The Harmony Museum - Harmony, Pennsylvania

HARMONY, Pa. -- Historic Harmony's WeihnachtMarkt (Christmas Market) during the Nov. 15-16 weekend promises a memorable holiday experience with unique shopping as well as entertainment and foods, all reflecting the historic community's German heritage. Self-guided museum tours are part of the event, with rooms decorated in early 19th century tradition.

The festive atmosphere of the market grounds is much like that of WeihnachtMarkts so popular throughout Germany, with many individual shops, a large entertainment tent, and food and refreshment stations. There's more shopping in the adjacent Stewart Hall, Butler County's two wineries will offer tastings and sales in the museum building's 199-year-old wine cellar, weavers will occupy a nearby log house museum annex and craft activities for children will be offered in another. The museum's Christmas market also launches the holiday season for its own gift shop as well as Harmony's other specialty shops.
Outstanding artisans from throughout the region, many demonstrating their crafts, offer quality goods as diverse as silver jewelry, tin ware, iron goods, treen (wood ware), folk Santas, hand-carved Santas, folk art, paintings and drawings, dolls, jewelry, pottery, Shaker wood boxes, cuckoo clocks, beeswax candles and ornaments, marbleized paper, birdhouses, quilts, woven goods, stained glass, art glass, furniture, ornaments, greeting cards, soaps, Christmas cookies and gingerbread. In addition, Little Germany of Berks County, Pa., a longtime WeihnachtMarkt participant, offers a large selection of authentic German items including toys, ornaments and lights, nutcrackers, smokers (carved wood figures in which incense is burned), steins, recorded music, cook books, foods and chocolates.

Children will encounter Father Christmas in the market village and can take part in craft activities at the Ziegler log house. The entire family will be entertained by German songs and dances of Pittsburgh's Teutonia Mannerchor and performances of dulcimer players, fiddlers and other musicians. A horse-drawn wagon is a fun ride through the heart of the historic district, and visitors are invited to join in singing Christmas carols when an outdoor Christmas tree is lighted early Saturday evening. A home made gingerbread house will be given away through a raffle.

Harmony Museum exhibits interpret the area's extraordinary history, which began with a Delaware Indian village visited by a young George Washington in 1753 and includes Harmony's 1804 founding by German Separatists, fine hunting rifles made by Charles Flowers from about 1850 through the 1890s, oil and gas booms, and physicians who have served the area during the past 200 years. Walking tours of Western Pennsylvania's first National Historic Landmark District are an opportunity to learn even more about 250 years of local history and landmark sites.

Traditional German foods and refreshments will be available, including soup, bratwurst and sauerbraten sandwiches, potato pancakes, German potato salad, home baked pie, the museum’s signature Harmony Society ginger cookies, home made root beer and mulled cider.

The market will be presented 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors, $3 for students and free for children younger than six. A special rate for large groups is available by advance arrangement. Admission includes all-day access to the market, museum, entertainment and wagon rides. The Landmark District walking tour, at 3 p.m. both days, is an additional $5 per person but free for youngsters 16 and under. All proceeds benefit nonprofit Historic Harmony and its eight Harmony Museum properties.

Harmony is at I-79 exits 87-88, about 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh’s Point and 30 miles south of I-80. Its recorded history began with Murdering Town, an Indian village visited by Virginia Maj. George Washington during his 1753 mission demanding the French leave the region, thus sparking the French & Indian War. Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists, fleeing European militarism and a state church they considered corrupt, settled Harmony in 1804 and organized as the communal Harmony Society. The Harmonists left for Indiana Territory in 1814. Resettlement was led by Mennonites from eastern Pennsylvania, also pacifists, whose congregation faded away at the beginning of the 20th century, although many of their descendants remain in the area.

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10/16/2008
CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator
724-452-7341 or hmuseum@zoominternet.net

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ALAN & DOROTHY BALDINGER ESTATE FUNDRAISER AUCTION

The Alan & Dorothy Baldinger Estate Antiques Auction will be held as a fundraiser at the Harmony Museum Barn, Mercer St., Harmony, Pa 16037 on Saturday, September 13, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. Preview day of sale at 9:00 a.m. Website has photos, www.jsdillauctions.com .

This will be an exciting auction of furnishings and objects from the Alan & Dorothy Baldinger Estate, as well as other sources. The auction also affords the HH the opportunity to accept donations of quality antiques and collectibles from members and friends, and to dispose of several unused and unneeded items from HH's "attic" -- NOT, of course, museum collection artifacts. Call Kathy Leuk at the office, 724-452-7341, to donate items to the sale.

J.S. Dill Auctions is donating its services for this benefit. See its web site for photos of some of the sale items, www.jsdillauctions.com . All proceeds benefit the Harmony Museum - auction being conducted as the result of the Baldinger Families' donation of quality heirlooms to the Museum. The Baldingers were an old-line banking family most locally-noted for their store ... Baldinger's Foods From All Nations, located on Route 19 South of Zelienople.

Note: a 10% Buyer's premium applies to all purchases. VISA/Mastercard and Discover will be accepted. Checks require two forms of ID. Auction conducted at the Harmony Museum Barn with off-street parking available. Removal encouraged on the day of sale. Auction services donated by Jack S. Dill, J.S. Dill Auctions, Inc. For more information, please call 724-452-5082.

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IMPORTANT BUSINESS MEETING FOR HARMONY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS

Members and friends are urged to be at Stewart Hall at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 9, for an historical presentation and important business meeting. Approval will be sought to sell the Bishop Boyer House, and a slate of officer and director candidates will be presented.

The departure of Boyer House tenants in early August presented HH with three options: rehabilitation ($20,000-$25,000) as a rental; restoration ($40,000-$50,000) as museum annex; protection with preservation easement and sale, generating funds to assure maintenance and restoration of of HH's other properties. The board determined the third option to be the best solution for HH, working with Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation to preserve the Boyer House with an easement while eliminating the many financial and other liabilities it represents for HH. This also supports the late Lillian Frankenstein's preservation objective in donating the house to HH in 2003, unfortunately without an endowment for maintenance and restoration.

Pursuant to HH's bylaws, the board recommends members approve the sale with an easement to be held in perpetuity by Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation (PHLF). In addition, the board recommends members assure similar protection for HH's other properties by assigning a preservation easement on each to PHLF. Full details will be presented at Sept. 9 meeting.

In addition, the nominating committee will present candidates for HH officers, (president, vice president, recording secretary and treasurer) and the two other director terms that expire at year's end.

The public is also welcome for Violet Covert's "Reflections" program, in which she interprets Sally Hastings' journal about her pioneer family's journey in 1800 from Lancaster to Washington County. Covert's novel, "Reflections from a Grass Widow", was self published in April and can be purchased at the program. The novel is based on the Hastings family's experience, but Covert also included the complete text of Hasting's original journal, "A Tour to the West 1800", its first reprinting in more than 200 years. Hastings, who died in 1812, was 27 when she wrote the journal for her mother.

