Trailheads

Autumn is a wonderful time on the Pennsylvania Trails of History. Many travelers combine a visit to one of PHMC’s historic sites and museums with a leisurely drive along Pennsylvania’s scenic highways to view the beautiful fall foliage. The days grow shorter, but there are still plenty of activities at our sites and museums as summer gives way to fall and early winter.

Celebrating the Harvest

Volunteer Jack Holbrook demonstrates a 19th century-style cider press for young attendees at Erntedankfest.
Old Economy Village, PHMC

At Old Economy Village, Erntedankfest: A Harvest Festival (October 5–6) has been a fall tradition for many years. It is a mostly German rural tradition that goes back centuries. Old Economy’s event reflects the German origins of the Harmony Society and the persistence of German language and traditions in their three North American settlements in Pennsylvania and Indiana. After the Harmonists established Oekonomie along the Ohio River in Beaver County in 1824, they became known for both their religious practice and their economic success, combining agricultural activities and manufacturing enterprises to sustain a prosperous communal existence while they awaited the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

The annual Erntedankfest event features staff, volunteers and local artisans demonstrating the skills used by the Harmonists and their contemporaries to harvest summer’s produce and prepare for the winter ahead. As a communal society, much of this work was done centrally at Oekonomie, and visitors will have a chance to see the community kitchen and bake oven put to good use. Vendors will sell items from soap to pottery, and there will be food and drink for purchase as well. For up-to-date information on admission and the event schedule, including musical entertainment, visit oldeconomyvillage.org.

Additional harvest-themed events on the Trails of History include Harvest Days at Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum (landisvalleymuseum.org) on October 12–13 and Bonfire at the Scranton Iron Furnaces (facebook.com/scrantonbonfire) on October 19. Numerous Halloween events are also planned, such as Haunted Halloween Lantern Tours at Eckley Miners’ Village (eckleyminersvillage.com), October 18–19 and October 25–26; Little Mates Halloween Spooktacular at the Erie Maritime Museum & U.S. Brig Niagara (flagshipniagara.org) on October 20; and Tricks and Treats at Pennsbury Manor (pennsburymanor.org), which also features the reenactment of a 1684 witch trial, on October 27.

History by Candlelight

Shorter days mean longer nights and a chance for Trails of History sites to offer candlelit tours without staying open until midnight. Except for the occasional power outage, few of us have experienced life without the benefit of light on demand. When visitors tour our historic buildings by day, they may do so with only natural light and get some sense of how many of our ancestors lived. It is rarer to spend an evening at a historic site with only firelight, candles and lanterns to light the way. Historic Pithole City, administered by Drake Well Museum (drakewell.org), was a 19th-century oil boomtown. Little remains of the bustling streetscape, but stories of the town and its inhabitants are well documented. The Pithole Visitor Center is open only on weekends during the summer, but some seasonal events take place during the fall and winter. Pithole Lantern Tours on October 12 will feature historical characters, tours of the town (mostly building foundations), and period music.

Abby Van Roy and Alexa Aron greet visitors during a past Lantern Tours event.
Ephrata Cloister, PHMC

Conrad Weiser Homestead (conradweiserhomestead.org) times its annual Candlelight Tours to the weekend before Thanksgiving (November 23). The event features historical vignettes highlighting the Weiser family and their world, as well as offering period musical entertainment and discounts in the bookstore to start everyone’s holiday shopping.

One of the longest standing “low-light” events on the Trails of History is Ephrata Cloister’s Lantern Tours, offered during the week between Christmas and New Year’s (December 26–29). As Ephrata’s museum educator, Michael Showalter, explains, “the event is much like a school play with the ‘student historians’ serving as the actors with the historic buildings providing the stage.” Showalter develops and writes the script, gearing it to the number and skills of each year’s crop of students. In addition to providing visitors with more historically accurate light levels, the Lantern Tours allow site staff and students to focus on a single theme or event in Ephrata’s history rather than trying to provide a comprehensive tour. According to Showalter, “many times new research discoveries can provide the idea for the story.” The use of theatrical settings and structure also injects more emotional depth than is generally found on site tours, drawing visitors into the scenes and making them part of the narrative. Students and staff rehearse every Thursday after school, starting in October; some rehearsals run into the evening, with a much-anticipated pizza break. A week before the event, a potluck dinner is held for site volunteers and students’ families, and a dress rehearsal of the tour is presented. “This provides a great test for the tour’s flow and generates useful feedback and encouragement from the friendly audience,” Showalter notes. Tours last approximately one hour, with a new group setting off from the Visitor Center every 30 minutes. Reservations are a must and are available starting December 1. Visit ephratacloister.org for details.

The Women in Military Service for America Memorial Medal, left, and the American Campaign Medal, right, awarded to Louise Baldauski Coleman and donated by her to the Pennsylvania Military Museum. Pennsylvania Military Museum, PHMC

Collections Highlight

As part of the ongoing 75th Anniversary of World War II, the Pennsylvania Military Museum (pamilmuseum.org) has mounted a temporary exhibit, Women in Service, highlighting the stories of seven Pennsylvanians and the expanding roles of women serving in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Louise Baldauski Coleman in her WAVES uniform at a Memorial Day 2002 event in New Jersey. This was the last time she wore her uniform and medals before donating them to the Pennsylvania Military Museum.
Pennsylvania Military Museum, PHMC (Photo, Gift of Louise Baldauski Coleman)

In 1943 chemist Louise Baldauski Coleman (1921–2011), of Keelersburg in Pennsylvania’s Wyoming County, enlisted in the U.S. Women’s Navy Reserve (known as WAVES) “to get this war over with already,” as she explained in her letter offering to donate items to the museum in 2002. Second Class Petty Officer Coleman worked as a control tower operator at Naval Air Station, Atlanta, and then as a Link instrument trainer in Groton, Connecticut, teaching fighter pilots how to operate their navigation systems.

Jennifer Gleim, curator at the Pennsylvania Military Museum, notes that becoming a Link trainer was “one of the most rigorous training programs in the WAVES” and that almost all Link trainers during the war were women.

The exhibit includes Coleman’s American Campaign Medal (MM2002.42.4A), awarded to military members serving in the American Theater of Operations, and a commemorative medal (MM2002.42.6) presented at the 1997 dedication of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, which Coleman attended. Women in Service will remain on view at the museum through the end of 2019.

Amy Killpatrick Fox is a museum educator in PHMC’s Bureau of Historic Sites and Museums. She writes a weekly blog also called Trailheads at patrailheads.blogspot.com.