The First House, Bethlehem, Northampton County

Because of the shifted update schedule, this will be the final MarkerQuest adventure for 2018; and because it's the week leading up to Christmas, I've been saving this specific subject for this very moment. Bethlehem is, as the locals know, "the Christmas City." What a lot of people might not know is that this isn't just because it's called Bethlehem - it's because it was literally founded on Christmas Eve.

The Philadelphia Zoo, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

It's really cold in Pennsylvania right now - no surprise, it's December. Speaking for myself, I don't do particularly well in the cold, so as I write this post I've bundled myself into a sort of fleece burrito and I'm thinking warm thoughts. 

I don't know if I agree that it's always sunny in Philadelphia, but it was definitely sunny the last time I went down there. Over the summer, my husband Kevin and I were startled to learn that my best friend Andrea had - despite growing up an hour away from it - never been to the Philadelphia Zoo. Naturally, this needed to be rectified.

First Reformed Church, Lancaster, Lancaster County

I'm in the city of Lancaster at least once a year, and I consider it one of my absolute favorite cities. I go there for a weekend with my friends in order to attend Zenkaikon, an annual gathering of fans of all sorts, and the square outside Lancaster Central Market is overflowing with costumed characters mixed with the (tolerantly amused) regular residents.

We were there again this year, in the spring, and I was at that time awaiting permission from the PHMC to set up this blog. My friends, who were a lot more confident than I was that it was going to happen, were encouraging me to take pictures of the signs and subjects that we found while walking around town. One of these was a beautiful church with an open garden, and we spent quite a few minutes admiring the First Reformed United Church of Christ.

Dery Silk Mill, Catasauqua, Lehigh County

I ended up doing this week's blog post a few days later than usual, on account of some bad weather in my area. My internet was extremely unreliable. I appreciate the patience shown by my Facebook followers, and now I'm taking you back to my hometown of Catasauqua for a look at another famous industrialist.

As I mentioned when talking about David Thomas, I grew up in the tiny borough which is proud to be known as the birthplace of the industrial revolution. The first thirtymumble years of my life were spent on Race Street, the town's main drag, which is also home to the Dery Silk Mill - a cornerstone of the company which was once the largest single private producer of silk in the entire world. 

The Penn Relays, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

As I mentioned back when I first started this blog, I'm approaching it somewhat like the quest journal of a video game. Well, sometimes in my favorite games, there are quests that I can't undertake alone; sometimes things are just simply inaccessible to me. That's when I have to rely on one of my companions for assistance. Whether they build a bridge, lend me a horse, or just act as my bodyguard on the mission, it's always good to have friends.

Today's blog post is crafted with the help of one of my real life "NPCs." My former coworker Sheila was kind enough to take some pictures of a couple of markers and their subjects down in Philadelphia and send them to me.

The Old Waterworks, Bethlehem, Northampton County

The last weekend in September, some of my friends and I like to visit Bethlehem and attend the Celtic Classic, the largest annual Celtic festival in North America. A couple of my friends are Scottish, Andrea and my husband are Irish, and I myself am Welsh, so we have a pretty decent representation of the nations as we basically eat our way through the festivities. 

This year was nothing out of the ordinary. We listened to bagpipes, browsed the local vendors, and crossed the Monocacy Creek to the Colonial Industrial Quarter. This is where representatives of different Celtic and historical organizations in the United States set up their tents and share their stories. This is also where one of my quest markers is situated.

The Colonial Industrial Quarter is just off of Bethlehem's Main Street, with a walkway right next to the Hotel Bethlehem leading down into the earliest industrial park in the entire country. It was a significant portion of Bethlehem's Moravian community, which is an ongoing topic in several posts in this blog. The positioning of the quarter is deliberate, as the waters of the Monocacy Creek were absolutely vital to the operations. Some of the buildings are ruins - the pottery, the butchery, and the dye house have little to show for themselves nowadays. However, visitors can still enjoy two of the old mills, the tannery, the springhouse, the rebuilt smithy, and today's subject - the Old Waterworks.