Covert spoke at the Harmony Museum in 2006 after publishing "Map of Butler County, 1858". That unique book connected an important map with county history and information on townships, school districts and historical sites to create a travel and research guide useful to the general public. This book is available for sale at the Harmony Museum Shop.

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FAMILY'S 1800 JOURNEY ACROSS STATE DISCUSSED AT HARMONY MUSEUM

HARMONY, Pa. -- The public is invited to a presentation at the Harmony Museum on Tuesday, Sept. 9, by Violet Covert in which she interprets the 1800 journal of Sally Hastings describing her pioneer family's journey from Lancaster across the Allegheny Mountains to settle in Washington County.

Admission is free. The program begins at 7:30 p.m. in the museum's Stewart Hall, Main and Mercer streets in Harmony's National Historic Landmark District.

Covert's "Reflections from a Grass Widow" is a novel based on the Hastings family's experience. But she also included in the book the complete text of Hastings' journal, "A Tour to the West 1800" -- its first reprinting in more than 200 years. Hastings, who died in 1812, was 27 when she wrote the journal for her mother.

Self-published in April with Chicora's Mechling Bookbindery, the book can be purchased at the program.

Covert also spoke at the Harmony Museum in 2006 after publication of her "Map of Butler County, 1858." That unique book connected the important 150-year-old map with county history and information on townships, school districts and historical sites to create a county research and travel guide.
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DINE AS IN GERMANY AT HARMONY MUSEUM: MUCH SHORTER TRIP, AND VERY MODEST COST

HARMONY, Pa. -- Harmony is commonly compared with typical rural southwestern Germany villages. The comparison becomes even stronger when the Harmony Museum serves up one of its very popular German dinners, as it does again on Saturday, Aug. 16.

Excellent food reasonably priced is reason enough to be there. But also important these days -- an easy car hop burning little gasoline, an air conditioned respite from August's heat, plus other things for the family to do before or after dinner. No wonder seating at these occasional feasts always sells out quickly.

The menu this time: beef rouladen, assorted sausages, chicken cordon bleu, sauerkraut, spaetzle (German pasta), German potato salad, red cabbage, garden vegetables, cucumber and tomato basil salads, assorted breads and rolls, and homemade desserts. Iced tea and coffee are offered for those who don't bring their favorite German beverage.

Reservations are required for buffet seatings at 4:30 and 6:15 p.m., and can be obtained through the museum office by phoning 724-452-7341 or toll-free 888-821-4822. Cost is $15 per person, with proceeds benefiting museum operations.

Folks interested in regional history will want to tour Harmony's National Historic Landmark District and the museum (open 1-4 p.m.) to learn more about a truly rich heritage spanning 250 years: Delaware Indians, Murdering Town and George Washington, pacifist German Lutheran Separatists who founded Harmony in 1804 and formed 19th century America's most successful communal group, pacifist Mennonites who led area resettlement from 1815 after the Harmony Society moved away, fine percussion rifles made in Harmony 1850-1897 by ex-coal miner Charles Flowers, and much more. Families are also encouraged to visit Harmony's specialty shops while discovering why this picturesque town, honored for its ongoing historic preservation success, has been a cultural tourism destination for two centuries.

Harmony is at I-79 exits 87-88, about 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and 30 miles north of Pittsburgh’s Point.

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CONTACT: Administrator Kathy Luek, 724-452-7341
7/27/08
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HARMONY MUSEUM'S 4TH ANNUAL "REGION-MADE" ANTIQUE GUN SHOW

HARMONY, Pa. -- The Harmony Museum presents its 4th annual antique firearms show and sale on Saturday, Aug. 9. As with previous shows, visitors will find an emphasis on 18th and 19th century guns and accoutrements made in the Western Pennsylvania-Eastern Ohio region.

The event's founding chair is Richard Rosenberger, an authority on antique firearms who co-authored "The Longrifles of Western Pennsylvania - Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties." Admission to the 9 a.m.-4 p.m. show is $5. Visitors are welcome to bring items from their own collections to learn more about them and obtain informal values from exhibitors. Lunch and refreshments will be available. The museum shop and Harmony’s other specialty shops are added attractions for gun show visitors.

Pennsylvania and Ohio collectors will exhibit mostly non-cartridge firearms made before 1898 in the museum's Stewart Hall in Harmony's National Historic Landmark District. Many were used to hunt game and for target competition, although some will have military histories linked to the French & Indian War, American Revolution, War of 1812, Civil War and other conflicts. Many guns on display are rare and historically important, and those representing exceptional craftsmanship are also considered works of art in metal and wood.

Exhibits are expected to include more than a dozen custom-built percussion hunting or target longrifles made ca. 1850 to 1897 by Harmony gunsmith Charles Flowers. Previously unknown Flowers rifles have also turned up at each of the museum's past shows, owned by Butler County residents who brought the family heirlooms to be examined by show experts. Hourly Harmony Museum guided tours will be available 10 a.m.-4 p.m. for an additional fee, where visitors can see the museum's outstanding Ball Collection of Flowers longrifles.

Additional information about the antique firearms show and exhibitor registration can be obtained from the Harmony Museum office, 724-452-7341 or, toll-free, 888-821-4822.

Harmony, which has attracted cultural tourism for 200 years, is at I-79 exits 87-88, about 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and 30 miles south of I-80. The area’s recorded history began with an Indian village visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission to the region that sparked the French & Indian War. Nearby, the war's first shot, fired from only about 40 feet away by a "French Indian," missed Washington. The communal Harmony Society of German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804, but the Germans moved away in 1814 and the area was soon resettled by Mennonites. Harmony became the region's first National Historic Landmark District in 1974.

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CONTACT: Administrator Kathy Luek, 724-452-7341
7/20/2008
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HISTORIC HARMONY SPONSORS ALLEGHENY BRASS BAND CONCERT

HARMONY -- Historic Harmony, which operates the Harmony Museum, will sponsor the Allegheny Brass Band concert celebrating U.S. Independence at 8 p.m. on Thursday, July 3.

Always the most popular of Harmony's free summer concerts, it will be performed in front of the Harmony Inn and conclude with Zambelli Fireworks, sponsored this year by the Inn, Kenny Ross Chevrolet-Buick and Swimming Pool Discounters.

The Allegheny Brass Band concert is the second of the 2008 series, originated in 1996 by Harmony Business Association and now co-presented by the borough. Several of Harmony's specialty shops, including the Museum Gift Shop, will be open during the concert.

Remaining concerts, all at 7:30 p.m.: July 17, Highway 18 (rockabilly); July 31, 706 Union (honkytonk/western swing); and Aug. 14, Kardaz (classic '50s-'60s-'70s).

Harmony is just off Pa. 68 near I-79 exits 87-88. Its recorded history began with an Indian village visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission to demand French withdrawal from the region, sparking the French & Indian War. Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists began to settle Harmony in 1804 and organized as what became the internationally famous communal Harmony Society. After they went to Indiana Territory in 1814, Harmony's resettlement was led by pacifist Mennonites whose congregation faded away as the 20th century began.
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6/26/2008
CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator
724-452-7341 or hmuseum@zoominternet.net
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ANNUAL HARMONY MUSEUM HERB & GARDEN FAIR JUNE 14

HARMONY, Pa. -- The Harmony Museum’s annual Herb & Garden Fair, offering an opportunity to exchange as well as purchase plants, will be held 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturday, June 14, at the museum's historic barn annex on Mercer Road just north of the Connoquenessing Creek. Admission is free.

