Did George Washington stay at inn in Kutztown?

Did George Washington stay at an inn in Kutztown?

Craig Koller of the Kutztown Historical Society said local folklore tells of at least one visit by George Washington to Kutztown, but none of them are confirmed.

“The tale I’m most familiar with is about Martha Washington stopping for tea at the Hottenstein House just east of town,” said Koller.

Brendan Strasser of the Kutztown Historical Society agrees that Martha visited Kutztown, stopping at the Swan Inn, which is now Pop’s Malt Shoppe on Main Street. He cites the 1915 Centennial History of Kutztown mentioning this visit.

“But to the best of my knowledge, there is no documented evidence of any visit by her husband to the Kutztown area,” said Strasser. “George Washington did visit Reading several times, as related in a book by Berks historian J. Bennett Nolan, and so there is a possibility, depending on the route he took, that he may have passed through Kutztown, but we have nothing definitive to substantiate this. There is also a story (in the 1915 history) that his troops bivouacked on the former Bieber-Merkel-Baldwin farm (now Kutztown Area Transport Service, on South Kemp Road), but there is no evidence that Washington was actually with the troops when that occurred.”

Strasser said there is better documentation that John Adams and perhaps several other members of the Continental Congress over-nighted at Levan’s/Kemp’s Hotel (now the Yoga House) en route from Philadelphia to Lancaster when they fled the city during British occupancy in the American Revolution.

“What bothers me about that story, however, is why they would have gone from Philadelphia to Lancaster by way of Kutztown, when the old Lancaster Pike (Lincoln Highway, now Rt. 30) would have been far more direct,” said Strasser.

While stories of George Washington staying in Kutztown have not been confirmed, Strasser said this does not mean, of course, that there are not various stories about Washington in and around Kutztown.