a tendency toward worldliness. They
all continued this practice of worship until more recently. Today there
are “House-Amish” and “Church-Amish.” The branch which is known among
them as the “Old Order” still continues to worship in private
homesteads. The Church Amish acquired a ‘church house’ for use in public
worship. Their plain meeting houses are to be found in northeastern
Lancaster County. Religion, whether in homestead or church, has first
place in Amish life.
The Church of the Brethren, sometimes called Dunkers, is another group
of the plain People of Europe who accepted William Penn’s invitation in
1719 and to find its way to the Conestoga Valley. They follow closely
the practice of the Apostolic Church. Since 1776 they have had higher
institutions of learning, among them Elizabethtown College located
within the boundary of Lancaster County. They have established homes for
the aged, the infirm and the orphans in our area, and are well organized
for missionary endeavor. Their substantial church buildings are
scattered throughout the county.
While the Plain People were among the earliest and most unique settlers
in Lancaster County, they were soon followed in large numbers by the
so-called church people of Europe: the Lutherans, the Reformed, the
Moravians, the members of the Church of England and the Church of
Scotland, whose descendants today constitute a large majority of the
inhabitants of this county.
The Lutherans who probably outnumber the members of any other religious
denomination in Lancaster County, were among the earliest settlers
having been associated with New Sweden as early as 1643. Many of their
churches were founded in the county in the second quarter of the 18th
century. The New Holland Trinity Church dates from 1730. The old Warwick
Church at Brickerville records baptisms from 1731. St. Michael’s in
Strasburg has a similar entry on May 1, 1730. Then there is the story of
Old Trinity in Lancaster, with its beginning in 1729, the year in which
Lancaster County was established. Its church building and school house
were commenced in 1734.
The German Reformed Church people, coming from the Palatinate, were in
the Conestoga Valley before 1725. For the next few years religious
meetings were conducted in private houses by Conrad Tempelmann. On
October 15, 1727 the first Reformed communion service was held in what
is now known as Heller’s Church in Upper Leacock Township. When
Lancaster became a Townstead, there were Reformed congregations at
Lancaster, Cocalico and Zeltenreich.
Among the churches that branched from Heller’s Church was the First
Reformed congregation in Lancaster. Its log church was built and
dedicated in 1734 on a plot of ground given by James Hamilton.
Among the 18th century Reformed congregations in Lancaster County are
Maytown, Muddy Creek, Bethany near Ephrata, Zion’s at Brickerville;
Christ Church, Elizabethtown; St. Stephens, New Holland; Zeltenreich,
near New Holland; Zion, New Providence; Swamp, West Cocalico; St.
Paul’s, Manheim.
Lancaster County is one of the centres of the Moravian Church in
America. The Lititz congregation was organized soon after 1742,
following the visit of Count Zinzendorf. The original Gemeinhaus was
dedicated a few years later. Trombones were substituted for French horns
in the church orchestra in 1770.
[Illustration: TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH]
The Moravian Church in Lancaster has an interesting history. Count
Zinzendorf preached in the Court House in Center Square, Lancaster, in
1742, when he was asked by some of his hearers to send a regular
preacher to serve them. When Bishop Spangenberg preached in the Court
House and advocated a merger of the church denominations, he was pelted
with stones. The result was that the Moravians of Lancaster erected a
stone church of their own on the corner of Orange and Market streets. It
is recorded that the brethren gathered from Warwick to Lancaster to haul
stone for the building, fifteen men and eight wagons in two days
bringing in 94 large loads of the finest stone.
The ministrations of the Church of England came to the Lancaster County
area very early. The rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church is known to
have made journeys on the road to Conestoga in 1717 and to have designed
to preach there once a month.
St. John’s Church, Pequea, has had an interesting history since 1728.
Probably the oldest inland Episcopal church in America is the Bangor
Church of Churchtown, founded by the early Welsh in 1722. The first
church built of logs was completed in 1734. This church derived its name
from the Bangor Cathedral in Wales. In its burial ground lie soldiers of
every war, including the French and Indian. It is said that George
Washington worshipped here in 1758 and later during his winter at Valley
Forge.
St. James’ is the Pioneer Episcopal church in Lancaster city. The first
entry in the record of St. James’ Parish is dated October 3, 1744. Land
for the building site was donated by James Hamilton. Thomas Cookson,
Lancaster’s first Burgess, raised the money for the building. The church
was built in 1754 on the lot still occupied for that purpose, and has
been an historic landmark in Lancaster for more than two centuries.
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Lancaster, dates from 1853. It was
established by Bishop Bowman and was known as St. John’s Free Church, in
which the seats would be free to all who desired to avail themselves of
the privileges of God’s house.
The Scotch Irish and the Welsh came to Lancaster County in the second
decade of the 18th century, and brought with them the tenets of the
Presbyterian church. The Rev. David Evans founded the Upper Octorara
Church in 1720 and was at Donegal in the same year. For twenty years the
immigration from Ulster averaged 20,000 a year. Donegal in Lancaster
County became one of the strong seats of Presbyterianism in America. The
Donegal Church became a center of patriotic endeavor, both in the French
and Indian War and in the American Revolution. Its story is unique in
American church history.
The Pequea Presbyterian Church dates back to the Rev. Adam Boyd who came
from Ireland in 1722 and organized a group of churches west of the
Octoraro. In 1731 the Pequea Church secured his services every sixth
Sabbath.
The first log Pequea Church stood near a large white oak tree, which is
still standing and marks the spot where Geo. Whitefield preached.
The Middle Octoraro Presbyterian Church was organized by the Rev. Adam
Boyd in 1727. In the lower end of the county the Chestnut Level Church
and the Little Britain Church belong to the early colonial period, as
does the Leacock Church of 1739.
[Illustration: FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH]
The First Presbyterian Church of Lancaster began in 1763, when James
Hamilton granted Lot No. 19 on East Orange Street, on which a church
building was erected in 1767. Services were held in the old Court House
in Centre Square while the church was being built with funds secured by
a lottery enterprise. This method was frequently used in the 18th
century to build churches or construct roads.
The Presbyterian Church of Strasburg was dedicated on Christmas Day,
1833; that of Marietta in 1821; of Mt. Joy, 1840; of Christiana, 1859;
Memorial Presbyterian Church of Lancaster, 1871.
Methodist ministers first visited Lancaster County in 1781, and a year
later the Lancaster Circuit was formed. Bishop Asbury, who died in 1816,
was well known in Lancaster County. He frequently stayed in Strasburg at
the Inn of John Funck who painted his portrait on a now famous wooden
panel in Washington, D. C. The Methodists erected a church near Willow
Street in 1791, and another at Strasburg in 1807.
Fifty-four clergymen are named as having supplied the local Methodist
churches of Lancaster County up to the year 1802 when the Soudersburg
church was erected. Boehm’s Church, still standing in Pequea township,
was a pioneer Methodist institution. Henry Boehm had a great deal to do
with the founding of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Lancaster
in 1807. The church building was erected in 1809 at the corner of Walnut
and Christian streets. In 1840 ground was acquired extending the church
lot to Duke street, where a handsome church structure now stands.
[Illustration: ST. JAMES EPISCOPAL]
St. Paul’s Methodist Church dates from 1849; Broad Street from 1867;
Bethel African Methodist Church from 1821. Many Methodist churches are
found in southern Lancaster County and in the Octoraro Valley, and in
all the Boroughs.
The Church of the United Brethren was the outcome of a meeting held in
the Isaac Long barn near Oregon, Lancaster County, in the middle of the
18th century, when leaders of four denominations decided to be Brethren.
It was not, however, until 1800 that the new denomination was separately
organized. The oldest United Brethren congregation in Lancaster County
is Ranck’s in the New Holland Circuit. The congregation met for forty
years in a private house until a church was built in 1844.