Gardeners may trade potted plants as specialty vendors offer roses and other ornamentals, herbs and garden art. Seminars will take place throughout the day.

Plant donors and exchangers who bring plants to the event receive exchange vouchers. Museum volunteers recommend that plants be potted well ahead of time to assure they have a fresh, vigorous appearance when displayed at the fair.

A homemade lunch will be available, including quiches and basil tomato salad seasoned with herbs from the museum's garden. Visitors may also want to walk Harmony's 3/4-mile trail along the Connoquenessing, linking the 1805 barn with the museum's 1825 Harmony Mennonite meetinghouse, to look for birds and other wildlife.

Visitors are also encouraged to enjoy a few-blocks walk into Harmony's shopping and museum area. Back yard garden plantings at the museum's Wagner House annex on Mercer Street, in Harmony's National Historic Landmark District, include herbs as well as rare and unusual roses. A large arbor supports productive grape vines imported more than 150 years ago from Germany. The Museum Gift Shop there, and Harmony’s other specialty shops, also welcome browsers seeking the unusual and hard-to-find.

Guided tours of three Harmony Museum buildings, including a mid-1800s log house, are available from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is charged.

Harmony is one of the region’s most significant historic places. In the mid-1700s it was the site of the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) Murdering Town, visited by young Virginia Maj. George Washington during his 1753 mission to demand French withdrawal from the region, sparking the French & Indian War. A "French Indian" fired the war’s first shot at Washington nearby -- and missed.

The Harmony founded in 1804 by pacifist German Lutheran Separatists spanned some 7,000 acres of what is now Harmony Borough and Jackson and Lancaster townships. Their Harmony Society became 19th century America’s most successful communal group. A heritage tourism site for 200 years and Western Pennsylvania's first National Historic Landmark District, Harmony reflects an architectural character much like that of the southwest Germany hometowns of its founders.

In 1814 the Harmonists moved to Indiana Territory, and Mennonite Abraham Ziegler bought the society’s town and surrounding land. The Harmony Society returned in 1824 to settle 22 miles southwest of Harmony, and disbanded in 1905. Its final home is commemorated at Old Economy Village in Ambridge.

During the second half of the 19th century, Harmony’s Charles Flowers made fine hunting and target rifles, now collected as works of art as well as firearms. Oil and gas booms benefited the region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Harmony Museum exhibits present these and other elements of the area’s remarkably rich history. It is open 1-4 p.m. daily except Mondays and holidays. Harmony is at I-79 exits 87 and 88, about 30 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh, 10 miles north of Pennsylvania Turnpike exit 28, and 30 miles south of I-80.
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CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341
5/19/08
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KNOECHEL RETURNS TO HARMONY MUSEUM WITH POPULAR QUILT IN A DAY PROGRAM

HARMONY, Pa. -- Zelienople native Patricia Knoechel brings her annual Quilt in a Day program to the Harmony Museum's Stewart Hall at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, May 27.

This year's two-hour presentation is "Victory Quilts and Eleanor Burns' Signature Patterns." It will be based on the newest publications by Knoechel and her sister, Quilt in a Day founder and internationally popular television quilter Eleanor Burns, who now reside in California. Quilts will be displayed, and Quilt in a Day books and supplies may be purchased.

Admission is $6, will all proceeds benefiting museum operations. Reservations and advance ticket purchases are recommended because Knoechel's Harmony Museum appearances always fill Stewart Hall. Reservations may be made through the museum office at 724-452-7341 or toll-free 888-821-4822, or by e-mail at hmuseum@zoominternet.net. Tickets may be purchased at the Museum Shop in the museum's Wagner House annex, 222 Mercer Street.

The Museum is open for guided tours following the program.

Harmony, the region's first National Historic Landmark District, is among Western Pennsylvania’s most significant historic places. In the mid-1700s it was the site of the Leni Lenape (Delaware) Murdering Town visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission seeking French withdrawal from the region, sparking the French & Indian War. A "French Indian" fired the war’s first shot at Washington nearby. Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804, their Harmony Society becoming 19th century America’s most successful communal group. Mennonite Abraham Ziegler bought the society's town and surrounding land in 1815.

Museum exhibits present these and other elements of the area's extraordinary history, and the architectural character of the town remains largely reminiscent of a village in Germany.

Harmony is at I-79 exits 87-88, about 30 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh, 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and 30 miles south of I-80.

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5/8/2008
CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341

NOTE: Knoechel is pronounced nay-gehl
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"THE INVISIBLE SEX" AUTHOR TO SPEAK, SIGN BOOKS AT HARMONY MUSEUM PROGRAM

HARMONY, Pa. -- James M. Adovasio, founding director of Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute at Erie's Mercyhurst College and co-author of the book The Invisible Sex, will speak at the Harmony Museum's Stewart Hall on Saturday evening, May 3.

Admission is free for Adovasio's illustrated presentation, which begins at 7 p.m. He will discuss his newest book that unveils the important but previously ignored roles and contributions of women as the human race developed throughout the Stone Age. He will also sign copies of The Invisible Sex, published by Smithsonian Books, which will be available for purchase ($29 including tax). A wine and cheese reception follows the program.

Shaped by cartoons and museum dioramas, the public's typical image of human activity in the Paleolithic period is of fur-clad men attacking mammoths while women remain in hiding. More recent research -- by Adovasio, Invisible Sex co-author and University of Illinois anthropology professor Olga Soffer and others -- demonstrates a much different reality.

Adovasio and Soffer, among the world's leading experts on perishable artifacts such as basketry, cordage and weaving, present an exciting new look at prehistory in The Invisible Sex. They argue that women had a central role in development of language and social life, and invented such critical materials as clothing necessary to life in cold climates, rope for rafts that enabled water travel, and nets for communal hunting. The authors also note that it is unlikely anyone ever hunted mammoths, and that "Lucy," the hominid whose 3.3 million year old fossilized remains were found in 1974 in Ethiopia and whose name was suggested by a Beatles song, could well have been a man. The vision they present about women in prehistory offers provocative implications for gender assumptions in modern life.

BookLoon.com reviewer Alex Telander describes The Invisible Sex as "an amazing read that charts our ancestry from times when apes were the most evolved animal around, to some 4,000 to 6,000 years ago when humanity settled down and began farming. What makes this book different is that the authors [address] the known history of each period and then reveal evidence that shows women having a much larger role than was previously believed. Incorporating up-to-date information and discoveries on our ancestry, The Invisible Sex is a great, easy to read book for anthropology or archaeology addicts, and for anyone who wants to know what really was going on with our species in the last two million years."

