Saturday we backtracked a bit and went north west to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It isn't our first trip -- it's our third. We camped in a quiet campground called Shady Grove near Denver, PA. We spent our time in Ephrata and from camp ventured to the Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum in Lancaster.
The Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum is dedicated to telling the history of the Pennsylvania Germans--or Pennsylvania Duth as they are also known. A hotel was built there in 1856 called the Landis Valley House and a commmunity grew up around the hotel and became known as the landis Valley. Brothers Henry K. and George D. Landis grew up in this community and began collecting local antique and established a private museum here in 1925. The Commonwealth of PA acquired their museum in 1953 and expanded the museum. There are 100 acres, 50 buildigs and about 100,000 objects.
By 1750 about 1/3 of PA's inhabitants originated from areas adjacent to the Rhine River in what is today southwest Germany, Switzerland and Alsace. Their religious bckgrounds included Lutherans, Reformed, Amish, Mennonites, Dunkards, Moravians, Schwenkfelders, Roman Catholic and many others. In addition to the hotel, there were farms, trades shops, a Mennonite Church, and a livestock auction.
We were there on Monday afternoon and took an hour tour of the site and watched the introduction movie, but ran out of time, so went back on Tuesday morning to visit the remainder of the buildings. We enjoyed talking to broom makers who make brooms in the Appalacian style. We also met a shoe maker who told us about the shoes he was making, and the various types of leather and the types of people who would have worn them.
It was an interesting site to visit and would highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in German life in colonial America.
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