Hay Creek Valley Historical Association acquires Tri-County Heritage Society
Hay Creek Valley Historical Association is known for its popular community events, such as the Hay Creek Festival and annual Apple Festival, and its ongoing restoration of the 18th & 19th Century Historic Joanna Furnace ironmaking site near Morgantown.
The Historical Association announced that it has fulfilled another one of its mission-related goals of having a library. The organization is now the proud owner of the Tri-County Heritage Library in Morgantown.
This established library was originally operated by the Tri-County Heritage Society. In the fall of 2018, the library contacted the Hay Creek Valley Historical Association as it was having difficulty keeping the library afloat. The two organizations continued to meet the following year to discuss various options.
Finally, after soliciting help from Brett M. Fegely, Esquire of Hartman, Valeriano, Magovern & Lutz P.C. in Reading, the Tri-County Heritage Society decided to dissolve and turn all of its assets over to the Hay Creek Valley Historical Association. After all the legal paperwork was filed and approved by the state of Pennsylvania the library had new owners.
As of April 30, Tri-County Heritage Society ceased business and its collections were taken over by the Hay Creek Valley Historical Association. This includes collections housed at 4979 Twin Valley Road in Elverson and a special Morgantown collection housed at the Caernarvon Township Building in Morgantown.
The Boards of both the Association and the Society felt that having the historical documents and artifacts of the Tri-County Heritage Society remain in the Twin Valley community was very important to the continued understanding of the community’s history.
“The mission of the Hay Creek Valley Historical Association is to preserve our local history of the community,” said Hay Creek President Juliana Flora. “By keeping the Tri-County Heritage Library intact in our community will keep our heritage alive for future generations.”
Both organizations have serviced the local community for more than 40 years.
Tri-County Heritage Society was organized in 1970 as the Morgantown/Caernarvon
Historical Society to celebrate the Township’s bicentennial. After the bicentennial, the organization became a volunteer nonprofit to preserve the history of the township.
The society gained historical pieces of local significance and started to display items in the Caernarvon Township building. The society started to grow in the late 1980s and increased its area of focus to include Upper Conestoga and French Creek Valley.
At that same time the society became a history and genealogy library. In 1990, the name changed to the Tri-County Heritage Society to encompass their new focus.
Under the management of the Hay Creek Valley Historical Association, visitors to the Tri-County Heritage Library may use various history books, magazines, journals, maps and see photographs of local historical interest. These records include church, cemetery, tax records, published genealogies and is a repository for several family collections.
The Tri-County Library also has a collection that is listed in the Philadelphia
Area Consortium of Special Collection Libraries finding aids site. A sample of the items includes Grace Mine records (1935 to 1978), Local Township and corporation records as well as local family records.
The Tri-County Heritage Library will be overseen by Hay Creek member Josh Stabler of Elverson. Josh will be the lead in the preservation, planning, and policy-development initiatives at The Tri-County Heritage Library.
A native of Elverson, Stabler graduated from West Chester University with a degree in history. Professionally, he worked in the publishing industry, spending several years with a company specializing in art, architecture, antiques, and regional history. Later, he worked for the Rare Books and Special Collections Department at Indiana State University’s Cunningham Memorial Library, where he worked on collection
development, exhibit design and installation, and outreach to faculty.
Stabler will work closely with this new library committee which consists of several of the former TCHS members.
The Hay Creek Valley Historical Association is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization. Proceeds from its events and activities go toward the preservation of the historic Joanna Furnace site, educational programs of the Hay Creek Valley Historical Association and the Tri-County Heritage Library. For further information, email info@haycreek.org or call the Tri-County Heritage Library at 610-286-7477.
Currently, the Library is closed for renovation and reorganization, however; appointments can be made to visit the site on Tuesdays. Hay Creek Valley Historical Association plans on having a grand reopening of the library in the fall.