There are many United Brethren churches in rural Lancaster County. The
Otterbein U. B. Church in Lancaster City began in 1902 as a Mission
Sunday School and has grown into one of the most vigorous churches in
the city.
It is impossible in this space to do more than mention some of the other
denominations, some of which are comparatively strong in Lancaster
County. There are the United Evangelical churches, the Winebrennerians,
or Church of God, members who have been active in the county for more
than a century; the German Baptists and the English Baptists; the Church
of Christ; the Swedenborgians and the Evangelical Association.
The Quakers crossed the Atlantic with Wm. Penn, and soon found their way
into what is now Lancaster County. John Kennerly settled near Christiana
in 1691. The first Friends meeting house was erected by Sadsbury Quakers
in 1725. The Bart meeting house, erected 100 years later, represented
the views of the Hicksite Friends. In 1758 the Penn Hill meeting house
was built. The Quaker meeting house at Bird-in-Hand dates from 1749, the
same year in which the Lampeter meeting house was built.
The Church of Our Father (Unitarian) was a rather late arriver in
Lancaster. It was organized in 1902, and the stone church on West
Chestnut Street was dedicated in 1909. The lecture hall in connection
with the church was named Emerson Hall.
Independent congregations like the First Baptist, Calvary Independent,
Seventh Day Adventists, Church of the Nazarene, Pentecostal Association,
Christian Scientists, and Latter Day Saints have substantial church
buildings in Lancaster. To this group we may add the Monastic Orders of
provincial Ephrata, with their remarkable buildings at the Cloister.
These Seventh Day Baptists, with their Prayer Hall, (The Saal), built
about 1734, are unique in American history and folklore.
The first Roman Catholic Mission in Lancaster was established in 1741. A
log church was built in 1742 on the site of the present St. Mary’s
Convent. Father Keenan served St. Mary’s Church for more than half a
century. St. Joseph’s and St. Anthony’s followed in the 19th century.
St. Peter’s of Elizabethtown was founded in 1752. A number of Catholic
churches are to be found in the boroughs of the county, and impressive
churches have been erected in the city.
The Jewish faith has been established in Lancaster since 1732. The first
organized congregation of Jews in Pennsylvania met at the home of Joseph
Simon, a Lancaster merchant. Later they met in a building on the
northwest corner of North Queen Street and Centre Square. The first
Temple was built in 1866, and the present structure at Duke and James
Streets was dedicated in 1896.
In the nature of the case, we must forego reference to most of the
individual churches in the Lancaster area, in this brief outline. My
purpose in writing this article has been to impress on the public the
fact that religion since early colonial and provincial days has been a
vital factor in the area of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
[Illustration: DONEGAL CHURCH AND WITNESS TREE
In June, 1777, the members of Donegal Church (est. 1719), one of the
major centers of early American Presbyterianism, forced their
pastor, Mr. McFarquhar, to gather with them under the tree outside
the Church and “bear witness” to support of the sacred cause of the
American Revolution. The “Witness Tree,” a fine old oak, and the
church, still stand. Both may be visited.]
Folk Art of the Pennsylvania Dutch
By JANE AND JACOB ZOOK
_Pennsylvania Dutch Craftsmen, Writers and Decorators._
Hex Signs and Distelfinks, Tulips and Cut Tomatoes, those marvelous
motifs of Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Art, form a part of our American
cultural background which is second to none as a true folk art. In
America there is no equal to this gay, colorful and bold art form of the
early settlers of southeast Pennsylvania. The reading and learning of
the “whys and ways” of this unique form of art can give not only the
satisfaction of knowing, but also of doing, as its simplicity of design
and frankness of execution inspires those who are untutored to attempt
to create.
As Pennsylvania Dutchmen and craftsmen may we invite you all to join us
in sharing this heritage of ours which is compounded of “fun and fancy”
and diligent work. Paint our hex signs and distelfinks on your barns and
kitchen cupboards; work the designs into your needle point and rugs; and
decorate your furniture with hearts and tulips. Let our folk art inspire
you to create useful household objects of clay and wood and adorn them
with a gay splash of color and a whimsical motif.
We like to feel that the spirit of the Folk Artist did not die out
entirely around 1850, as the historians claim, but a tiny spark survives
to inspire present day craftsmen. A friend of ours makes beautiful
pottery inspired by our early sgraffito dishes and utensils; another
cross stitches the “birds and deers” from old samplers onto present day
placemats; we paint fruit and flowers on chairs and chests; and all of
us are greatly influenced by this marvelous source of design. There’s a
Hex Sign Painter around these parts who will do a “rain sign” for you.
He did one last summer for a Texan’s barn. Hoping for rain the Texan
hung the sign and the next day “the rains came”—so they tell me. So why
not let our love of color and a little of our superstition take hold of
you, and if you have the patience and diligence of a Pennsylvania
Dutchman, get to work and have fun.
Frances Lichten’s wonderful book “Folk Art of Rural Pennsylvania” should
be read by anyone who is interested in the source, the nature and the
form of this art; and, for the more serious student, John Joseph
Stoudt’s beautifully written volume, “Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Art,” will
help explain the mystical significance of the design motifs.
Folk Art as such no longer exists in our land, as a true folk art is
only found in a homogeneous culture. But a definite trend towards
craftsmanship does exist, and too, a definite stirring of pride in
producing beautiful and useful things with one’s own hands.
Goot Gluck.
Old Testament Place Names In Lancaster County
By SAMSON A. SHAIN, D.D.
_Rabbi, Shaarai Shomayim_
The Founding Fathers of communities in Lancaster County, as the Founding
Fathers of our Country at large, cherished the Bible as a guide in their
search for equal rights and justice, and especially freedom to worship
God as they had learned to worship Him in the privacy of their homes and
houses of worship. Giving scriptural names to their home and church
communities, accordingly, served to symbolize for them, the attachment
they felt for the liberty they were helping to proclaim in all the land.
Hence, one place our county pioneers called _Goshen_, land of plenty to
which God had led them. Another place they called _Bethel_, House of
God, wherein they could freely pour out their hearts in thanks and
praise and petition. Still another they named _Mount Nebo_, mountain
peak with an all-embracing view of their new Land of Promise. Another,
_Elim_, place of rest in the shade of one’s tree with none to make man
afraid. Still another, _Eden_, new garden home of delight planted by
them in partnership with God. Yet another, _Ephrata_, shrine of freedom
paid for by the labors of pioneer men and women, patriarchs and
matriarchs of God’s newly chosen people planted in the New Zion he had
appointed for them. In this same spirit, one, John Patton, gave the name
_Judea_ to the hill plantation straddling West Hempfield and Manor
Townships on the banks of the Susquehanna, between Columbia Borough on
the north and Washington Borough on the south, and warranted to him in
1774.
Lancaster County settlers, thus, chose Biblical names for their
communities in the spirit of the Pilgrim Fathers before them, as a way
of expressing thanks to God for leading them safely to these shores of
freedom; as a way of affirming faith that unless God built a house of
liberty, they labor in vain that build it, and as a way of making a
promise to labor mightily to preserve that freedom and bequeath it
unsullied to their descendants.
Mennonite Information Center, Library and Archives
215 Mill Stream Road, Lancaster, Pa.
5 mi. E. on U.S. #30 at Mill Stream Road
The Mennonite Library and Archives Building is one of the recent
additions to Lancaster County’s cultural and educational facilities. It
houses the church’s official information center which seeks to provide
visitors with intelligent and accurate answers to their many questions
about the Amish and the Mennonites.
The more than forty thousand volumes of the theological and historical
library, with the Archives of the Lancaster Mennonite Conference,
provide a wealth of material for the serious researcher in the fields of
theology, Anabaptist and related church history, state and local
history, and genealogy. All these facilities are open to the public with
no admission charge.