According to Adovasio, "a variety of stereotypes have persisted on the role of women in the [prehistoric] past" largely because of "the inability of investigators to entertain alternative explanations as well as a fundamental failure to recognize and appropriately evaluate evidence contradictory to these stereotypes. This myopia was compounded by the domination of Paleoanthropology by males until relatively recently...If mentioned at all, women, as well as the old and young of both sexes, are characterized solely as minor players."

Adovasio is also provost, senior counselor to the president and dean of the Zurn School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at Mercyhurst College and a former commissioner of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. His first international acclaim came during the 1970s when he began the archaeological exploration of Meadowcroft Rockshelter near Avella, southwest of Pittsburgh, site of North America's earliest proven human habitation that dates from ca. 14,000 B.C. Significant among Adovasio's ongoing fieldwork are the multidisciplinary investigations of the Meadowcroft Rockshelter as well as of sites at Mezhirich, Ukraine; Dolni Vestonice/Pavlov, Czech Republic, and Caesarea, Israel. He has published extensively and is a frequent presenter at national and international meetings.

He drew a capacity audience to the Harmony Museum in 2003 when he spoke about origins of the hemisphere’s earliest inhabitants following publication of The First Americans - In Pursuit of Archaeology’s Greatest Mystery. It was written with former Natural History editor and former Smithsonian science editor Jake Page, the third co-author of The Invisible Sex.

Harmony is at I-79 exits 87-88, about 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and 30 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh. Its recorded history began with Murdering Town, a Delaware Indian village visited by Virginia Maj. George Washington during his 1753 mission demanding the French leave the region, sparking the French & Indian War. Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists, fleeing European militarism and a state church they considered corrupt, settled Harmony in 1804 and organized as what became the internationally famous communal -- and celibate -- Harmony Society. They went to Indiana Territory in 1814 and returned to Beaver County in 1824 to found Economy, now Ambridge, where its last members dissolved the society in 1905. Harmony's resettlement began in 1815, led by pacifist Mennonites whose congregation also faded away at the dawn of the 20th century.

Harmony Museum exhibits interpret the area's extraordinary array of history, from the Indians, Washington and the Harmony Society, to maker of fine percussion hunting and target rifles Charles Flowers and oil and gas booms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its Wagner House annex houses exhibits on local railroads and physicians.

LIMITED NUMBER OF SIGNED COPIES OF THE INVISIBLE SEX NOW AVAILABLE!

19TH CENTURY HARMONIST CLOTHING TO BE SHOWN AT HARMONIEFEST

HARMONY, Pa. -- Examples of attire worn by communal Harmony Society members when they immigrated from southwest Germany to settle Harmony in the early 1800s will be modeled at the 41st annual Harmoniefest on Saturday, Feb. 16. The dinner and historical program, a fundraiser to benefit the Harmony Museum, is held in the museum's Stewart Hall at Main and Mercer streets.

Admission is $25 per person. Reservations are required, and must be received by Friday, Feb. 8.

Curator Sarah Buffington of Old Economy Village in Ambridge will narrate the fashion show. Historic Harmony, the volunteer historical society and preservation advocate that operates the nine-property Harmony Museum, will contribute part of the evening's proceeds to a program providing authentic costumes for Old Economy docent-interpreters. Commemorating the communal Harmony Society's third and final home, Old Economy Village is operated by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

Historic Harmony will also present two Heritage Awards for outstanding restoration projects, and recognize volunteers who contributed the most hours to museum activities last year. This year's Heritage Awards will honor James and Elizabeth Kelleher for restoring the facade of their ca. 1890 home on East New Castle Street in Zelienople, and Belynda Slaugenhaupt and Suzanne Spohn for restoring the 1862 Stauffer farmstead barn at their home on Camp Run Road in Lancaster Township.

Harmony was founded late in 1804 by German Lutheran Separatists. led by Johann George Rapp. They left the Stuttgart area to escape militarism and conduct their religious affairs free of state interference. They organized formally as the Harmony Society in February 1805, an event celebrated with an annual February feast they called Harmoniefest. Their first American home, called Harmonie, which eventually had a population of nearly 900, encompassed the town and 7,000 acres of what became Jackson and Lancaster townships. The celibate Harmonists, who anticipated the imminent return of Christ, moved to southwestern Indiana in 1814, returning in 1824 to found Economie, now Ambridge in Beaver County, only 22 miles from their original home. The Harmony Society, which became 19th century America's most successful communal group, was dissolved there in 1905 by its last survivors.

Although Historic Harmony’s Harmoniefest does mark the founding anniversaries of Harmony and the Harmony Society, it celebrates two and a half centuries of extraordinary history. The area's recorded history began with young British Virginia Maj. George Washington's visit with local Delaware Indians during his 1753 mission to the region seeking withdrawal of a growing French occupation, thus sparking the French & Indian War. Nearby, the war's first shot was fired at Washington by a "French Indian."

Harmony is one of western Pennsylvania’s most significant historic sites. The Harmony National Historic Landmark District comprises 10 old-town blocks as well as the Harmony Society cemetery in adjacent Jackson Township. When "second founder" Abraham Ziegler bought the Harmony Society’s holdings in 1815, his and other Mennonite families began resettling the area. The Mennonite congregation, also pacifist, faded away as the Harmony Society met a similar end.

Harmoniefest begins with a 6 p.m. reception. Dinner entree choices are stuffed pork chop, chicken scaloppini and vegetarian lasagna. Information and reservations can be obtained from the Harmony Museum office, 724-452-7341, toll-free 888-821-4822, or hmuseum@zoominternet.net.
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CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341
1/27/08
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HARMONY NEW YEAR'S EVE ON GERMAN TIME OFFERS TOURS, DINNER, FILM, FAMILY FUN

Harmony, Pa. -- The Harmony Museum will be open for tours, show a short comedy film that's become a New Year's Eve must-see in Germany, provide a traditional German opportunity to foretell what the new year will bring, and offer a pork and sauerkraut buffet dinner as its part in the borough's inaugural family-oriented "Silvester" New Year's Eve celebration.

The historic borough of Harmony invites residents and visitors from throughout the region to observe 2008's arrival on German time -- six hours earlier than U.S. Eastern Standard Time -- in recognition of Harmony's important German heritage that originated more that 200 years ago.

Pacifist Lutheran Separatists from near Stuttgart in the duchy of Wurttemberg, now part of the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg, founded Harmony in 1804. They organized as the communal Harmony Society, which soon gained international renown. The group, which adopted celibacy, moved on to settle two more towns -- New Harmony, Ind., and Economy, now Ambridge, on the Ohio River only 22 miles from Harmony. Its last members disbanded the society there in 1905. The Harmonist heritage led to Harmony's designation more than 30 years ago as western Pennsylvania's first National Historic Landmark District.

According to legend, St. Sylvester, the Catholic pope 314-335, converted Emperor Constantine I to Christianity and cured him of leprosy. The year's last day, St. Sylvester's feast day, is known in Germany as Silvester or Silvesterabend.

