New Hanover Lutheran Church, Gilbertsville, Montgomery County

Today is April Fool's Day, but this is not a prank: the hit count on this blog in the month of February was over 28,000, which was an all-time high. But in March? You crazy history fiends smashed that number! March ended with a monthly hit count of 39,726, and I was stunned speechless. That's a rare event, as many people could tell you. So whoever has been coming here and reading what I have to say, thank you so very much. It means a lot.

There are a lot of history-related events happening around here in the coming weeks, now that the onion snow has fallen and winter is finally leaving us. In particular, on April 11th and 12th, the community of Trappe will be dedicating the Speaker's House, which was the home of Frederick Muhlenberg and his family. He has a connection to today's blog post. The community has spent the last 25 years (no, that's not a typo) restoring the house to its colonial glory and preparing it to be a jewel of the historic community. The event is free to the public and you can find details here.

Also, one month from today - May 1st - will be the grand opening of the Stevens & Smith Center for History and Democracy in Lancaster. I'm hoping I can be there! The festivities will begin at 9 in the morning, though, so the odds are not in my favor. If you're interested in being there too, get the details here.

Meanwhile, it's time to get back into the regular flow of blogging and kick off this month with a return to scenic Montgomery County. Hopefully we can keep this momentum going.

Falkner Swamp Reformed Church, Gilbertsville, Montgomery County

Welcome to November! Louisa May Alcott, in her novel Little Women, had the character of Meg remark that "I do believe November is the most disagreeable month of the year." So far, it hasn't been that bad - the fall colors are still quite brilliant around here - but it has been rather on the blustery side. My neighborhood has lost power multiple times in the past week due to the wind, which is not at all usual for us. I'm hoping that it will continue to be tolerable for a little while longer, at least, because I've got to get out of here and collect some more markers to get me through the winter. I only have the rest of November to go for the blog, and then I'll be taking my usual December hiatus after detailing the year's interesting facts, but I want to be prepared for January and February with a decent stockpile.

For this week, though, we're going to take a ride down to Montgomery County, where I had stumbled across one of my favorite things to include in this blog. I love talking about subjects from colonial times, and especially churches from the time period, because they tend to have really unique stories behind them. This one is no exception.

John F. Hartranft, Fagleysville, Montgomery County

I ended up skipping last week, and as my Facebook followers may have seen, I blamed it on the holiday. That was only partly the reason. It had more to do with the fact that my beloved great-aunt Gene, the last surviving sibling of either of my maternal grandparents, was in her final days. A true patriot who loved her country, she was born on Memorial Day and died on the Fourth of July, one hundred years old (plus a few weeks) and feisty to the end. She was also a great reader and fond of history, so while she didn't read this blog, she enjoyed my book about Laury's Island and loved to hear about my adventures when I would be out doing research for my posts. I visited her often and I already miss her.

I would have liked to tell her about my little adventure from this past weekend, when I collected the marker of today's post. I was able to get three in all, but they were actually a side quest for a change, because I was in Montgomery County for a completely different reason. Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I attended Kutztown University, and during that time I was a member of the (now defunct) Medieval & Renaissance Club. It's been several years since I had seen most of them, literal decades in some cases, but on Sunday there was an enormous reunion party and that was what lured me down that way. It was a truly extraordinary gathering, and in some respects it was as though no time had passed at all. There was a universal agreement that we can't let so much time pass again, and I think we'll be holding reunions a few times a year going forward. Thanks, everyone, I don't think I realized how much I had missed the club until you were all in front of me like that.

But before the party got started, I picked up this marker about one of our governors. The location mentioned on the marker is a bit of a mystery, though, which is interesting.