Lancaster County PA Realty Check: Pennsylvania: Ephrata

The ninetieth Ephrata PA Fair is now history.  The weather threatened to rain on several days' worth of events, but in the final analysis, everything turned out all right.

                The younger children were excited to ride on an old fashioned merry-go round!

                     Forget healthy eating!  County and state fair season only comes once a year!

                                             Neon from the rides lights up the night.

Friday night we were treated to a trip down memory lane.  Flamin' Dick and the Hot Rods rocked the town with Rock & Roll hits from the '50s and '60s.

©BrianSchulman2008

Nestled close to the intersection of Routes 272 and 322 lies an ancient compound that predates the modern roads by centuries...  

The Ephrata Cloister was a Seventh Day Baptist community established by devout German settlers in 1732.

The Ephrata Cloister is now a museum run by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

The community was run by "brothers" and "sisters".  Today, "brothers" and "sisters" can be seen in period costumes as guides, and in activities that would have been typical of life 250 years ago.

Conrad Beissel, the founder of Ephrata, was born in 1691.  Having experienced a religious awakening, he had established a following in Germany.  His sect came into conflict with the state sponsored Protestant religion of Germany, and in 1720 he took advantage of William Penn's offer of land to those seeking religious  freedom.

                                                                      The Cloister Academy 

                                                            Ephrata Cloister Cemetery 

Walking the peaceful grounds of the Cloister, one can easily imagine one's self in a previous century - in the period of the 1740s and 1750s when the activity at the Cloister was at its peak...

Copyright2007BrianSchulman©

At 900 West Main Street, Ephrata, PA, not far from the Ephrata Cloister, stands an inn which has been in business for 237 years!  The Historic Smithton Inn, a beautiful estate of multicolored stone, was originally built in 1763.

Innkeeper Dorothy Graybill was born only a mile away from the Inn.  The rooms are furnished with antiques and hand crafted furniture.  Each room has an operating fireplace, which is in use from November through April.  The rooms can be candle lit, and are decorated with Pennsylvania Dutch quilts and stencils.

The Historic Smithton Inn was built by members of the Ephrata Cloister, a Seventh Day Baptist community with surviving buildings erected between 1735 and 1749.  The Inn is constructed with hand-cut timbers, held together by mortise and tenon joints secured with large wooden pins.  Flower gardens surround most of the Inn, and were still in bloom in late October!

Copyright2007BrianSchulman©