Farmers’ Markets
By GERALD S. LESTZ
_Lancaster New Era staff writer and columnist; publisher of Baer’s
Agricultural Almanac._
Farmers’ Markets in historic Lancaster date back to the very beginning
of the community, 1730, and are a delight to today’s visitors, many of
whom make a special point of “going to market.”
Lancaster City owns and operates two farmers’ markets—the Central, just
off Penn Square, and the Southern, one block away at S. Queen and W.
Vine Sts.
The Central is located on land deeded by Andrew and Ann Hamilton,
original proprietors, to local officials on May 15, 1730, for use as a
market “forever.”
In the early days, farmers brought their produce to this location and
sold them in the open. This was a carryover from the European custom,
and no cover was provided until 1757. The present building was erected
in 1889.
The Southern market-house was built as a private venture in 1888, and
was continued in that manner until 1950, when the property was bought by
the city.
Stands in the markets are leased on a yearly basis. Most are held by the
same families year after year, and many have been occupied by several
generations.
[Illustration: SOUTHERN MARKET]
Markets open early, and it is advisable to get to them before midmorning
if you wish to avoid a crush. Local housewives, and men of the family,
regularly come to market armed with sturdy wicker baskets which are
quickly filled as they visit their favorite farmers, produce dealers,
butchers, bakers and vendors of other foodstuffs.
Cut flowers, potted plants, and farm wives’ handiwork add their own
touches of color.
A visit to market is a memorable experience, in which you encounter the
favorite foods of an area known for hearty appetites and good cooks.
[Illustration: CENTRAL MARKET]
The farmers who maintain stands at the markets travel in from the
countryside surrounding Lancaster early in the day. They park their cars
outside the buildings, and carry in all their offerings to start each
market day afresh.
In days gone by, when horses and wagons were the main means for travel,
the farmers would drive to town the night before and put up at a
downtown inn, stabling their horses in buildings connected with the
hotels. But by 4 A.M. the farmers were up for the day, preparing their
stands for customers.
Modern-day descendants of these earlier generations of farmers carry on
the tradition of early rising. You can be sure that when you talk to a
farmer at 8 A.M., his cows have been milked, eggs have been gathered,
and many other farm chores completed before he drove to town with his
fruits and vegetables.
Out-of-town visitors are often disappointed when they come to Lancaster
and find that no market is being held that day. Market days for the
Central and Southern follow:
Central is open on Tuesdays and Fridays. 6 A.M. to 5 P.M.
Best visiting hours: 6 A.M. to 2 P.M.
Southern is open Saturdays, 5:30 A.M. to 3 P.M.
Best visiting hours: 6 A.M. to 12 Noon.
Shopping bags to carry home your purchases are available at the markets.
If you plan to become a “regular,” however, we suggest you buy a stout
basket.
State Museums and Properties
By HOWARD E. ROHLIN, B.A., M.A.
_Field Museum Curator for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum
Commission_
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission administers three
properties in the area covered by this guide. Each one is, in its own
way, unique. Cornwall Furnace is a fascinating relic of the earliest
days of American industry. The Pennsylvania Farm Museum of Landis Valley
recalls the days when horses provided transportation, coal oil provided
light and the majority of our citizens lived and worked on farms. The
Ephrata Cloister is a monument to the freedom of conscience which since
the days of William Penn has been a precious part of the laws of the
Commonwealth. The three present a lively and varying picture of the
colorful past in old Pennsylvania.
Cornwall Furnace is a monument to the great colonial iron industry which
flourished in the Furnace Hills of Lebanon and Lancaster Counties. In
the region ore was abundant and so was the timber necessary for the
charcoal so voraciously consumed by the old blast methods. Cornwall and
the area surrounding constituted one of the most important munition
centers of the Revolutionary era.
[Illustration: CORNWALL FURNACE]
The Cornwall Ore Banks was the largest open pit iron mining operation in
the United States, until the opening of the Mesabi. During its active
operation more than twenty million tons of ore were removed. Begun in
1739 by Peter Grubb, the Furnace now stands essentially as it was after
renovations of 1845-56, when the water-powered force draft system was
replaced by steam. The early machinery is still in place and the plans
for restoration include its reactivation.
The village of Cornwall is one of the finest examples of a “company
town” in the state; laid out, built and maintained by the corporations
which have operated the furnace and mine. The furnace, mine and village
are an outstanding memorial to the better side of the paternalistic
system so common in nineteenth century industry.
The Pennsylvania Farm Museum of Landis Valley could well be called the
Commonwealth’s attic. Begun as a private collection by the brothers
George and Henry Landis it has now become one of the country’s richest
and most varied collections of materials dealing with rural Americana.
If you have ever wondered what happened to this or that gadget that you
vaguely remember on grandfather’s farm; stop wondering. It is probably
at the Farm Museum.
The Museum has everything from dead fall mouse traps to steam powered
tractors. Its collection of early Pennsylvania farm implements and craft
tools is outstanding. Its collection of early pistols, rifles and guns
is excellent. In its country store and in the restored Landis House the
feeling of the gay nineties and the turn of the century Pennsylvania
have been recaptured.
[Illustration: PENNSYLVANIA FARM MUSEUM OF LANDIS VALLEY]
The annual Craft Days at the Museum have proven immensely popular.
During this two-day event all of the ancient crafts represented in the
museum collections flourish again—hand weaving, spinning, potting,
furniture and tin painting, candle-making, printing, quilting, braiding,
etc. All are demonstrated in appropriate settings. The Conestoga Wagon
is again hitched up and steam tractors, charged up, haul wagon-loads of
children through the nearby fields.
So extensive are the collections that some part of the display is sure
to be of great interest to the visitor.
Today the museum includes many types of structure typical of small rural
Pennsylvania communities of the past ... residential and commercial
buildings which provide an authentic background for the demonstration of
rural arts, crafts and cottage industries.
Ephrata Cloister is the oldest of the properties in this area
administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
Erected between the years 1730 and 1750 it is a unique monument to a
holy experiment that failed.
[Illustration: This outstanding choral group was founded in
February, 1959, for the express purpose of performing the music of
the Cloister, as recreated by the Director and Founder of the
Chorus, Mr. Russell P. Getz. During the summer season, a series of
public recitals are given on the Cloister grounds. For information
regarding dates, contact The Cloisters, Ephrata, Pennsylvania.]
Here on the banks of the Cocalico, under the leadership of Conrad
Beissel, a protestant monastic community was established and for a time
flourished. In buildings of a medieval style, reminiscent of their
German homeland, the Seventh Day Baptists worked and lived and sought to
withdraw themselves from a sinful world. The Saron or Sister House
recalls the harsh and primitive conditions under which the nuns of the
order lived. The almonry was the center from which the hospitality of
the order was extended to all travelers. The printing press of the
order, one of Pennsylvania’s oldest, was used in the preparation of the
great Mennonite work, the _Martyr’s Mirror_, the preparation of which
was the biggest printing job done in colonial America.
Short lived as the community was, it was in its day famed throughout
Europe and America. It was too much the personal creation of Beissel to
long outlast his death and under his successor, Peter Miller, a period
of slow and mellow decline began. The community made its contribution to
the American Revolution in caring for the wounded brought to Ephrata
from the battlefield at Brandywine; many of the Brothers of Zion joined
the dying as victims of the camp fever brought to the Cloister by their
patients. The community was forced to burn its great buildings on Zion
Hill in order to wipe out the infection.
Since 1941 when the Commonwealth acquired the property a very complete
and meticulous restoration has been in progress. The attempt to
duplicate in our day the workmanship of the eighteenth century and to
capture the other-worldly spirit of the original builders has been a
difficult task, but any visitor to the Cloister will be convinced that
the result has justified the efforts.
