ONE STEP AT A TIME

Journalist walking from Washington to New York to discover America

Between Washington, D.C., and New York City, writer Neil King is rediscovering America one step at a time.

King, the former Wall Street Journal global economics editor, is walking hundreds of miles to discover the legacy of the country’s founding communities. Thursday he passed through Chester County, and Friday he will be in Valley Forge. He’s heading to Doylestown next week.

Some of his journey is planned, such as his visit with the mayor of York earlier this month.

Some happens by fluke, like his stop to fly fish on Pickering

Creek on Thursday.

King started on March 29 and has received an outpouring of support and encouragement on Twitter as he shares his journey.

He spends a lot of his time listening and observing. He plans to write a book. He planned the walk to pass through communities important to the founding of the country.

“I guess I wanted to get out,” said King, 61, of Washington, D.C. “I wanted to understand the country in between. To see the changes in the seasons up close. To see the changes in the terrain up close.”

On Thursday, he walked through St. Peters Village to Yellow Springs and Warwick Fur

nace Farm in Glenmoore, where he learned about Franklin stoves and exactly what a keystone is.

At Warwick Furnace, he was shown a window made without wood using a keystone, which is a wedgeshaped stone at a point in an arch that keeps the others in place. Without a keystone the arch would fall. It’s something one can understand intellectually but appreciate much more when it’s seen in action.

King said through his walk in Pennsylvania he’s come to understand how the state is a keystone. He sees the differences in the ScotsGerman communities west of the Susquehanna and the Anabaptist community of Lancaster to the Quaker influenced northern Chester County on to Philadelphia.

He walks about 16 miles a day. His longest trek was 26 miles and shortest was 12

miles, thus far.

In Lancaster County on Wednesday, he was invited into a Mennonite school where children sang hymns for him.

As he reached the halfway point of the journey, he said the walk between the two largest media markets has revealed much about the country.

“The number of totally miraculous places in between is just astounding,” he said.

On Thursday, King got lunch at Hallman’s General Store in Chester Springs. He was surprised to be asked

whether he wanted mayonnaise or oil on his hoagie. The widow of the owner of the store asked him a lot of questions making sure he was being safe. He said he thought to himself that she sounded like his mother. She ran out after him when he left an expensive water bottle in the store — just like a mom would.

King is headed to Philadelphia after Valley Forge. He wants to see Eastern State Penitentiary. Then it’s off to Doylestown, the home of Henry Mercer.

King is fascinated with the story of Henry Mercer, a 19th century anthropologist, artifact collector and tile-maker. Mercer collected pre-industrial hand tools and other implements of the past. That’s something akin to what King hopes to accomplish on his journey.

“He’s interesting to me,” King said. “In the late 1880s he was uncovering already forgotten parts of history. There are cycles of remembering and forgetting .... I’m a part of the cycle of remembering.”

COURTESY OF NEIL KING Journalist Neil King on his walk from Washington, D.C., to New York. The selfie was taken in Frysville, Lancaster County. He walked through Chester County on April 8.

COURTESY OF NEIL KING Journalist Neil King stopped at the Washington Hall military hospital at Yellow Springs on April 8 on his walk from Washington, D.C. to New York.

COURTESY OF NEIL KING Journalist Neil King stopped at Hallman’s General Store in Chester Springs. The generosity and care of the store’s owner, Cynthia Hallman, was memorable, he said.