Gnadenhütten, Lehighton, Carbon County

As promised, after last week's unusual post, it's back to business as usual. I had hoped to finish my Carbon County book last October, but life has a tendency to get in the way. Between work, health, weather, and the holidays, I haven't gotten it done. But it's almost done. I have two chapters and an afterword left to finish, plus some tweaks I want to make to the finished chapters, and I'm hoping to get it wrapped up in the next few weeks.

So when I was trying to decide what to write about this week, I took a poll on the blog's Facebook account asking if people would rather have a new quest or another sneak peek at the book. It was a close call (things were in a dead heat even when I woke up this morning), but the tie finally broke with one last vote to do a sneak peek. 

The original post about Gnadenhütten remains one of the most popular I've ever done, and I'm extremely proud of how I've fleshed it out in the book. I won't share the entire chapter, but here's a look at some of the detailing, including an image I've never before shared on this blog.

The Angel of Gettysburg, Gettysburg, Adams County

Greetings, friends! I'm preparing this post in advance, because I'm going away on vacation with my parents and best friend Andrea for a week. I will actually be in Mexico at the time I would normally be blogging on a Wednesday morning.

(How are things in the future? Do we have hover cars yet?)

Kevin is at home caring for our kitties, and as I was trying to get ready, I realized that I was running out of time to get everything done. So he suggested that I do something unusual given the unusual circumstances. Therefore, rather than a marker backstory, I'm going to instead tell the backstory behind one of the many statues in Gettysburg. This article was originally published at the now-defunct Herstory Club, and when the website folded I lost most of my contributions. I did manage to save this one, though, and I'm sharing it with all of you. This is the story of one woman who, though she probably didn't see herself that way at the time, became a true hero of the American Civil War.

Ashland Boys' Association, Ashland, Schuylkill County

Today I'm a bit distracted by the fact that it's my grandfather's birthday. He would have been 91 today, and I miss him a lot. He would, I think, really have loved what I'm doing with this blog; he was fascinated by history (that's probably where I get it) and I'm sure that he would have been bugging me to go on marker-hunting road trips with him. But he's the one who taught me to drive, so in a sense he always goes with me.

Of course, I'm not always the driver. On a recent road trip, my husband Kevin was driving; we missed a turn and were in the process of correcting the course when he asked, "Hey, are we near any of your markers?" We were in a Schuylkill County community called Ashland, and I remembered there was one. Much to my surprise, I turned my head to glance up a side street and there it was. So this week's post is a little bit of serendipity.

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.

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.

Edited 2/4/2026: In preparation for my upcoming book about Carbon County's markers, this blog post is now available in an updated form, which you can find here.