A LINK TO THE PAST
Historic villages in southwestern Pennsylvania offer family fun
Novelist William Faulkner famously wrote: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’’ That is certainly true at sites all around southwestern Pennsylvania. Collections of restored and re- created buildings provide settings to show how people worked, fought, prayed and played in centuries past.
There are, for example, more than a dozen historic structures at Old Economy in Beaver County. Each weekend crafters demonstrate ways men and women made their livings in the 19th century.
Historic Hanna’s Town, the
original seat of government for Westmoreland County, is now a county park that offers a frontier tavern, a courthouse, a blockhouse, cabins and a new history education center.
At West Overton Village, a rye whiskey distillery connects 21st- century visitors traveling to East Huntingdon to more than 200 years of history and hard- liquor making.
Historic Harmony shares part of its name with the Butler County borough where it is located. A trip to the Historic Harmony museum offers, among other things, a look at an 1875 pharmacy and at the medical office of Dr. Arthur Stewart as it appeared in 1905.
“I think we have something here to interest everybody,” Michael Knecht said. He is site administrator for Old Economy, which is operated through the state’s Bureau of Historic Sites and Museums.
Covering six acres near Ambridge, the site comprises 16 buildings originally built from 1824 to 1830. Economy was the third home for members of the Harmony Society, a German religious sect that believed in communal living and pacifism. Members of the society resided there until 1905.
Many of the buildings contain restored period rooms, including some in the home of
the society’s founder, George, or Georg, Rapp. The collection of original artifacts numbers about 16,000 items, and Mr. Knecht estimated that 70% was made in the village or acquired by society members.
Visitors — including some recent summer campers there — see demonstrations of trades followed by the Harmonists. “Almost every Saturday we have a blacksmith here operating his forge,” he said. The blacksmith and other craftspeople still use traditional tools and equipment.
The site covers just a fraction of the 3,000 acres that the society had owned and used for farming and industry. “They were self - sufficient,” Mr. Knecht noted. “They had orchards textile mills, a grist mill and a brewery.”
The Old Economy story is the story of 19th- century America; hard workers seeking a better life and religious freedom.’’
Historic Hanna’s Town takes visitors back another 50 years into the 18th century. The site in Hempfield is near the county seat of Greensburg, named in honor of Gen. Nathanael Greene, a Revolutionary War hero.
Pennsylvania was disputed territory during the American Revolution, and residents of Hanna’s Town paid a high price for seeking freedom from England. The British and their Native American allies attacked and burned the village in 1782. Westmoreland’s county seat was moved to what became Greensburg.
Hanna’s Town returned t o f a r m l a n d , a n d t h e county acquired the tract in 1966 for a park. Archaeological digs have turned up more than 1 million artifacts that tell the story of day- to- day living on the frontier.
Lisa Hays is the executive director of the Westmoreland County Historical Society, which manages Hanna’s Town. “A visit here helps you appreciate what everyday people did to survive,” she said. “It’s not just battles that win wars, the ‘ homefront’ was also a battle line. These settlers faced attack, but they did not go back east. They stubbornly stayed,’’ she said.
The result was the start of western expansion of what became the United States.
Construction of a new education center on site has allowed the historical society to consolidate its collections. It also offers space for temporary exhibits. The current show, “Visions of Light,” features 30 photographs of historical landmarks in Westmoreland.
West Overton Village was the birthplace of Henry Clay Frick, the “Coke King” and business partner of Andrew Carnegie. But it was Frick’s grandfather, Abraham Overholt, who saw the economic potential of West Overton. He built a commercial distillery in the village to provide another market for the rye grown on many local farms.
Prohibition killed the Overholt commercial distillery in West Overton almost a century ago, but Helen Clay Frick, Henry’s daughter, stepped in to save village buildings, including the small springhouse where her father was born.
Almost 100 years after commercial whiskey production stopped, the nonprofit that now operates West Overton Village is setting up a distillery.
“We’re still working out all of the kinks,” said Aaron Hollis, director of education at the site.
Tour groups with reservations have been given the first look at West Overton’s 50- gallon pot still, but it will be many months before rye whiskey is for sale there. The West Overton Distilling Co. will be making its liquor with a mash containing at least 51% rye grain.
For visitors not interested in whiskey making, exhibits in many of West Overton’s 20 buildings cover both the 19th and 20th centuries. Current displays include one curated by Mr. Hollis that looks at the Westmoreland County homefront during World War II.
Women were encouraged to take factory jobs and to learn trades like welding. Visitors can get a feeling for that era and those jobs by trying on a welder’s mask and gloves.
The newest exhibit recreates a 1950- era living room that features a newfangled entertainment gadget called television and a new board game called Candyland.
Historic Harmony was home to both Harmonist Society and Mennonite communities in the 19th century. First to arrive were the Harmonists in 1804. They built the first of the historic structures that line the borough’s streets, including an impressive underground wine cellar that is a stop on tours of the town.
The Harmonists made both wine and beer for their own use and for sale, said Kathy Luek, administrator for Historic Harmony. In 1814 society members moved west, selling their entire community to Abraham Ziegler and relocating to Indiana.
Ziegler was a Mennonite, a member of another German pacifist sect that had split from the Lutheran Church and faced persecution in much of Europe. Historic Harmony is home to a simple Mennonite meeting house and a cemetery that date back to Ziegler’s era.
One of the major displays in the Harmony Museum is a sprawling ninegeneration family tree for Abraham Ziegler and his m a n y d e s c e n d a n t s . Another deals with George Washington’s 1753 diplomatic journey to French forts near Lake Erie. The Ball Collection of historic firearms features rifles.
Ms. Luek said caring for historic structures and artifacts represents an obligation. “If you don’t have some understanding of the past, you can’t see into the future,” she said.