Two additional properties in Lancaster County are being developed and
will be administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum
Commission:
The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania at Strasburg is now under
construction on property adjacent to and joining the Strasburg Rail
Road.
Robert Fulton birthplace near Wakefield, in Little Britain Township.
This is an authentic restoration of the original farmhouse where Robert
Fulton was born November 14, 1765.
The Susquehannock State Park, administered by the Dept. of Forests and
Waters, is located on a high observation site on the mighty Susquehanna
River. Opened in 1965 primarily for picnickers, sightseers and nature
lovers, it affords a magnificent view both up and down the river. The
Park is near the huge Muddy Run Hydro Storage Electric Generating Plant.
In addition, several atomic power plants have been built or are being
built on the banks of the Susquehanna River in this area.
Foods—And How We Like Them
By EDNA EBY HELLER
_Pennsylvania Dutch food columnist and lecturer._
Lancaster County cookery definitely reflects the way of life of the
Pennsylvania Dutch. They are a people who are hard working, creative and
thrifty. A great many dishes common in today’s Dutch Cookery were
created when a housewife felt compelled to utilize rather than discard.
She wastes nothing in the garden, neither in the kitchen. That favorite
little Milk Pie, she makes from left over pastry!
Generally speaking, Pennsylvania Dutch cooking is simple. There are few
salads, but quantities of cookies, cakes and pies. With only a few
exceptions, salads are limited to greens, served with a sweet sour
sauce. Although not many daughters bake bread today, the grandmothers
still set their dough to rise twice weekly. With her bread she will
probably bake Cinnamon Sticky Buns or Moravian Sugar Cake. The latter is
one of the yeast bread delicacies that is slightly fancy and extremely
rich. Butter is the extravagance of Lancaster County cooks, and they
themselves recognize this. One woman told her daughter-in-law: “You
better close your eyes while I add the butter to the vegetables.”
You may have heard of the Sweets and Sours of the Pennsylvania Dutch.
These include the spiced fruits, pickled vegetables, jellies and
preserves. Because the Dutchman craves sours with every meal, the
women-folk not only can many pickles, but pickle eggs, red beets,
bologna and other meats. Dutch farmers make great quantities of cider
vinegar for their own use and would not want to have to do without it.
Molasses, too, is indispensable. Twenty-five years ago each grocer had a
molasses barrel or two, but there are only a few left. Barrel molasses
is the table molasses that is spread on butter bread, fried mush,
scrapple, egg cheese, fritters, doughnuts and many other deep-fat-fried
foods. For cookies, cakes and pies, baking molasses is used. In the pie
category alone there are many uses. We use molasses for Shoo-fly Pies,
Molasses Crumb Pies, Molasses Custards, Funny Cake Pies, Montgomery,
McKinley, Quakertown, Union, Lemon Strip Pies, Shellbark Custards and
Vanilla Pies. Yes, we like our molasses! Perhaps, for this craving, we
are indebted to our great-grandmothers who religiously gave their
children molasses and sulphur for a “necessary spring tonic.”
It might be noted that we like boiled dinners. Vegetables are frequently
cooked in the same kettle with the meat and potatoes. The favorite
combinations are: cabbage and beef, sauerkraut and pork, green beans and
ham, turnips and beef. More unusual, though, and favorites of any
season, are our Boiled Pot Pies. Squares of dough are dropped into
boiling broth to cook with either chicken, veal, pork, or beef. And
again, potatoes are in the same kettle. Some cooks choose to use both
Sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes in the same Pot Pie. You will find
baked meat pies, but they are outnumbered by boiled ones of which the
Chicken Pot Pie is the most popular.
There is a chicken specialty in Lancaster County that attracts great
crowds. Every August and September when the Ladies of the Fire Company
Auxiliaries serve Chicken Corn Soup suppers they make gallons and
gallons. Plenty of chicken and plenty of corn in a rich chicken broth is
tops on our list of soups.
Have you heard about our Funeral Pie? It is none other than a Raisin
Pie. It may be Raisin Crumb or a two-crust Raisin Pie; either is called
Funeral Pie. For as many years as our grandmothers can remember, this
pie was made for the meal that was served to relatives and friends who
had gathered for a funeral. Today, in this age of travel, there are few
of these suppers served excepting among the Amish who still travel by
horse and buggy.
The Shoo-Fly Pie is a common subject of inquiries. Everyone wants to
know the translation of its name, but there is none. The discussion of
whether the name actually came from an occasion when flies were chased
from this molasses pie or whether its rough textured topping gave it a
name similar to the French _choufleur_ meaning cauliflower, has not yet
been reconciled. There are many varieties of Shoo-Fly Pies. The Dutchman
who likes to dunk wants his “dry as punk” and others like them “gooey as
can be.” The latter is often referred to as the “wet-bottom shoo-fly.”
Basically, this pie is made in an unbaked crust that is partially filled
with a molasses mixture and covered with a thick topping of crumbs,
which may or may not be spicy.
On the menu of the restaurant that serves Pennsylvania Dutch meals you
are quite likely to see “Schnitz un Knepp.” Literally this means apples
and dumplings. Specifically, “schnitz” are dried apple slices that are
cooked with the dumplings in ham broth and then served with ham. Dried
apple slices can be purchased in many stores, but on the farm each cook
dries her own, just as she dries her own corn and beans, in the oven, on
top of the coal stove or in the sun. Schnitz are also put into pies or
served alone as stewed fruit.
Probably more apples go into Apple Butter which in the Pennsylvania
Dutch dialect is called Lottwaerick. Hand in hand with Lottwaerick goes
Smiercase, the Dutchman’s version of cottage cheese, but much creamier
than the commercial cottage cheese. Wherever Lottwaerick is served,
there will be Smiercase. They were made to go together, we think. A
thick slice of homemade bread when spread with Lottwaerick and then a
layer of Smiercase is a joy to man, woman or child in the Dutch country.
Lancaster countians enjoy the flavor and color of saffron. This is the
dried stigmata of the crocus-like flowers that bloom from a saffron
bulb. Although it is almost extinct in our own cultivation of herbs, we
now purchase the imported saffron and use it in breads, potato or noodle
dishes, and always with chicken. This is one of the items that is
regional within this region. Natives of Lancaster and Lebanon Counties
delight in the flavor of saffron as well as its butter color, but no
other Dutch cooks seem to appreciate it as we do.
[Illustration: Photo by Charles Rice]
Throughout all of the Pennsylvania Dutch territory, there is much
deep-fat frying. On Shrove Tuesday everyone eats doughnuts called
Fasnachts, around which hang many folklore tales. But, apart from this
day, there is much frying of doughs and batters. In Lancaster County
there is a dough that is rolled to one-eighth inch thickness and cut
into strips which are fried in deep fat. They are called Plow-lines,
Streivlin, or Snavely Sticks. A generation ago these were made for the
mid morning “nine o’clock piece” that was carried to the farmer in the
fields. In recent years, however, this indulgence is almost a thing of
the past, and so are the Streivlins. What a shame!
The visitor will notice that our food is abundant and our appetites are
hearty. Traditional cooking that is really an art has been passed from
mother to daughter by word of mouth for generations. Each cook uses “a
pinch of this and a handful of that”; “sugar, to sweeten,” “butter, the
size of a walnut,” and “flour, to stiffen.” Only recently have many of
these recipes been written and standardized. More must be done, but
there has been some progress made for the preservation of this
“wonderful good” cookery.
Lancaster—A Prosperous Center of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry
By GERALD L. MOLLOY
_Manager, Lancaster Chamber of Commerce_
Lancaster has long been noted for its unusually stable economy. The
factors which contribute to this stability are numerous but perhaps can
best be summarized by pointing out that in this historic area one finds
a unique balance between agriculture, commerce and industry. Lancaster
County ranks in the first five of the 3,073 Counties in the United
States in the value per acre of its agricultural production; more than
600 industrial plants provide employment for approximately 55,000
industrial workers; and Lancaster City, strategically located in the
center of this prosperous agricultural-industrial County, serves as the
commercial trade center for more than 318,400 persons. Thus with
commerce, industry and agriculture complementing each other,
Lancastrians traditionally have enjoyed a particularly healthy economic
climate.
