USA > Pennsylvania > Ancient and historic landmarks in the Lebanon Valley > Part 4
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LANDMARKS IN THE LEBANON VALLEY.
and mutual conference. Here it was where action was taken to erect the first house of worship in 1727, which led to the erection of the original Tulpehocken Church, already described. This house was displaced, in 1745, by the stone fort in question. The name of Henry Zeller frequently occurs in the Colonial Records of that day, principally in connection with correspondence con- cerning the title to his lands. It seems there was con- siderable difficulty in gaining a good title, as we find it was 1743, or twenty years after settlement here, that he obtained legal papers. These documents are parchment deeds, or land patents, bearing the signature of the Penn heirs, John, Thomas and Richard Penn, and are still preserved among the family archives.
Thus this permanent building was not erected until a good deed had been secured for the land upon which this original settler had squatted, and which he had meanwhile improved, and possibly later satisfactorily paid for to the proper owners.
The occasion for building the house in the form of a citadel, or refuge fortification, was constantly at hand. Many were the cruel depredations of the red men in that period. Frequently the Indian war-whoop was heard, and the tomahawk and scalping-knife were flour- ished by these savage foes. Many an unwary white traveler or tiller of the soil was dispatched, and fre- quently whole families were scalped and butchered. These houses of refuge were therefore erected in differ- ent parts of the settlement, to afford the settlers of each
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A WELL-PRESERVED INDIAN FORT.
locality a safe rendezvous, whither the community could flee for safety at the first signal of peril. Thus we find a considerable number of buildings still standing throughout our valley that were used for this purpose. This one was among the first to be erected, and most centrally situated for the earliest settlement.
The building itself is a curiosity. Its walls are two feet thick, and laid up with many large and well-dressed stones. Its door-posts, about five and a half feet high, and the lintel, fully three feet long, are single sand- stones, with some attempts at carved ornamentation upon them. The head-stone over the door, and the slab bearing name and date, have rather elaborate fig- ures and lines carved upon them. The door is broken into two, like ordinary stable doors, and consists of double inch boards pegged together with wooden pins. An iron catch, or staple, on the inside, soldered with lead into the stone door-post, catches the heavy iron latch that closes the door. All the windows were origi- nally but small square port-holes in the wall; but three of these have since been enlarged into the size of ordi- nary windows, for the accommodation of the cloth weaver who plied his craft here a generation or two ago. The rest remain intact. So does the building throughout. Its main floor, over the cellar, is arched below and leveled with stone and earth. A huge and quaint Queen Anne fireplace, twelve feet wide, graces the kitchen part of the house. In the wall, forming the chimney, is a crack or mark, which tradition says
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was made by a cannon ball shot through one of the port-holes during the Colonial struggles with the French and Indians. The writer has seen both the break in the wall and the cannon ball, which is pre- served here, but he is not prepared to authenticate the story. It is an historical fact, however, that in 1755 these hostile forces crossed the Susquehanna from the west, and invaded this eastern territory. It was at this time when Col. Conrad Weiser wrote his rousing let- ters to the proprietary Quaker government of the State, with headquarters at Philadelphia, urging speedy efforts at defense of its citizens. At the same time he himself summoned together the farmers of this community, and at this very house (if, indeed, the claim made by a cer- tain writer be correct, that this was then the residence of Benjamin Spycher, which, however, is gravely doubtful,) organized a company of over three hundred men, who, after summoning Pastor Kurtz to address them and offer a prayer in their behalf, marched up the valley towards the Susquehanna, with their weapons of pitchforks and flintlocks, to repel the foe.
An interesting story is told, on what seems reliable traditionary evidence, of how the heroic wife of Hein- rich Zeller, Christine by name, one day, while all alone in the house, decapitated, with a broad-ax, three prowl- ing and plundering Indians at the cellar loop-hole. This hole is on the side on which the water flows out from the spring within, and is shown in the foregoing cut. Seeing the plunderers stealthily approach this
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A WELL-PRESERVED INDIAN FORT.
spot, sneaking up the little streamlet, she is said to have quickly descended the cellar !steps from within, and stationed herself alongside this opening with weapon upraised. Presently the head of the first Indian pro- truded through the hole, when down came her weapon with a heavy blow. It had its desired effect. Promptly dragging the trunk through the hole, she, in a disguised Indian tongue, gave notice for the other two to follow, as all was right within. Presently the second victim followed, whom she dispatched in the same bloody inan- ner-likewise the third ; glorying on the return of her husband at night, like Deborah of old over her conquest of their treacherous Gentile foes.