Abraham Blumer, Allentown, Lehigh County

I'm learning a lot about Pennsylvania history while doing this project, as you might expect. However, the lesson that I'm learning most often is that, as much as I know about the history of Pennsylvania, and Lehigh County in particular, I don't know as much as I think I do. I'm constantly being surprised.

I celebrated my birthday earlier this month, and my husband Kevin and I spent part of the day at the Lehigh Valley Zoo, of which we are members. (Hi, zoo friends!) It was a great day, with beautiful weather, and I got to feed Murphy the giraffe. As we were leaving, I checked the list of historical markers and realized that there was one more or less on our way home, so we headed for the Jordan United Church of Christ just off of route 309. I was puzzled, to be honest, because I've driven past that church many times over the years and I have never noticed a blue and gold historical marker.

Well, that's because there isn't one.

Fort Allen and Fort Allen Well, Weissport, Carbon County

I mostly know Weissport as the little town under the route 209 bridge, which every August hangs up signs advertising their "Redneck Festival" over Labor Day weekend. I also know it from my article about Gnadenhütten, where I mentioned that Weissport was eventually formed from two of the three Moravian settlements by that name. 

In the Gnadenhütten article, I mentioned that Fort Allen was built as a direct result of the attack on the Moravians, and that I'd be getting to that in a later post - and here we are. This is another two-fer, because there are two markers connected to the fort; the well, which is the only part of the fort still existing today, has a marker all its own.

Ben Austrian, Kempton, Berks County

I'm pretty familiar with the tiny community of Kempton. I used to volunteer monthly at Hawk Mountain, which dominates the landscape. Every fourth Sunday I'd drive through Kempton, an extremely pretty place at the foot of the Kittatinny Ridge mountains, and judge how close I was to being late for my shift by the visual landmarks along the way. One thing that always caught my eye was the distant hill dotted with white headstones; I always thought to myself that I should drive over sometime and actually have a look at Historic New Bethel Church (as the sign calls it), but I never got around to actually doing so.

Then this blog happened, and there turned out to be a marker there, so I finally made the drive.

Derry Church and Churchyard, Hershey, Dauphin County

Four times a year (barring unexpected circumstances), I make the trek to Dauphin County, where the White Rose Irregulars of York gather in a private room at Leeds Restaurant and Lounge. We're what's called a scion society of the Baker Street Irregulars, and get together quarterly to share our mutual love of all things related to Sherlock Holmes. A few of them promised to read this, so in case they did - hi everybody! Also, when dining at Leeds, I  can't say enough good things about the fish and chips, which are the best I've had anywhere, or about Anne, our designated server.

This past weekend was our summer gathering, and I brought my best friend Andrea with me for her first foray into Sherlockiana. Since we were sort of in the neighborhood, I proposed that on the way home, we stop in the wonderful community of Hershey to see if we couldn't collect a few markers for this blog. We picked up a few pieces of chocolate and then went to Derry Presbyterian Church, which has the distinction of being home to two markers. As such, this piece is a little longer than usual, and has more photos too.

The Fries Rebellion of 1799, Quakertown, Bucks County

During our visit to the Sun Inn two weeks ago, I talked briefly about the Fries Rebellion and how the inn served as a holding place for some of the arrested rebels until they were liberated. I also said that the incident has its own marker and I'd be covering it in a future blog post. Over this past weekend, my husband and I were in Philadelphia for his birthday, and on our way home we stopped in Quakertown to get the details.

All I knew, going in, was what I told you in the previous post about the Fries Rebellion and the fact that the sign was at the Historic Red Lion Inn on Main Street in Quakertown. I've driven through Quakertown a fair few times, usually on my way to its farmer's market. (The market has a pretty decent used video game store.) I knew the sign was at the inn, but I was puzzled because I'd never seen it - as it turns out, the inn is on Main Street, but the marker is around the corner, at the side of the building.