Harmony's New Year's Eve party begins at 2 p.m. with the NexTier Bank Silvester 5K Run. Celebrants welcome 2008 four hours later when the Sign Innovation Ball Drop counts down to Armstrong's Silvester Zambelli Fireworks finale at 6 p.m. -- midnight in Germany.

The Harmony Museum will be open 3-5:30 p.m. for a token $1 donation, with free admission for continuous showings of "Dinner for One" at the Main Street end of the museum's Stewart Hall. For $1 a try at the adjacent Wagner House museum annex, visitors can have a go at Bleigiessen -- using the shape of melted lead to interpret what the new year may bring. The museum's $10 German dinner that begins at 4:30 p.m. in the main section of Stewart Hall will continue until the buffet is depleted.

In the humorous and somewhat politically incorrect "Dinner for One" English-language film short from the 1960s that has somehow become a very popular German New Year's Eve entertainment, butler James and lady of the manor Miss Sophie -- both elderly and increasingly tipsy -- conduct a dinner party with imaginary guests.

Bleigiessen involves placing a bit of lead in a spoon, heating it with a candle until the lead melts, dropping the molten lead into water and interpreting its shape when chilled to predict what to expect in the new year. A flower, angel, beetle or sailboat are among shapes bearing good tidings. An apple, broom, pants or lance -- not so good. The Harmony Museum folks have found a guide to help lead melters decide what their bit of metal says is ahead for them in 2008.

Harmony's Silvester also includes a German band concert 3:30-5:30 p.m. in front of the Harmony Inn, craft demonstrations and activities for kids. Weather permitting, there will be free rides on Antique Motor Coach Association of Pennsylvania's restored 1947 Harmony Short Line bus. Harmony's antique and specialty shops, including the museum gift shop, will offer post-Christmas sales.

Additional information about the Silvester celebration, as well as 5K race entry forms, are available at the borough's Web site, www.harmony-pa.us.
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12/26/2007
CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341
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ELEGANT DINNER & CANDLELIGHT TOURS OPEN HOLIDAYS AT HARMONY MUSEUM

HARMONY, Pa. -- Visitors attending Historic Harmony's annual holiday season Candlelight Christmas fundraiser on Sunday, Dec. 9, can again choose to enjoy an elegant, reservations-only dinner in addition to touring Harmony Museum buildings that are decked out in Christmas trim.

The dinner option was introduced at the 2006 Candlelight Christmas and sold out quickly. The single-seating dinner will be served at 5:30 p.m. in the museum's Stewart Hall, with entree choices of Wellington style beef, chicken or salmon. Diners are welcome to bring their own beverage. The $25 per person fee, the same as a year ago, includes a museum tour before or after dinner. Reservations must be placed with the museum office no later than Tuesday, Dec. 4, at 724-452-7341/888-821-4822 or hmuseum@zoominternet.net.

The decorated and candlelit main museum, Ziegler log house and Wagner House annex will be open 4-8 p.m. Harmony's historic center, reminiscent of a rural German village and core of the first National Historic Landmark District in Western Pennsylvania, becomes especially picturesque when luminaries are lighted at dusk around the diamond and along Mercer Street. The winner of Historic Harmony's annual handmade quilt raffle will be drawn at 8 p.m., and the museum's gift shop and Harmony's other antique and specialty shops will be open into the evening.

A $2 Candlelight Christmas admission donation is requested of those not having dinner; proceeds benefit Historic Harmony and its museum operations.

A unique model railroad platform that delighted museum visitors during the 2006 Christmas season is again a special holidays-only attraction in the Wagner House. Donated to Historic Harmony by the Ronald Eckstein family of Forward Township, the layout's highlights are remarkable log buildings and accessories made in the 1930s and early '40s by the late William Yobp of New Kensington and an O-27 gauge Lionel train and trolley from the 1950s.

Harmony is 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and 30 miles south of I-80 at I-79 exits 87-88. The area’s recorded history began with a Delaware Indian village visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission demanding French withdrawal from British territory, sparking the French & Indian War; its first shot was fired at him nearby by a "French Indian." Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony late in 1804, and their communal Harmony Society gained international renown. After their 1814 departure, the area's resettlement was led by pacifist Mennonites. These and many other aspects of area history are interpreted by the Harmony Museum.
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11/20/2007
CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or 888-821-4822
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HARMONY MUSEUM SCHEDULES WASHINGTON 1753 COMMEMORATION

HARMONY, Pa. -- History fans of all ages are invited to participate in a Harmony Museum commemoration on Saturday, Dec. 1, to learn more about 21-year-old Virginia Maj. George Washington's 1753 mission to western Pennsylvania that sparked the French & Indian War as well as other aspects of Harmony's rich history.

The two-mile walk begins at 1 p.m. in Harmony's diamond. A donation of $5 per person is requested.

Washington came to the region from Williamsburg, Va., late in 1753 with an ultimatum from Gov. Robert Dinwiddie for French withdrawal from British territory, virtually assuring war -- officers at Fort LeBoeuf (Waterford, Erie County) responded that the British should stay out of New France. The significance of the mission and some of its incidents will be discussed during the walk over historic ground with Washington and guide Christopher Gist reenactors Jason Cherry and Kenneth Cherry of Butler.

The program marks the 254th anniversary of Washington's overnight Nov. 30-Dec. 1, 1753, stay at Murdering Town, a Lenni Lenapi (Delaware) village across the Connoquenessing Creek from where Harmony would be established 51 years later. The French & Indian War's first shot, fired at Washington by a "French Indian" east of Murdering Town 26 days later, missed its target -- also with great historical consequence. The French soon drove Virginians from the Forks of the Ohio and constructed Ft. Duquesne there. After a small force led by Washington ambushed a French party at Great Meadows (near Uniontown) in May 1754, French troops secured Washington’s surrender at Ft. Necessity, and what would become the first global war was truly under way.

During the Harmony Museum's Dec. 1 program, Washington and Gist will lead participants to where it is believed Washington's party forded the Connoquenessing, then through Harmony and along a creek-side trail to the approximate site of Murdering Town. Historians believe that the village was on high ground near where Mennonites established a cemetery and meetinghouse in the early 19th century. Walkers will be offered refreshments at the historic 1825 meetinghouse before returning to Harmony.

Harmony is at I-79 exits 87-88, about 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and 30 miles south of I-80. Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists, fleeing European militarism and a state church they considered corrupt, founded Harmony in 1804 and organized as the internationally known communal Harmony Society. When they left for Indiana in 1814, resettlement was led by Mennonites from eastern Pennsylvania, also pacifists whose congregation faded away at the beginning of the 20th century. A pioneering school for girls was established here in 1817 by a Pittsburgh pastor, and the area benefited from local oil and gas discoveries in the late 19th century and again early in the 20th century. Exhibits at the Harmony Museum, open daily 1-4 p.m. except Mondays and holidays, interpret all of this and other aspects of area history.
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11/14/07
CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or 888-821-4822, or hmuseum@zoominternet.net

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HARMONY MUSEUM SUMMER HISTORY CAMP DATES SET

HARMONY -- Historic Harmony has scheduled its annual Harmony Museum summer History
Camps, with the session for beginner campers (third, fourth and fifth graders) held
July 23-27 and advanced camp (last summer's beginners) July 30-Aug. 3 for. Each
day's session is held from 9 a.m. to noon.