The Zeller homestead, consisting of a farm of over 200 acres of rich land, upon which are erected a large and inviting stone mansion and all the necessary farm- buildings in proper proportions and style, near which this ancient fort is keeping its watch, is now the prop- erty of Mr. Monroe P. Zeller, the eighth lineal descend- ant of the original Heinrich. He is a brother-in-law of Rev. Bachinan, the Reformed minister of Schaeffers- town. He is himself talented and cultured. A graduate of Franklin and Marshall college and of several musical conservatories, he made a small fortune in giving in- structions in music in Louisville, Ky., with which money he has purchased and improved the old home. He has travelled abroad and brought with him vines and shrubbery from many an interesting shrine or locality of Great Britain, Germany and Scandinavia.
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When the writer first visited the place, a few years ago, the spacious yard abounded with evergreens and choice vines from different countries of Europe, while the east end of the " fort " itself was spun over with a luxurious growth of Scotch ivy, brought directly from Holyrood Castle. The old homestead has many charms, and is well worth a visit some summer day, by any one in love with nature, art or history.
CHAPTER VIII.
AN ANTIQUATED VILLAGE.
IF my readers will follow me one-half mile to the southeast, from the Indian fort last visited, I will bring them to one of the oldest villages in the valley. I11 appearance it has perhaps changed least of any of the first dorfs reared by these early settlers. It is the vil- lage of Newmanstown, situated in the northeast cor- ner of Millcreek township, Lebanon county, and at the intersection of the Schaefferstown and Womelsdorf road with the Sheridan and Lancaster county road, which leads through the South Mountain gap or pass. It formed an early trade and home center for the first settlers of this community. Let us together take a walk through its one long street.
There is nothing to indicate that its first land-owner and founder was not a full-blooded German except its name. We feel confident that were some weary traveler of Germany, some scissors-grinder or Jewish peddler or other tramp, to fall asleep some night after a day's weary march from village to village in one of the rustic hamlets in the heart of Germany, and during his slum- bers be transferred to the village now in question and awaken here, he would scarcely discover that he was
(73).
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LANDMARKS IN THE LEBANON VALLEY.
not in Germany still, so genuinely Fatherlandish is everything in the architecture and manners of this well-preserved hamlet of a century and a half ago.
We will not have gone a dozen yards in our ramble before pictures of German village life, as it existed at the beginning of the last century, impress themselves upon our view on every hand. We will discover that
whatever specimens of foreign village scenes were shown the visitors of Midway Plaisance at the World's Fair last year, the best type of a German village is found here at Newmanstown1. The street is wide and well graded, but the pavements have received little attention. There may be attempts at paving here and there by the use of irregular pieces of flagging or patches of coppery-greenish brick walks, but generally the spaces before the little one-storied luts are covered over with grass, while narrow, well-beaten footpaths lead through the same. Curbstones are generally miss- ing. One is obliged to make sudden rises and descents in walking along, like unto the varying cadences in inusic, so uneven is the grading. Fully half the houses along its main street, which is "close unto a mile " in length, are the originally low, one-storied log cabins, some receiving more recently tight-fitting bodices of weather-boards. Our city (Lebanon) has specimens of these early dwellings in the older portions of Chestnut and Walnut streets, and a few excellent types on North Sixth street. Some of these Newmanstown homes still wear their original covers of straw or tiling, their roofs
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AN ANTIQUATED VILLAGE.
so low that the pedestrian sauntering along might almost touch the eaves. One of these houses may be on a slight elevation of ground, while its next door neighbor seems to be anxious to hide itself in its own cellar. The needful but unexpected slopes or steps that accommodate the saunterer on its streets to these rises and deflections are what are doing the mischief to his unaccustomed feet, leading the strange wayfarer into many a stumble or misstep.