Edited 3/5/2024: This blog post is now available as a podcast episode! Learn even more facts about the Fries Rebellion by listening to or downloading the episode today at Audio.com, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

The Sun Inn, Bethlehem, Northampton County

Today's blog post is about a building which can truthfully claim that "George Washington slept here." It's a slightly haphazard article, because it encompasses two visits and some technical difficulties. Like most of the other landmarks in the vicinity, the Sun Inn was part of the Moravian settlement of Bethlehem; its history, however, is very unique.

First Cement, Coplay, Lehigh County

The subject of this blog post is unique in that it's the only one of these historical markers which I can visit by taking a fairly short and safe walk. The back of my residence is connected to Saylor Park, home of the Saylor Kilns, by the Ironton Rail Trail, where I've spent a lot of time since I moved here. A quick walk, or an even quicker bicycle ride, brings me into the little community of Coplay.

Despite the way it's spelled, Coplay is pronounced COP-lee. I recently learned the origin of the name; the borough is named for the Coplay Creek, which runs near it, and the creek in turn was named after Kolapechka, the son of Native American chieftain Paxanosa, who lived near the creek's origin point in Schnecksville. (As you might guess, growing up in the Lehigh Valley sort of requires you to be a very good speller.) Anyway, Coplay is a very small borough, with a strong industrial history that's partly due to the influence of our old buddy David Thomas. But that's for another day; today we're not talking about iron, but cement.

(Thanks to Facebook's Scott Nagy for pointing out a small error in this article.)

Gnadenhütten, Lehighton, Carbon County

As promised on Facebook, I'm making my first foray into Carbon County with this article, but also keeping with the Moravian theme of the last one. Gnadenhütten (or Gnadenhuetten if you write it without the umlaut) is a German word literally meaning "huts of grace," and this was the name given to many settlements established by the German Moravian church. 

Two such settlements by this name were formed in North America, both of which came to unfortunate ends. "The Gnadenhütten Massacre" specifically refers to the incident in Ohio, in 1782. But a few decades earlier, here in Pennsylvania, there was a similar but smaller massacre in what today is known as Lehighton.

Edited 2/23/2024: This blog post is now available as a podcast episode! Learn even more facts about Gnadenhütten by downloading the episode today at Audio.com, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

Moravian Cemetery, Bethlehem, Northampton County

By popular decree - meaning that I polled people on the Facebook page and this won by a landslide - my second post will cover the Moravian Cemetery in Bethlehem! The Moravian quarter is, of course, one of the most famous historical areas in the region; the Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites organization is working on getting Bethlehem declared a UNESCO historical site because of this. That will be pretty awesome if it happens.

Edited 2/29/2024: This blog post is now available as a podcast episode! Learn even more facts about God's Acre by listening today on Spotify or your preferred podcast provider.

David Thomas, Catasauqua, Lehigh County

Well, they say it's best to start at the beginning. So to start this adventure, I set the quest marker on a small community that used to be known as Biery's Port. It's not the site of the first historical marker placed by the PHMC, or anything like that; it's my hometown, and since that's where I started, it seemed like a logical place to start the show.

Edited 2/20/2024: This blog post is now available as a podcast episode! Learn even more facts about David Thomas, his work, and his family by downloading the episode today at Audio.com, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

Welcome to my Quest!

If you have ever gone on an adventure in a video game, like Dragon Age or Call of Duty, you know that the hero has access to a quest journal. It outlines the objectives of the current quest and reminds the player what they were doing when they return to the game after a break.

What you're reading is my quest journal, with which I will track and share my adventures as I hunt down the historical markers erected throughout Pennsylvania by the PHMC - the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I will find the signs, photograph them and (when possible) their subjects, and seek out more information to try to give you, the reader, the whole story.

There are more than 2,000 of these spread throughout the Commonwealth. I'm going to be busy for a while. I'm aiming to post at least two of these every month, so stay tuned. You can also find me on Facebook at @MarkerQuest!

Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.