Since the days prior to the American Revolution, Lancaster has been
famed for its skilled industrial workers and the wide diversity of
precision products manufactured in its factories. With its workers
largely drawn from fourth and fifth generation Lancaster families of
English and German origin, local industry has established a far-flung
reputation for the uniformly high quality of its labor.
Among the products manufactured in Lancaster plants are such nationally
distributed items as Alcoa screw machine products, Armstrong floor
coverings, Black & Decker tools, R. R. Donnelley & Sons printing,
Eshelman feeds, Hamilton watches, Howmet aluminum products, Hubley toys,
Lambert-Hudnut cosmetics, New Holland Farm Machinery, R.C.A. television
and electronic tubes, Raybestos asbestos products, Schick electric
shavers and Trojan power boats.
Side by side with industry in Lancaster County, retail trade and
wholesale distribution has grown and prospered since Colonial times.
There are now 450 wholesale firms and over 3,000 retail outlets serving
this thriving area. Attesting to the stability of the local economy is
the fact that included among the retail groups are the oldest department
store and oldest tobacco store in America, each of which is still
operated by the same family interests which founded them and each is
still situated at its original location.
The traditional stability and prosperity of Lancaster industrial and
commercial enterprises form a sound economic base upon which to build a
fine community. This becomes apparent as the visitor views the excellent
schools and hospitals, the recreational and cultural facilities, the
beautiful residential areas and other community assets which are a
hallmark of the good living in Lancaster County.
Covered Wooden Bridges
By J. RICHARD GAINTNER
_Local Authority and Lecturer on Covered Wooden Bridges
See Official Pennsylvania Dutch Guide Map for locations of covered
bridges._
Always picturesque and just rare enough to arouse interest, the old
covered wooden bridges are growing in popular appeal as their number
diminishes. In fact, collecting pictures and lore about these structures
has become a hobby of many persons. In Lancaster County there still
remain a sufficient number that will whet the appetite of the most avid
hobbyist.
These romantic old spans are dwindling in number as a result of age,
disaster or demolition because of safety or highway improvements, but it
is gratifying to know that of the 108 covered wooden structures that at
one time crossed the creeks and streams of this county, there are less
than 25 still standing.
That so many ancient spans have weathered the years is proof of the
value of the barn-like roof. Care was expended in construction, too, and
a sign was placed at the entrance to “Walk Your Horse” in order to avoid
excessive vibration which might be harmful to the bridges. Today the
sign reads “Warning, this bridge unsafe for loads greater than 5 Tons.”
Even though they withstand time and weather, flood and storm, they are
highly vulnerable to fire.
Covered bridges are sometimes erroneously thought to date from the
Colonial and Revolutionary War periods. Actually, many of the founding
fathers, including George Washington, never saw a covered bridge. The
first one was built across the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia in 1805.
Nine years afterward, in 1814, a covered bridge was built across the
Susquehanna at Columbia and Wrightsville which was then and still
remains “The longest covered wooden bridge in the world,” with a length
of 5,620 feet. This bridge was destroyed by ice in 1832. A second
structure, built in 1834, was burned in 1863, during the war between the
States to prevent the Confederate cavalry from crossing the river. A
third covered wooden span was erected at this site in 1868 and was
destroyed by a violent windstorm in 1896.
[Illustration: Photo by Jim Hess
STONE ARCH EARTHEN BRIDGE FOREGROUND AND COVERED
WOODEN BRIDGE BACKGROUND, NORTH OF LANCASTER]
[Illustration: Photo by Jim Hess
Feeding the ducks and geese, 6 mi. E. of Lancaster on U.S. 30.]
Most of the covered structures are maintained by Lancaster County, four
jointly with nearby counties, and here are found some of the most
picturesque and unique settings of all. They are well preserved, painted
and repaired regularly, and with continued care will last another
hundred years. You’ll find them on the back roads, off the main
thoroughfares, back where the dirt roads twist and turn around a barn or
a wood, you’ll go down a hill over a half dozen “thank-you-moms” and
there tucked away in some of Lancaster’s most harmonious settings you’ll
find the most romantic covered wooden bridges you’ve ever seen. And
maybe, if you tarry a while you’ll see a couple of fishermen, because
that’s where the biggest trout are found, or maybe it’s a favorite
swimming hole for the neighborhood youngsters.
The shortest covered bridge in Lancaster County is just west of Long
Park, near Oreville. It measures 53 feet long. The longest covered span
in Lancaster County was destroyed by fire in 1970. This bridge, known as
“Second Lock Bridge,” was 349 feet long and crossed the Conestoga just
off New Danville Pike, south of Conestoga Memorial Cemetery. The last
covered bridge to be built was in 1891 over the Cocalico one-half mile
north of Akron.
It is hoped this bit of Americana, of which Lancaster County has been
blessed with the second largest number in Pennsylvania—those romantic
symbols of an earlier day—may be preserved for posterity as historical
monuments.
The Plain People
By PROFESSOR A. FRED RENTZ
_The late Professor Rentz was an Educator and Authority on the
Pennsylvania Dutch._
Religion was one of the strong motives in the lives of our Pennsylvania
Dutch forbears. It was upon the invitation of William Penn, who offered
them a religious haven in Penn’s woods, that they came to America out of
the Palatinate in Germany. The first ones to come were the Lutherans and
Reformed, who even today form the largest segment of the Pennsylvania
Dutch people. The Lutherans and Reformed were followed in quick
succession by the so-called plain people, the Mennonites, the Amish and
the [1]Brethren; the heart of whose life is still in Lancaster County,
Pa. We speak of them as “plain” because they dress in a religious garb.
They speak of us as “fancy” or “gay.” “Plain and Fancy.” Here they live
having preserved the customs of our forefathers most faithfully over a
period of two hundred and fifty years.
Of the three plain sects the Mennonites are the oldest historically and
the most numerous. They stem from one Menno Simons, a Catholic parish
priest, who seceded from the church of his fathers in 1536. He was one
of that large group of Anabaptists who could not in good conscience join
the Lutheran and Reformed movements because they believed in infant
baptism. Menno Simons believed only in the baptism of the believer.
“Don’t baptize a baby that does not know what it’s doing, but baptize
only one who believes.”
The Mennonite woman will wear a trim little black bonnet (some are blue,
brown, green) with no skirt on it. Her prayer cap is perched jauntily on
the back of her head. The material in the cap is net, much finer than
the Amish cap. The cap may have strings or not, dependent on the
individual’s choice. Her dress may be a solid color, but usually it will
be a print. Her cape is square and is fastened to the belt in front.
Among our Mennonite friends, the apron has disappeared; except among the
more conservative groups.
The Mennonite men usually wear black hats, not broad brimmed. They are,
as a rule, smooth shaven. Their coats are Cadet type, no collars or
lapels; buttoned up to the neck. Their trousers are styled like those of
the gay people.
In 1693 in the Canton of Berne in Switzerland lived Jacob Amman, in all
probability a Mennonite bishop, surely a Mennonite clergyman. He seceded
from the Mennonites on the question of church discipline. Said he, you
Mennonites have lost the way of life of Menno Simons. You are far too
easy on your people. If you excommunicate a brother or sister for
transgressing the laws of God or violating the rules of the church, all
that it means is that they can’t partake of the Holy Communion. It ought
to mean far more than that. It ought to mean “meidung”—a German word
meaning avoidance, shunning, ostracism. If we excommunicate some one, we
will have no fellowship whatever with him. If we pass him on the street,
we will ignore him. We will not buy from him, nor will we sell to him.