The wiser way of getting along here is to follow the custom of its own citizens and exchange pavement for street. And this we will do. It may result in making us a trifle more conspicuous, but then the chances are we will be stared at nevertheless, not for any novelty in this respect, but because of our own expressions of sur- prise and wonderment, and because the windows of these one or two-roomed huts have been made to front 011 the street and to look out by. But this walk through the middle of the street will bring us right to the antiquated well, found in the central spot, where for a century and a half these pleasant villagers have been drawing their water. It is a pity that the old sweep has been exchanged for the more modern pump-handle with which to bring up the cooling draught. That would complete the picture of rusticity and antiquity. For the cackling goose, and the village gossip, and the cow or horse watering at its trough, are seldom missing to give the picture reality.
Along this street we see among these first dwellings
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and their more modern and pretentious neighbors now studding the village on every hand, the old-time artisan shops, in line with these homes and fronting on the street. Here half a dozen generations of honest and busy mechanics have plied their honest crafts and eked out an humble living. The lively ring of the tempered steel upon the auvil gives notice that we are approacli- ing a brawny smith's establishment. The leather chips on the sidewalk betray that we have reached a cobbler's or saddler's headquarters, while another window may give us a glimpse of the tailor, as he sits cross-legged on his table. So we will pass the lock or gunsmith shop, the broom-maker's shanty, the cooper's establishment, the turner's, weaver's or tinner's workshop or ware- room-likewise the factory of that more modern crafts- inan, the cigar-maker. But here all trades are upon the same level-the level of the street; and all craftsinen put on the same bold front-the frontage on the street. Even a few offensive barnyards have not in these 150 years been relegated, by this simple peasantry, whither they deserved to be put, on the back of the lot, or "into innocuous desuetude."
As we pass along we see here an octogenarian on his portico, resting the weight of his body and years upon his tottering cane. Now we pass a rosy-faced matron down on her knees at the front stoop, scrubbing the door-step with a determination as if the salvation of her soul depended upon it. Perhaps it does. At least she does not allow any externals to interfere with her task
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AN ANTIQUATED VILLAGE.
of working it out with a good deal of shaking, if not of fear and trembling. Now the cripple upon his crutch passes us, and then that ubiquitious unfortunate of every old town, the demented, meets our eye, whose vacant stare and incoherent utterances tell the character, if not the story, of his affliction. The dogs recognize us as strangers, and vociferously chide us for our mental criticism of their goodly province.
Having finally completed our stroll, I must take time to tell you of the village's history, and give you an ac- count of its more modern improvements. Instead of being founded by a German, it was an Irish immigrant who first planted his home here, and, securing posses- sion of the land, began to lay it out in village building lots. This person was a Mr. Walter Newman, who purchased of the proprietors of the Province of Pennsyl- vania, October 30, 1741, a tract of 234 acres of land. Lots were at once sold on the "ground rent " plan, and the earliest name given the village was Newbury. In- dentures are still on record which describe the lots disposed of, and on what terms sales were made at that early day. Much of this tract remained, by transfer from father to son, in the Newman family unto the end of the last century, by which time "Newman's Town" is described by a certain Lancaster document as being "on the Great Road leading to Reading." To this very day almost the entire town is under the curse of that system of taxation, adopted and made forever obli- gatory by its founder, of leasing lots for the consider-
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ation of a yearly rent. Even a large portion of the surrounding country was for some time under this feu- dal system.
Let no one imagine, however, from the foregoing account, that the inhabitants of this ancient hamlet are fossilized. Although there are many antiquated relics in the shape of dwellings, yet there have been rising up during the last decades many lovely and imposing structures, used as homes or business places. Tlie streets leading out of it in every direction are models for grading, piking and good-keeping generally. There is much less mud there in a square mile of roadway than in one block of Lebanon's highways. Nor does the old pump any longer serve as chief supply to the villagers of the crystal beverage, inasmuch as a few years since the coldest and clearest of mountain water was introduced from the Gold Springs of the South Mountain "Kluft. " It is said when the trenches were dug to lay the main pipe of this water supply that a rare old relic was found imbedded in the earth. This was a clay or stone Indian pipe, in the shape of a toma- hawk, bearing the name of William Penn upon its bowl. I cannot vouch for the correctness of the rumor, but heard it at the time it was said to have been found, and from men of the community. Neither could I give any relic-hunter direction as to where this rare speci- men is now kept.
