Goshenhoppen, Bally, Berks County

Happy New Year! It felt so strange not to be updating this blog throughout the past month, but I definitely am glad that I took the time off. It's great to be back in the saddle, though, and we're just going to dive right in with a visit to Berks County.

When I visited the Indian Jasper Quarries marker last fall, I had a little extra time following the event, so I took a drive down the local highway to collect a few additional markers. This one was my actual objective, though I was pleased to grab two others along the way. As of this writing, it's the only historical marker in the borough of Bally, and it all has to do with the origins of that municipality.

The marker is at the intersection of Main Street (PA 100)
and Seventh Street in Bally

As the marker explains, Bally was not originally called Bally. It was initially named Goshenhoppen, but exactly where that name originates is unclear. There are a few different schools of thought. It's known that there were actually two Goshenhoppens, and the one which became Bally was the newer of the two; the older one is in the suburbs of Philadelphia in what is now Montgomery County, and some people still refer to it as Old Goshenhoppen (or Goschenhoppen). This made finding resources for my post a little tricky. Anyway, there are two primary thoughts on the name's origin. One is that it derives from a Native American word which translates as "where we met." The other is that it was founded by Germans who came from a place called Goshen, and they thought of the new settlement as der Hafen, or "the haven," so they dubbed it "Goshen Hafen" and this eventually mutated into Goshenhoppen. Pick whichever explanation you like best, because we'll probably never know for sure.

What we definitely do know is that in colonial times, when William Penn opened up his land to people of all faiths, Goshenhoppen was established by both Mennonites and Catholics. The first house of worship in the community was the Mennonite Church, erected by Ulrich Beidler in 1731, so the settlement is coming up on its 300th birthday. Ten years later, the Jesuit priest Father Theodore Schneider arrived in response to a call for German priests to serve the growing immigrant population. Catholics at that time were very much a minority in the colonies and often treated with suspicion by their Protestant neighbors, who remembered the religious divisiveness in Europe and how it drove so many of them to seek refuge in the New World. But Father Schneider was well received, highly regarded by locals of all faiths as a man of peace. He worked closely with the Mennonite community and was unwilling to turn anyone away from his doors.

In 1743, Father Schneider set up a Catholic mission church, the third such in this part of the New World, on some land he acquired from the Mennonites. This church, which he named St. Paul's Chapel, is known today as the Most Blessed Sacrament Church; it's the oldest surviving Catholic house of worship in Pennsylvania. That same year, Father Schneider also founded a Catholic school, which he dubbed St. Aloysius Academy. It was the first Catholic school in the original thirteen colonies. Today it's called St. Francis Academy; it's still operated by his church, and is the oldest co-ed Catholic school in the United States.  

Sometime in the 1830s, Goshenhoppen was renamed Churchville, because it was home to so many churches of various denominations. In 1883 they got their own post office, and at that point they decided to adopt the current name of Bally. This was done in memory of Father Augustine Bally, a Catholic priest; his portrait, taken from his FindAGrave profile, can be seen at left. Father Bally, who had died in 1882, was well loved throughout the community, and the citizens agreed that this was an appropriate way to remember him. In 1912, Bally was formally incorporated as a borough. Over the next few decades it became home to several large and well-known industries, including Great American Knitting Mills (now called Gold Toe Socks) and Bally Ribbon Mills. It also has a strong agricultural presence, and sits in a part of Berks County which is affectionately known as "Butter Valley" because of its many dairy farms.

Bally has one other claim to fame which may be unique in Pennsylvania. In 1906, a young Mennonite woman in Bally by the name of Annie Clemmer Funk became the first unmarried Mennonite missionary to be sent to a foreign country. She undertook a mission to India and lived there for the next several years, opening a school for girls and learning Hindi in order to relate to the people around her. But in March of 1912, Annie's pastor sent a telegram, informing her that her mother was extremely ill and urging her to come home immediately. She traveled to England, where she boarded the RMS Titanic at Southampton. (You can probably guess where this is going.) Her trip was initially a pleasant one, as she celebrated her 38th birthday aboard the vessel; but three days later, on the fateful night of April 15th, she was awakened and sent to the deck to board a lifeboat. However, Annie gave up her seat so that another woman could evacuate with her children. She died in the sinking of the ship; her body, as far as anyone knows, was never recovered. The school she had founded in India was renamed in her memory, and the Hereford Mennonite Church Cemetery gave her a memorial plaque beside the graves of her parents.

Maybe she should have a historical marker of her own.

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Sources and Further Reading:

Official website of the borough of Bally

Official website of the Most Blessed Sacrament Church

Father Theodore Schneider, Father Augustin Bally, and Annie Clemmer Funk at FindAGrave.com

Annie Clemmer Funk at the Encyclopedia Titanica

History of the Goshenhoppen Church. Original deleted; copy available courtesy of the Wayback Machine.

Goshenhoppen at the Historical Marker Database

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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.