If he’s a member of our family we will not eat at the same table with
him. The Old Order House Amish carry on that tradition to this very day.
Let us first describe the dress of our Amish friends. The Amish man in
the winter time will wear a broad-brimmed, low crowned, felt hat. In the
summer time, natural rye straw. He will wear a beard after marriage, but
no moustache. The moustache in former generations was the hall-mark of a
soldier and, of course, he is adverse to anything that savors of the
Military. His dress jacket will be fastened with hooks and eyes rather
than buttons. The button is too characteristic of the Military uniform.
The front of his dress coat (mootza) is usually cut in a V at the top
and has the old fashioned Prince Albert coat tails. There are no collar
or lapels on his coat. His trousers are broadfalls, buttoned on the hips
like a sailor’s trousers.
The Amish woman’s garb is likewise interesting. Her headdress consists
of a bonnet and a white cap. The bonnet in the case of adult women is
black. Children often wear blue, purple, green bonnets. It is rather
big, covers virtually all of her hair. “The hair is woman’s crowning
glory” and to expose it, would be vain. There is a long skirt on the
bonnet, extending down to the shoulders, over the nape of the neck.
Underneath the bonnet, the Amish woman will wear a white cap, which she
knows as her prayer cap. This she wears at all times. The cap has white
strings which she ties in a neat bow when she is dressed up. When she is
working the strings will probably float down her back. The prayer cap
has good Scriptural authority, provided we are literalists in
interpretation. St. Paul tells us that we are to “pray without ceasing”
and that women are not to pray with head uncovered.
Her dress is always a solid color—blue, purple, violet, green, lavender,
red—indeed any solid color. Over her shoulders she wears a cape, which
comes to a point at the waist, front and back. The cape may be black or
the same color as the dress. The young women may wear a white cape when
they go to church. A black apron completes her garb. In the case of the
young woman the apron is white when she attends morning worship.
They do have virtues that the rest of us would do well to emulate, to
our own profit and the profit of society in general. For example, in the
Amish community the writer knows an Amish blacksmith, one of the most
God-like gentlemen that it has been his privilege to know. The
blacksmith does more work, takes in more money on a Saturday than any
other day of the week. Some years ago, his neighbor, a “gay” farmer, was
ill. It was Saturday morning. The farmer’s hay was lying in the field,
ready to be taken into the barn. What did the blacksmith do? He locked
up his shop, took himself and his son into the hayfield and by evening
the hay was in the barn of the ill farmer. The blacksmith sacrificed his
best day’s wages to help his neighbor and brother.
[Illustration: Photo by Jim Hess
AMISH GIRL’S BONNET, AMISH WOMAN’S BONNET, PRAYER CAP AND DRESS]
Second:—As we drive through the Amish community and observe their farms
and farm buildings we need to remember that there is no fire insurance
on the buildings. They look upon insurance as an effort to thwart the
will of God. But, let the biggest barn in the Amish community burn to
the ground, in ten days or so after the fire, some morning a hundred,
two hundred, as high as three hundred Amishmen, will appear; armed with
hammers, hatchets, saws—whatever it takes to build a barn—and by evening
a new barn will stand on the site. For the material, they will
contribute into a common fund. The women will serve two dinners, one at
noon, one in the evening. The writer saw a barn raising one day. At four
fifteen o’clock in the evening the completed barn stood there. On this
barn 201 men were helping. The writer said to the farmer “Uncle Isaac,
this must have cost you a pretty penny, just to feed so many men.” Said
Uncle Isaac, “It didn’t cost me a cent, the brethren furnished it all.”
Mutual helpfulness is still a virtue.
Third:—During the economic depression of the thirties not one penny was
paid to an Amish family out of public funds by way of relief. They took
care of themselves.
Fourth:—When the Roosevelt administration came to power in 1932 and its
department of agriculture found too much wheat, too many pigs, they
said, “Let your land lie fallow. We will pay you a subsidy.” The answer
of our Amish farmer was, “Nothing doing. This land is a trust from God.
Farm it, we will. If you don’t want wheat, we will not farm wheat, nor
will we raise pigs, if they are not needed, but farm our land we will,
and we don’t want your subsidy. Self reliance is still a virtue.”
[Illustration: Photo by Jim Hess
LANCASTER COUNTY BARN RAISING]
The third sect of plain people is the Church of the Brethren or
Dunkards. They stem from Alexander Mack, a Mennonite clergyman who
seceded from the Mennonites in Schwarzenau, Germany in 1708 on his
interpretation of baptism. The Mennonite commonly sprinkles in baptism.
Mack taught that to be baptized properly one ought to be immersed,
“dunked” if you please.
The Church of the Brethren have largely lost their “Plain Way” of life.
Since they have gone in for higher education, their garb has largely
disappeared. Few of the men wear beards and most of the Brethren use
regular clothing. However, some still wear a garb similar to the
Mennonites, the favorite color of the men being grey.
There is one sect of Dunkards, the Old Order River Brethren, very plain,
just as plain as the Amish. These people are not a numerically large
sect, for there are only approximately 12,000 of them in America.
However, they deserve mention, for it was from them that President
Eisenhower descended, whose grandfather, the Rev. Jacob Eisenhower, was
a minister in the sect.
We, who live in Lancaster County, respect these plain folks most
profoundly. They are our neighbors and we find them good neighbors. They
have made a contribution to our agriculture, greater than their numbers
warrant, to make our county the richest non-irrigated agricultural
county in America.
They are a peace loving people whom you do not find in the courts either
as prosecutors or defendants. All they ask of you and me is to be let
alone to lead their lives in the light as God has given it to them to
see the light.
The Pennsylvania Dutch Language
By DR. J. WILLIAM FREY
_Chairman of the Department of German and Russian at Franklin and
Marshall College_
We bisht? We gaits? (How are you? How goes it?) That’s the familiar
greeting throughout the length and breadth of the Pennsylvania Dutch
country. This is symbolic of the relative sameness of the Pennsylvania
Dutch tongue no matter where you go in southeastern Pennsylvania or, in
fact, anywhere else a Dutchman has happened to wander. This is
linguistically and culturally a unique phenomenon. Travel in any
European country—staying away from the large cities—and you will find
almost mutually unintelligible dialects spoken from one community to the
next, a mere dozen or so miles away. These wide language divergencies
reflect vast cultural-historical differences, deep-rooted in tradition
and folkways. But in the Pennsylvania Dutchland—whether you visit the
Amish on their unparalleled farms of Lancaster County or whether you
call on the Church groups (Lutheran and Reformed) located almost
directly north of Philadelphia—you will find Pennsylvania Dutch spoken
and understood with only enough differences to make it interesting. In
fact, there is not nearly so much difference in the pronunciation and
vocabulary and idioms of one brand of Pennsylvania Dutch from another as
there is, say, between the native speech of a Bostonian and that of a
Charlestonian!
The uniqueness of the situation is perhaps amazing to a European, but
hardly to an American. Here in the greatest melting pot culture in the
world it is no new thing to find widely diversified groups leveling off
their ways and their speech to form a common American denominator. In
the Pennsylvania Dutch country we have by far the most widely
diversified folk culture in America and at the same time a unity of
language which astounds the scholars of linguistic science. There has
never really been any such thing as a ‘united front’ among the
Pennsylvania Dutch people—no nationalistic-political ties, no yearning
for some once-deserted-now-idealized ‘fatherland,’ no dominant (nor
domineering) religious body. Hence, our language has never taken on any
‘standardizing’ regulations, has never been given a hard and fast
orthography, has never been elevated to the position of a subject in the
public school curriculum, has never enjoyed the so-called dignity of
great oratory, classic literature or even journalism.