Nor has this village failed to furnish its due quota of progressive and useful men. From its citizens have
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AN ANTIQUATED VILLAGE.
come a number of men who have graced all the learned professions and nobler walks of life. Perhaps the most conspicuous illustration of this truth, however, was in the person of Prof. Lawrence J. Ibach, but recently deceased. A native of Allentown, Pa., he moved hither with his parents at the age of 19. He was by trade a
STREET SCENE IN NEWMANSTOWN, PA.
skillet and ladle-maker, which trade he here followed, and never wholly forsook to the day of his death, though higher honors and more important labors were heaped upon him. Through business relations with a Mr. Seidle, from whom he had for a few years rented a forge near Reading, he became acquainted with the latter's
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uncle, Mr. Charles F. Engleman, who was at that time quite a noted astronomer. This acquaintance rekindled a boyish love for mathematics and astronomy, and brought Ibach into special favor with this scientist. At the latter's death, in 1860, he left his unfinished publi- cations to Ibach to finish, who, falling heir to all neces- sary books and charts, returned to Newmanstown to become an astronomer. From this place, for almost 30 years, he sent out his astronomical calculations and almanacs to many firms in our country and to a number in Cuba, South America, and other foreign countries. He furnished his publications in four differ- ent languages, French, English, Spanish and German.
A simple, unpretending frame house in this village constituted his home. In the rear of this was the phil- osopher's workshop, where were found all the appurte- mances of such a scientist. Maps and charts upon the walls, mounted globes, telescopes, stacks of books, many of them rare and important, recounting astronomical observations of thousands of years ago, and giving reminiscences of the Ptolemies, Thales and Meton, or the opinions of Kepler, La Caille, Lambert, Huygens, Galileo and others, stocked well this study. From this ro0111, and the master brain that ruled here, this humble village lias for three decades had the distinction of catching a strange light from the sun, the moon, the planets and all the stars, and reflecting the same to all the quarters of our globe.
" Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear."
CHAPTER IX.
AN OLD INDIAN TRAIL.
HAVING in my last left my company in the heart of the antiquated hamlet of Newmanstown, reflecting upon the philosophic genius who liere, "far from the mad- ding crowd's ignoble strife," for so many years kept tlie noiseless, though not fameless, tenor of his way, I will start the march to-day on an old Indian trail that led right through this territory. As we are in search of ancient landmarks, we shall not pass by one that nature herself has built and in point of age and durability shall outlive the grandest monument reared by the hand of man. I want to point out the ineffaceable relic of bar- baric America, when the elements, the wild beasts and the red men held exclusive sway over this valley. I11- deed, this landmark is older than man or beast. It points to primitive time. It is the gap in the South Mountain, just south of the village last visited, through which pass, or "Kluft" (as the villagers prefer to call it), led the old trail of the savages from their village or settlement on the forks of the Susquehanna, where Sunbury is now located, to the Penn treaty grounds on the banks of the Delaware.
When the first settlers came to this valley from Scho-
(81)
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harie County, N. Y., in 1723, there were Indian villages or traces of them all through this valley. But the most significant local settlement or centre of the aborigines then was beyond the Kittatinny at Shamokin, now Sun- bury, from whence led this trail in an almost direct line to the settlement of the peaceful Quaker and his friendly
THE "KLUFT " NEAR NEWMANSTOWN.
neighbors, these red-skinned brethren. This trail led through the Kittatinny or Blue Mountain range, at the Swatara gap, and from thence in a direct line to the South Mountain pass or gap.