Activities for first-year campers include museum tour, nature walks, and such
pioneer crafts as tin piercing, weaving and candle making. The advanced program
focuses on German culture, Harmony history with related field trips, and crafts.

Preregistration is required with the museum office, 724-452-7341. The fee is $27 for
Historic Harmony members. The $30 fee for others includes a student membership.
Beginner camp coordinator is Valerie Cuccaro and advanced camp coordinators are
Marcy Luek and Margaret Miller.

Harmony, Western Pennsylvania's first National Historic Landmark District, is one of
the region’s most significant historic places. In the mid-1700s it was the site of a
Delaware village visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission into the
region that sparked the French & Indian War.

Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804 and organized as the
Harmony Society, 19th century America’s most successful communal group. Mennonite
Abraham Ziegler bought the society’s town and thousands of surrounding acres in
1815. Harmony Museum exhibits present these and many other elements of the area’s
remarkably rich history.

CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341
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ANNUAL HARMONY MUSEUM HERB & GARDEN FAIR JUNE 9

HARMONY, Pa. -- The Harmony Museum’s 3rd annual Herb & Garden Fair, featuring a plant exchange and sale, will be held 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturday, June 9, at the historic 200-year-old barn museum annex on Mercer Road just north of the picturesque Connoquenessing Creek.

Gardeners may trade potted plants as specialty vendors offer roses and other ornamentals, herbs and garden art. Seminars will take place throughout the day.

Plant donors and exchangers should bring their plants to the barn on Friday to be displayed properly when the fair opens. They will receive vouchers for use during Saturday's exchange. Museum volunteers recommend that plants be potted well ahead of time to assure they are perky in time for the fair.

Homemade lunch will be offered, incorporating herbs from the museum garden. Selections will include quiches and basil tomato salad. Visitors to the Wagner House museum annex gift shop a few blocks away, at 222 Mercer St. in the National Historic Landmark District, can enjoy various rare and unusual roses blooming in its garden. Guided museum tours will be available 1-4 p.m., and Harmony’s many other antiques and specialty shops invite browsing.

Harmony, just off I-79 in Butler County, is one of the region’s most significant historic places. In the mid-1700s it was the site of the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) Murdering Town, visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission to demand French withdrawal from the region that sparked the French & Indian War; a "French Indian" fired the war’s first shot at Washington nearby.

Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804. Their Harmony Society became 19th century America’s most successful communal group. A decade later the Harmonists relocated to Indiana Territory and Mennonite Abraham Ziegler bought the society’s town and thousands of surrounding acres in what would become Jackson and Lancaster townships. The Harmony Society returned in 1824 to settle 20 miles west of Harmony in Beaver County and disband in 1905; its final home is commemorated at the Old Economy Village historic site in Ambridge.

During the second half of the 19th century, Harmony’s Charles Flowers made fine hunting and target rifles, now collected as works of art. Oil and gas booms benefited the region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Harmony Museum exhibits present these and other elements of the area’s remarkably rich history. A heritage tourism site for 200 years and Western Pennsylvania's first National Historic Landmark District, Harmony retains the architectural character of the hometowns of its German founders.

Harmony is at I-79 exits 87 and 88, about 30 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh, 10 miles north of Pennsylvania Turnpike exit 28, and 30 miles south of I-80.
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CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341
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QUILT IN A DAY PROGRAM RETURNS TO HARMONY MUSEUM

HARMONY, Pa. -- Patricia Knoechel's annual how-to-quilt appearance always fills the Harmony Museum's Stewart Hall, so another full house is expected when she returns for this year's Quilt in a Day presentation at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, May 29.

Her two-hour presentation will focus on a traditional flowered 1930s "Magic Vine" design as well as "Quick Trip" strip-pieced quilting techniques suitable for beginners as well as experts. Both are based on new books by Knoechel and her sister, Quilt in a Day founder and television quilter Eleanor Burns. The area natives, who reside in California, have written many popular quilting books.

Quilts will be displayed, and Quilt in a Day books and supplies may be purchased. Admission is $6, with proceeds benefiting the Harmony Museum. Reservations or advance ticket purchases are recommended strongly because of the popularity of Knoechel's museum presentations each spring. Reservations may be made with the museum office, 724-452-7341 or e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net, and tickets are available at the Museum Shop, Wagner House museum annex, 222 Mercer Street.

The Museum is open for guided tours following the program.

Harmony, a National Historic Landmark 30 minutes north of downtown Pittsburgh, is among Western Pennsylvania’s most significant historic places. In the mid-1700s it was the site of the Leni Lenape Murdering Town visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission seeking French withdrawal from the region, sparking the French & Indian War; a "French Indian" fired the war’s first shot at Washington nearby. Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804, their Harmony Society becoming 19th century America’s most successful communal group. Mennonite Abraham Ziegler bought the society's town and surrounding land in 1815.

The Harmony Museum exhibits present these and other elements of the area's unusually rich history, and the architectural character of the town remains much like that of a rural German village.

Harmony is at I-79 exits 87-88, about 30 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh, 10 miles north of Pennsylvania Turnpike exit 28, and 30 miles south of I-80.
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5/6/2007
CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341

NOTE TO BROADCASTERS: Knoechel is pronounced nay-gehl

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SEE GEORGE WASHINGTON AT HARMONY MUSEUM

HARMONY, Pa. -- The public is invited to a program at the Harmony Museum to view the History Channel's special "Search for George Washington" production. The presentation begins at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 8, in the museum’s Stewart Hall, and admission is free.

The program expands on and further illuminates the historical detective work and 21st century technologies that determined Washington's true appearance in a project described by Jeffrey Schwartz at the museum's Harmoniefest program in February.

Project leader Schwartz, forensic anthropologist and University of Pittsburgh professor, appears throughout the 50-minute History Channel program broadcast one week after he spoke in Harmony. It shows the challenges encountered and technologies applied -- including advanced forensics and 3-D laser scanning -- to create accurate images of Washington as 19-year-old surveyor, 45-year-old Colonial army commander and first American president at 57. The program also shows how life-sized figures of Washington were produced, and their installation last September at a new museum at Mount Vernon, Washington's Virginia estate.

The Harmony area’s recorded history began with a Lenni Lenape (Delaware) village visited by Washington during his 1753 mission on behalf of Virginia's governor to demand French withdrawal from the region, sparking the French & Indian War. Nearby, a "French Indian" fired the war’s first shot at the 21-year-old major. The Indians had left the area many years before the Harmony Society of pacifist German Lutheran Separatists came to western Butler County's wilderness in 1804 to establish Harmony as its first American home. The religious commune soon attracted international attention as its population grew to about 850 immigrants convinced of Christ’s imminent return and dedicated to separation of church and state.