It has always been and always will be only FOLK SPEECH. As such it is
the perfect oral expression of our Pennsylvania Dutch folk and their
rich folk culture. But as such it has also suffered greatly—mocked and
despised and branded as ‘only a dialect,’ ‘a corrupt form of German,’ ‘a
kind of Pennsylvania hog Latin’ by all those in the past who, not
appreciating nor even knowing what folk culture really is and means,
could see no good in a language which according to their puny and narrow
educational background ‘did not even have a grammar or a dictionary’!
Only very recently have those of us who are interested in the study of
folk cultures and folk linguistics seen the real and underlying values
in the language—now, at a time when it is very rapidly dying out, when
hardly any member of the new generation speaks anything but English
(though that with often a heavy Pennsylvania Dutch savor), when the near
future will witness the almost complete disappearance of this
interesting, humorous, beloved folk speech except for its persistent
employment by the Old Order Amish in their religious services and most
of their everyday conversations.
No grammar? EVERY language has grammar—Pennsylvania Dutch has its share
to be sure. There are ten parts of speech, three genders of nouns (and
you can’t hang a feminine article on a masculine noun!).
‘_Outen the light_’ is our common Lancaster County way of saying ‘turn
out the light,’ and it is simply a short and efficient expression for
getting the deed accomplished. The same is true of the shortened form
‘_this after_’ instead of ‘this afternoon’—an expression you’ll hear
from the lips of every Lancaster City and County inhabitant.
Some expressions in our quaint English here are actually direct
translations from the Pennsylvania Dutch language, but they have become
such common property that many a Lancastrian uses them even though his
background is anything but Dutch. For example, a beautiful little phrase
to indicate that you ‘live next door’ to someone is the very warm idiom:
‘_they live neighbors to us_’ or ‘_we live neighbors to them_.’ Now
isn’t that a real friendly way of putting it?
Actually, then, the impress of Pennsylvania Dutch upon the Nation
linguistically has been negligible. It is not enough to boast about the
Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry of the Hoovers, the Earharts, and the
Eisenhowers when the Nation as a whole has not been conscious of the
existence of our deep-rooted folk culture over some nine generations.
Meanwhile, however, we bid farewell to the visitor in the Dutch country
with those familiar words heard in Lancaster County: _koom boll widder!_
(come soon again)—or, better, the idiom as it is used in the more
eastern counties: _koom ols widder_ (keep coming, and coming, and
coming, and coming to see us ...).
Cultural Assets of Lancaster
By PROF. FREDERIC S. KLEIN
_Member of the Department of History at Franklin and Marshall College_
The Lancaster community has inherited a rich tradition of cultural
activity and interest since colonial days, and offers a wide variety of
opportunity for enjoyment, appreciation and participation in the fields
of music, the arts, the theatre, and educational facilities.
Music has a prominent part in the life of Lancaster. The Lancaster
Symphony Orchestra, composed of professional and non-professional
musicians in the community, presents a series of concerts throughout the
season, including classical, popular and youth concerts, and presenting
guest artists of high calibre. Its fine musical standards have given it
recognition as one of the outstanding community orchestras in the State,
and it provides opportunities for young musicians and music students in
the area to develop their musical talents. Another musical group, the
Vivaldi Chamber Orchestra, is composed entirely of girls, and presents
regular concerts sponsored by the Y.W.C.A., with special emphasis on
classical music and the use of rare musical instruments. Many church and
choral groups present formal concerts throughout the year, and a regular
series of concert programs is sponsored by a local committee of the
Community Concert Association, which brings artists and musical groups
to the city.
One of the most recent additions to the musical life of Lancaster is the
unique Amphitheatre in Long Park, about one mile west of the city on the
old Harrisburg Pike. Located in a beautiful natural setting for open-air
concerts, ceremonies or community gatherings, the attractive structure
provides stage accommodations for full-size orchestras and seating
capacity on the lawn for approximately 10,000 persons. It was
constructed through community contributions and civic club interest.
Several theatre groups are active in Lancaster. Foremost among them is
the Green Room Theatre of Franklin and Marshall College, which presents
a regular series of plays of professional quality. Dramatic productions
are also presented regularly by community organizations such as the
Lancaster Theatre Arts Association, the Musicomedy Guild, and the Opera
Workshop. All of these groups offer opportunities to persons interested
in theatrical production, for participation or for training and
experience on the stage. A number of summer theatre programs are
presented in the Lancaster area, such as the Gretna Playhouse and the
Ephrata Legion Star Playhouse.
The restoration and preservation of the Fulton Opera House on North
Prince Street has provided the community with a beautiful and historic
theatre in central Lancaster, completely equipped for the presentation
of plays, concerts and special attractions. One of the oldest original
theatres in the country, the Fulton stage has presented almost all of
the great personalities of the theatrical and concert world since it was
built in 1852, and today, its red, white and gold décor and its
excellent acoustics have made it an attractive center of cultural
activities.
Artists have found Lancaster County to be an inspiring atmosphere for
expression through paint and canvas. A number of art clubs and
associations provide opportunities for study under professional art
teachers, for sketching and painting groups and for exhibitions. Two
such groups are Lancaster County Art Association and Echo Valley Art
Association. The picturesque qualities of the Lancaster countryside,
with its covered bridges, quaint barns and rural scenery provide unusual
subject matter.
The library facilities of the Lancaster community are excellent. The new
building of the Lancaster Free Public Library contains almost 100,000
volumes, and the library provides many services for the community. The
Fackenthal Library of Franklin and Marshall College is available for
public use, with a collection of 172,000 volumes, modern facilities for
periodicals, reference works, a browsing room and many special
collections of Lincoln and Napoleon.
The Fackenthal Library is also the headquarters of the
Pennsylvania-German Society, which is concerned with preserving material
pertaining to the history and culture of the Pennsylvania-Germans. It
has published more than sixty volumes and has deposited the Bassler
Collection in the Fackenthal Library for research purposes.
[Illustration: Photo courtesy of Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.
AMPHITHEATRE AT LONG PARK]
[Illustration: FACKENTHAL LIBRARY OF FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE]
The Lancaster County Historical Society, located adjacent to Wheatland,
home of President Buchanan on Marietta Avenue, also possesses a fine
library which is widely used for historical and genealogical reference
work in connection with Lancaster County history. The Willson Memorial
Building, one of the finest historical society buildings in the state,
contains an auditorium, reference-reading rooms, and an excellent museum
where exhibits of unusual documents and articles associated with
Lancaster County history are on display. The facilities of the Society
are open to the public without charge, and the publications of the
Society, containing special articles on many phases of local history,
are available for purchase.
Much of the cultural life of Lancaster has been influenced by its
educational institutions. Franklin and Marshall College, established in
1787, is one of the outstanding liberal arts colleges in the East, and
provides many educational opportunities to the community in addition to
its regular program of studies. Lectures, musical programs, and the
facilities of the North Museum and Planetarium are available for the
public. Other colleges in the area include Millersville State College,
one of the state’s finest teacher training institutions; Elizabethtown
College; and the Linden Hall Junior College for Girls.
Lancaster is unusually fortunate in the fact that as it has grown from a
small community into a modern and prosperous Pennsylvania city, its
cultural assets and facilities have kept pace with its rapid economic
and industrial growth, and its citizens have provided the music, the
arts and the educational facilities which have made it a wholesome and
progressive community.
[Illustration: Lancaster—Center for Day Trips to Historic Shrines]
Beautiful Lancaster county offers superior accommodations for visitors
in its many first class hotels, motels, campgrounds, tourist and farm
homes. Here one may discover the ideal type of lodging for every
individual taste.
Enjoy this gracious country atmosphere while planning day trips to
surrounding points of historic and cultural interests.