Along this route, almost identical with the pipe-line which the Standard Oil Trust has since drawn trans-
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AN OLD INDIAN TRAIL.
versely across our valley, carrying another kind of fire and in liquid form -- that representing the civilization of our day-the journeys on foot or on the backs of Indian ponies, were taken to and fro by these first monarchs of our then measureless forests. What an army of unlet- tered barbarians passed up and down this grand old mountain pass! What generations of unprogressive free- men here preceded us! What restless hordes prowled about this old landmark of nature when the day of civili- zation dawned upon this western hemisphere, as so many owls and bats flutter to their holes, or so many prowling panthers to their cavernous lairs at the approach of day! Over it they travelled with reluctant and oft defying feet, in search of other hunting grounds. Let us climb this pass together in recollection of all these events.
We need not be apprehensive of any danger, although the way seem weird and the inhabitants but few. We will be in no peril. The war-whoop of the last fighting savage has long since died away with a succession of echoes that have reverberated among the rocky inoun- tain sides that hem us in. It may be that an occasional wild-cat and some stray fox may sometimes venture out of their hiding place to look for prey or to see what use their once exclusive domain is put to, yet these will not do any harm to innocent students of history. So let us proceed on our tramp unmolested.
From Newmanstown we go directly south, along one mile of the best piece of road of which this county can boast. It is as straight as a stretched line, having good
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post fences on either side, and wide as a Chicago boule- vard. It is well-graded and kept in first-class repair. We think much credit must be due the Messrs. Long, who own inost of the property along this rural avenue, and have lived for many years in wealth and luxury at the base of the mountain. Not long ago the senior brother died in his palatial home located here.
Besides being a farmner and stock-raiser, he was a wholesale commission merchant, with stores in New York City, where he usually spent his winters. Large ice houses are located here, in which are stored during the summer immense quantities of eggs and butter for winter sale. This business has made this man a mil- lionaire, which large fortune has been partly spent in valuable local improvements of the character described.
Having reached the foot of the mountain, we here find a little peasant hut standing guard on the entrance of this Alpine-like pass. In front of it is a watering trough, into which a boisterous brooklet dashingly pours its crystal beverage. All along the up-grade of our winding roadway, we hear the babblings of a tur- bulent mountain brooklet, sending its waters in haste over its rocky bed, until it foams and murmurs like a panting thing of life driven by some deadly foe. Now it leaps in broken sprays over a steep precipice, then it dashes against some rocky barrier that completely turns its course. But on and on it flows, taking no time to rest on its way or to parley with its occasional visitors, only in the language of Tennyson's famous brook, keeping up its song :
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AN OLD INDIAN TRAIL.
"Men may come and men may go But I flow on forever."
On either side of our rustic up-way are found small springs to feed this streamlet. The largest and most famous of these is what is called the "Gold Spring," which is about half way up the gap on the right-hand side of the road. It is worth a trip from any part of the country to dip one's cup into its placid depths and quaff the sparkling ice-cold draught, that lias just bubbled up, through golden sands, from its subterranean fountain, whence all springs flow. Doubtless the Indian and the deer often slaked their thirst at this spring. At present it supplies the damn from which Newmanstown draws its water. Oh! for such a waterhead for Lebanon and some one to lead it into our liomes !
As we ascend let us take notice of the formation of the hills about us. On the right hand a gigantic prom- ontory frowns down upon us. For hundreds of feet the crest rises almost perpendicularly from this gap, and early in the afternoon casts its shadow into the cleft below. One of the prettiest sights in nature is to see this hill outline itself on an afternoon in charming elongations of its shadow upon the opposite hillside. It may be seen any sunny afternoon and for miles away.
The left-hand side of the hill lias exhibitions of vio- lent convulsions of nature in the formative period of the earth. Monstrous forces must have had free play here, judging from the way the mountains of bowlders are piled together. Rocks, inany of them larger than
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houses, are here rolled up on ledges that form the steps of a giant's staircase up to its brow. To this summit we may climb to find a little platform of huge rocks higher than any other point, and known as Eagle's Peak, where will be afforded us one of the most ex- quisite views of this valley. Hundreds of people visit this spot every summer and here take observations of one of the most extensive and transporting realms of rural and scenic beauty and agricultural wealth visible in our state. He who climbs these heights some pleas- ant morning will always know what a vision Moses must have had from Mt. Nebo's heights when he took his first and only gaze into the Promised Land. Our illustration shows a view too distant to do justice to its nearer grandeur.
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