The Harmonists departed in 1814 to Indiana Territory, returning in 1824 to build their final home at what became Ambridge in Beaver County, commemorated by Old Economy Village there. Their Butler County property was bought in 1815 by Mennonite blacksmith Abraham Ziegler, Harmony's "second founder."

Harmony Museum exhibits present these and other elements of the area's rich history. Access to additional historic sites and National Historic Landmark District walking tours may be arranged by appointment. Harmony is at I-79 exits 87-88, about 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh and 30 miles south of I-80

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CELEBRATE NEW SEASON WITH HARMONY MUSEUM SPRING FEAST

HARMONY, Pa. -- Spring brings warmer, sunnier times and, in Harmony, revival of the Harmony Museum's popular reservations-only German dinners, beginning on Saturday, April 14 with a Frühlingfest, or spring feast. The buffet dinner will be served 5-7 p.m. in the museum’s Stewart Hall.

Selections will include pork schnitzel, sauerbraten, meatballs in gravy, sauerkraut, red cabbage, German potato salad, spaetzle (German pasta), dandelion salad, cucumber salad, beets, carrots, breads, homemade desserts, and coffee, tea, and water. Diners are always welcome to bring along their favorite German beverage.

Cost is $13 per person, and proceeds benefit museum operations. Reservations may be made with the museum office: 724-452-7341, toll-free 888-821-4822, or www.harmonymuseum.org.

Diners are encouraged to spend the day exploring the museum, the National Historic Landmark District, and Harmony's many specialty shops with goods ranging from antiques and crafts to souvenirs of one of the region's most historic sites.

Recognized in 2004 with a statewide award for its long-standing historic preservation efforts, the picturesque town with an architectural character not unlike that of a German village has been a heritage tourism destination for nearly 200 years. Harmony is at I-79 exits 87-88, a quick 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh’s Point and 30 miles south of I-80.

The area’s recorded history began with a Delaware Indian village visited in 1753 by George Washington during his mission to the region that sparked the French & Indian War. Nearby, a "French Indian" fired the war’s first shot at him on Dec. 27, 1753. The communal Harmony Society of German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804 as its first American home and was soon attracting international attention. With their 1814 departure, resettlement was led by Mennonite blacksmith and "second founder" Abraham Ziegler.
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RENOVATION COMPLETED AT HARMONY MUSEUM

HARMONY, Pa. -- Completion of an eight-week Harmony Museum renovation project has reopened all exhibit rooms in the main museum building to public view.

Museum volunteers removed a deteriorated floor in the multi-subject History Room, constructed a substantial subfloor and installed and stained southern pine flooring, repainted the room's walls, installed new cases for its display of Native American artifacts, and reorganized its other exhibits. The adjoining Victorian Room was also painted and its displays of period furnishings and artifacts refreshed.

The project finished a two-phase rehabilitation that began with the similar rehabilitation of the adjacent Mennonite Room in early 2006.

Historic Harmony President John Ruch said the old History and Mennonite room floors were badly-built replacements dating from the first half of the 20th century, and no significant artifacts were found under them. The building, on the diamond at the center of the Harmony National Historic Landmark District, was built in 1809 by the communal Harmony Society as a warehouse and granary with a massive wine cellar as its basement.

The Harmony Museum, established in 1955 and one of the region's few history museums that operates all year,

is open 1-4 p.m. daily except Mondays and holidays. Regular admission fees are $5 for adults and $2 for children for a guided tour that includes three historic buildings.

The Harmony area’s recorded history began with Murdering Town, a Delaware Indian village visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission to demand French withdrawal from the territory, sparking war between Britain and France. The first shot of the French & Indian War was fired at him nearby by a "French Indian." The Harmony founded in 1804 by German Lutheran Separatists as the first home of their famed communal Harmony Society encompassed much of Jackson and Lancaster townships as well as the town. After the Harmonists left, their town and extensive property was purchased in 1815 by "second founder" blacksmith Abraham Ziegler, who with his and other Mennonite families led the area's resettlement.

Among additional aspects of Harmony's rich history interpreted in Harmony Museum exhibits are pioneer life, a late 19th-early 20th century oil and gas boom, and the medical practice of rural doctors.

Harmony, is at I-79 exits 87-88, about 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh’s Point and 30 miles south of I-80.
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FLOOD PLAIN DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGED;
WASHINGTON'S TRUE APPEARANCE DECIPHERED

HARMONY, Pa. -- "Why in the world should new construction be allowed in the Connoquenessing flood plain while millions of dollars are being spent to buy and vacate flood plain properties damaged in the 2004 flood?"

Local, county, state and federal officials are about to be asked to respond to that question with regard to the controversial Creekside Manor housing plan, said Historic Harmony President John Ruch during the historical society and preservation advocate's annual Harmoniefest on Saturday evening (Feb. 10).

The annual fundraising event's 80 diners, including public officials, applauded University of Pittsburgh Professor Jeffrey Schwartz's illustrated presentation about his four-year forensics project to determine George Washington's appearance as youth, middle-aged Colonial army commander and first U.S. president. His internationally recognized undertaking is the subject of "Save Our History: The Search for George Washington" on the History Channel, 10 p.m. this coming Saturday (Feb. 17).

Historic Harmony also presented awards to honor recent building restorations and recognized members for volunteer service to the Harmony Museum during 2006.

The 47-acre Creekside Manor site and three adjacent properties are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Directly across the Connoquenessing Creek from Harmony's historic district and west of Mercer Road, it was probably the site of the Delaware Indian village visited by young Virginia Maj. George Washington in 1753. It was also the first land cleared by the communal Harmony Society that founded Harmony in 1804, for its physician's herb garden, crops and sheep-grazing, as well as its religious labyrinth. It has been in agricultural use ever since.

Ruch revealed that the property was offered to Historic Harmony last June, when the organization was given up to three years to finance and complete the purchase to preserve it as green space. The historical society began immediately to pursue grants and related support with foundations and other organizations, but was "incredibly shocked" when told last month the property was being sold to a builder -- "what must certainly be the greatest disappointment in this organization's history" and "shortest three years we'll ever experience."

"In The Creek Manor" would be a better name for the development, he added, because nearly half of the property was under water in the September 2004 flood and half of the plan's construction would occupy the flood plain.

"If it is built, it will mean worse damage to surrounding properties in future floods," Ruch said. "In fact, that's exactly what the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection told the developer, as well as Harmony and Jackson Township officials, just a few days before the property was offered to Historic Harmony. There's simply no question that if Creekside Manor is built, the consequences will be terrible for the community in terms of public safety, future economic viability and loss of nationally important historic resources. This is a project for which there is no rational justification."

He called on the public to demand "meaningful protections when it comes to the flood plain, and to preserve that very historic landscape across the Connoquenessing."

Schwartz's project resulted in creation of three life-sized representations of Washington that in September were installed in a new museum and education center at Mount Vernon, Washington's Virginia estate. The work involved using computer and laser technology to interpret 18th century art and sculpture, anatomical forensics and even Washington's clothing. The images produced differ distinctly from such popular representations as the Gilbert Stuart portrait that once hung in many school classrooms and that on the U.S. $1 bill.

