William Penn’s Colony of Cave People

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on William Penn’s Colony of Cave People Of all the stories and accounts relating to the significant role Quakers played in the settlement of the New World, none better illustrates their extraordinary determina­tion and capacity to endure and live for freedom than the way they approached the housing shortage in Philadel­phia in the 1680s. They simply resolved the problem by living in caves along the banks of the Delaware and Schuylkill...
read more

Harmony in the Wilderness: A Walk through Old Economy Village

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Harmony in the Wilderness: A Walk through Old Economy Village Imagine a band of religious zealots creating a community, furnishing households, and planting flowers on western Pennsylvania’s frontier with the absolute certainty that the second coming was imminent and that Jesus Christ would walk the garden paths and be made welcome in their homes. That’s what George Rapp (1757-1847) and his harmonist followers believed. Such was his confidence...
read more

Pushing William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” to Its Limits: Ephrata Cloister

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pushing William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” to Its Limits: Ephrata Cloister On the banks of the Cocalico Creek in northern Lancaster County a group of remarkable individuals established Ephrata, one of colonial Pennsylvania’s most unusual communities. A place of intense spirituality, unconventional way of life, literary and artistic brilliance, and medieval-style architecture, Ephrata was the center of a religious society whose principles gave William Penn’s...
read more

Lost and Found

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost American religious leader Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–1844), best known as the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his wife Emma Hale Smith, lived in Harmony, now Oakland Township, on the Susquehanna River in northeastern Pennsylvania from late 1827 to 1830. While in Susquehanna County most of the Book of Mormon was translated between April 7 and early June 1829. According to church...
read more