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.