Lancaster
Dutch Area
HARRISBURG
_1 hour U.S. 230_
State Capitol
CARLISLE
_1½ hours Turnpike_
Home of Molly Pitcher
Pine Grove Furnace State Park
Carlisle Barracks
GETTYSBURG
_1½ hours U.S. 30_
Civil War Battlefield
Museums
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
YORK
_¾ hour U.S. 30_
First Capitol of The United States
BALTIMORE
WASHINGTON, D. C.
_2¼ hours_
HERSHEY
_¾ hour State Route 72_
Amusement Park
Gardens, Zoo
Sports Arena
Cornwall Iron Works
FRENCH CREEK
_1 hour State Route 23_
Hopewell Village
State Park
WASHINGTON CROSSING
_2¼ hours Turnpike_
State Park
VALLEY FORGE
_1¼ hours Turnpike_
State Park
Washington’s Headquarters
PHILADELPHIA
_1½ hours Turnpike_
Liberty Bell
Independence Hall
KENNETT SQUARE
_1 hour U.S. 41_
Longwood Gardens
WILMINGTON
_1¼ hours U.S. 41_
Hagley Museum
Old Powder Mills
Winterthur Museum
Hershey, Pennsylvania
_The Chocolate Town is less than an hour’s drive from Lancaster._
Center of an industry, world famous resort and tourist attraction, haven
for orphaned boys, sports and recreation center, this prosperous
community welcomes an ever-increasing number of visitors annually.
[Illustration: HERSHEY HOTEL AND ROSE GARDEN]
Certainly no one could deny that to millions the world over the name
Hershey is synonymous with chocolate. However, a visit to the unique
town of Hershey will convince you that the name of one of America’s
great industrial geniuses stands for many other things—and not the least
of these is charity.
There is much to see and do in The Chocolate Town. One can enjoy a
guided tour of the Hershey factory, a visit to the Museum, the
facilities of the Amusement Park, a swim in the pool or the animals in
The Zoo. He can golf, go boating, listen to the free concerts or stroll
in the gardens.
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
_Just fifty miles west of Lancaster, on Route 30, this historic
college town is visited by some 800,000 people each year._
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the place where one President spoke and
another resided, represents many things to many people. To some there is
the thrill of identification, as they view the 2300 markers and
monuments on the Battlefield, where men from 25 states reached heights
of bravery that have seldom been equalled.
For many, Gettysburg’s fine museums hold great attraction. The National
Museum, with the world’s largest collection of Civil War articles,
houses the famed electric map. The Hall of Presidents depicts the
history of the nation “as told by the Presidents themselves.”
[Illustration: HIGH WATER MARK—GETTYSBURG BATTLEFIELD]
“Colonial” York, Pennsylvania
[Illustration: STREETS OF SHOPS—YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY]
“Colonial” York, centrally located in the rich southeastern part of
Pennsylvania, is a progressive city, rich in history and an important
industrial center.
There are many things to see and do in York. Be sure to visit the
“Weight Lifters Hall of Fame” and see the athletes train for Olympic
teams. Also see covered bridges, log house, York’s Liberty Bell, Codorus
Furnace, The Historical Society, Laucks Museum, Quaker Meeting houses,
The Little Red School House, Wills School, brick end barns, Gates House,
Plough Tavern, James Smith grave, farmers’ markets, Sam Lewis and
Pinchot State Parks—and photograph the frisky colts at Hanover Farms.
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Carlisle, in Cumberland County, played an important part in the early
history of the United States. The first white man in the Cumberland
Valley established a trading post at Carlisle in 1720.
On property now known as Carlisle Barracks, a munitions works supplied
the Revolutionary Army. At the time of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794,
President Washington assembled his army at Carlisle. During the Civil
War the Confederate Army reached its northernmost point at Carlisle.
[Illustration: MOLLY PITCHER MONUMENT—CARLISLE]
Hopewell Village
Hopewell Village of the National Park Service is representative of every
pre-1840 iron community of the United States. These furnaces were
necessarily “in the woods” because of the need for 5,000 cords of wood
annually, required as charcoal fuel. A visit to the Village and the
Park’s museum enables visitors to better understand early industrial
history. Open daily (except Christmas) 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. except
9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays from May 30 to
Labor Day, inclusive.
[Illustration: HOPEWELL FURNACE]
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
Valley Forge, the Winter Encampment of Washington’s Continental Army,
from December 19, 1777 to June 19, 1778, is one of the most sacred spots
in American history. The reservation now embraces over 2,000 acres and
is a historic shrine owned and maintained by the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania.
The area includes the original building used by General George
Washington at Headquarters the entire 6-month period during that
memorable winter, outline of original entrenchments and other restored
fortifications.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON’S HEADQUARTERS—VALLEY FORGE]
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the city which belongs to every American as part of the
great heritage left him by the Founding Fathers. Here are Independence
Hall, Carpenters Hall, the Betsy Ross House and many very old houses of
worship. A green Mall sets off the State House, home of the famed
Liberty Bell.
William Penn’s original “greene, countrie towne” has risen again, not as
an open air museum of antiquity alone, but as a living center of one of
the world’s greatest cities.
[Illustration: INDEPENDENCE HALL—PHILADELPHIA]
Kennett Square, Pennsylvania
Longwood Gardens, located at Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, ranks as one
of the outstanding display gardens in America. The Gardens have been
under development since 1906.
Longwood Gardens is open to the public every day of the year without
charge or advance reservations. Outdoor gardens may be visited from 8
a.m. to sunset. Conservatories are open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Obtain
additional information from Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, Pa.
Telephone 628-6741.
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN GARDEN AND CONSERVATORY—LONGWOOD GARDENS]
Winterthur, Delaware
Winterthur Museum was begun in 1927 by Henry Francis duPont. Woodwork
from old houses from New Hampshire to North Carolina was acquired and
installed in his family home, which remained his residence until 1951.
The house at Winterthur was built in 1839 and additions have been made
until today it contains 100 period rooms. It is believed to be the
largest and richest assemblage of American decorative arts, especially
furniture, ever brought together. (Closed Sundays and Mondays)
[Illustration: Photo by Gilbert Ask
MONTMORENCI STAIR HALL—WINTERTHUR MUSEUM]
Wilmington, Delaware
[Illustration: HAGLEY MUSEUM—WILMINGTON, DELAWARE]
The Hagley Museum portrays early American industrial history by showing
the industries which flourished along the banks of a single stream—the
Brandywine. This stream with its varied enterprises was representative
of America’s early industrial effort, and it played an important part in
the growth of the nation.
The Museum building was constructed in 1814. Exhibits open to the public
carry the story of the Brandywine from the days of Indian culture
through the du Pont family’s first powdermaking operations. (Closed
Mondays)
Footnotes
[1]Sometimes referred to as Dunkards.
Notes
THE PLACE TO BEGIN YOUR DUTCH COUNTRY VISIT
[Illustration: VISITORS OFFICIAL INFORMATION CENTER
Open Daily—Year Round]
Make your Dutch County visit more meaningful. Friendly receptionists
will help plan your visit, provide you with factual information,
directions, brochures and literature on all attractions and points of
interest ... plus free maps of Lancaster and surrounding areas. View
27-minute color/sound motion pictures in our modern theater ... examine
the lighted dioramas in our large display room.
—Information, Maps and Guide Books of the area.
—Sound & Color movies of the Dutch Country.
—Brochures of Attractions and Accommodations.
—Clean, Comfortable Rest Room Facilities.
—Lighted display case exhibits of tourist attractions and local
industry.
BUSES BY RESERVATION ONLY
Write for visitors’ kit
Please Send 25¢ to Cover Postage & Handling
[Illustration: Visitor Center]
[Illustration: Roads to Visitor Center]
PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH TOURIST BUREAU
1800 Hempstead Road, Lancaster, Pa. 17601 • Phone: 717 393-9705
Transcriber’s Notes
—Silently corrected a few typos.
—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.
—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.
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