The interpretation of Washington as a surveyor in 1751 would be similar to his appearance during his mission to western Pennsylvania two years later to demand French withdrawal from the region. He spent a night with Delaware Indians across the Connoquenessing from the future site of Harmony, and four weeks later an Indian allied with the French shot at him nearby.

Historic Harmony presented two Heritage Awards for 2007 during Harmoniefest. Robert Householder, Zelienople, honored for renovation of the facade of the building at 115 S. Main St., Zelienople, was also a 1999 recipient for restoration of Zelienople's former First National Bank building. Beth Nicklas and Alan Miles received an award for barn and outbuilding facade restoration at the ca. 1830 Ziegler-Peffer farmstead, their home at 129 Textor Hill Rd., Jackson Township.

Volunteer Service Recognition awards honored four Harmony Museum volunteers contributing the most hours of service during the past year. Recipients were Sharon Anno, Lancaster Township, 121.5 hours; Sam Regal, Zelienople, 81.5 hours; and Kathy Luek, Harmony, and Suzie Rape, Zelienople, 80 hours each. Ruch noted that 74 volunteers contributed more than 3,800 hours to museum activities during 2006.

The original Harmoniefest was a feast celebrating the Harmony Society's founding. The pacifist commune's members came to the United States seeking religious freedom and believing in separation of church and state. The event conducted by Historic Harmony celebrates all of the area's rich history.

Harmony is one of western Pennsylvania’s most significant historic sites and includes western Pennsylvania's first National Historic Landmark District. The first American home of the Harmony Society had a population of nearly 900 when the commune relocated to southwest Indiana in 1814; it returned to Beaver County in 1824 to establish Economy (now Ambridge), where the society dissolved in 1905 and is commemorated by the state's Old Economy Village historic site.

When blacksmith Abraham Ziegler, Harmony’s "second founder," bought the Harmony Society’s town and extensive property in 1815, his and other Mennonite families led the area's resettlement and Ziegler sold the town lot by lot. The Mennonite congregation also faded away at the beginning of the 20th century.
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WHAT DID GEORGE WASHINGTON REALLY LOOK LIKE? FIND OUT AT HARMONY MUSEUM HARMONIEFEST

HARMONY, Pa. --The University of Pittsburgh's Jeffrey H. Schwartz will present an illustrated program, "What Did George Washington Really Look Like? The First Forensic Reconstruction of Our First President," during Historic Harmony's 41st annual Harmoniefest program on Saturday, Feb. 10, at the Harmony Museum's Stewart Hall..

Historic Harmony will also present two Heritage Awards for area renovation projects and recognize volunteers who contributed the most hours to the organization's 2006 activities. Reservations are required for Harmoniefest and must be received at the museum by Friday, Feb. 2.

The annual museum fundraiser dinner and historical program commemorates Harmony’s 1804 founding by German Lutheran Separatists and their organization as the communal Harmony Society on Feb. 15, 1805. Historic Harmony officials note that this is an appropriate occasion for Schwartz's presentation because Feb. 22 marks the 275th birth anniversary of Washington, who contributed importantly to the history of Harmony and the region.

Schwartz, professor in Pitt's departments of Anthropology and History and Philosophy of Science, led a four-year project to determine Washington's true appearance at three stages of his life: teen-aged surveyor, gentleman farmer taking command of the Revolution's Colonial army, and at his inauguration as first American president. The work was used to create life-sized models for a new museum-education center at Washington's Virginia estate, Mount Vernon.

The effort combined 18th century art, sculpture, dentistry and clothing with digital computer technology and knowledge of skeletal and soft tissue changes of the aging process. Schwartz describes the result, which has attracted international attention, as the first "de-aging" of an individual -- recognizable as Washington, but notably different from popular representations.

The image of Washington at 19 depicts his appearance two years before he came to western Pennsylvania in 1753 as a Virginia major with an ultimatum demanding French withdrawal from the region, setting the stage for the French & Indian War. He spent a night with Delaware Indians at their Murdering Town near the future site of Harmony, camped at three other Butler County locations, and was the target of the war's first shot, fired several miles east of Murdering Town by a "French Indian."

Schwartz, author of many articles and books, is also a resident fellow of Pitt's Center for Philosophy of Science, research associate of the American Museum of Natural History and Carnegie Museum of Natural History, and forensic anthropologist for the Allegheny County Coroner's office. The New Jersey native received master's and doctoral degrees at Columbia University after undergraduate study at the university's Columbia College.

This year’s Heritage Awards honor Robert Householder, Zelienople, for renovation of the facade of the building at 115 S. Main St., Zelienople; and Beth Nicklas and Alan Miles for barn and outbuilding facade restoration at the ca. 1830 Ziegler-Peffer farmstead, their home at 129 Textor Hill Rd., Jackson Township.

The original Harmoniefest was an annual feast celebrating the Harmony Society's founding. The pacifist commune's members, anticipating the imminent return of Christ, came to the United States to flee militarism and seek religious freedom grounded in separation of church and state. Historic Harmony’s event, begun in 1967, celebrates more than 250 years of area history, and since 1991 has been the occasion for presenting its preservation awards.

Harmony is one of western Pennsylvania’s most significant historic sites. The Harmony National Historic Landmark District comprises about 10 blocks in the borough that separated in 1840 from Connoquenessing Township and the noncontiguous Harmony Society cemetery in what in 1854 became Jackson Township.

Separatists from the German Duchy of Wurttemberg began developing what they called Harmonie late in 1804 as their first American home. The Harmonist community, then numbering about 850, moved to southwest Indiana in 1814 to build a second Harmony. It returned to Beaver County in 1824 to establish Economy (now Ambridge), where the celibate society dissolved in 1905 and is commemorated by the state's Old Economy Village historic site.

Pacifist Mennonites led by Abraham Ziegler, Harmony’s "second founder" who bought the Harmony Society’s extensive property in 1815, resettled the area. Ziegler ultimately sold off the town in lots. Although their congregation faded away as the Harmony Society was meeting a similar end 20 miles away, many descendants of Mennonites reside in the area.

Harmoniefest begins with a 6 p.m. reception. Dinner is roasted game hen or stuffed brisket served with potato, caramelized root vegetables, salad and dessert; vegetarian lasagna is also available. Admission is $25 per person, reservations are required and must be received by Friday, Feb. 2. Additional information and reservations can be obtained from the Harmony Museum, 724-452-7341 or toll-free 888-821-4822, or e-mail at hmuseum@fyi.net

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HISTORIC HARMONY INSTALLS INCUMBENT OFFICERS, DIRECTORS

HARMONY -- Officers and two additional directors, all incumbents, were installed during Historic Harmony's annual Christmas membership dinner (on Tuesday, Dec. 12) for new terms that begin Jan. 1. The nonprofit historical society and preservation advocate operates the nine-site Harmony Museum.

Officers are members of Historic Harmony's 10-seat governing board. Unanimously reelected to two-year terms were President and Chief Executive Officer John S. Ruch, Jackson Township, retired PPG Industries manager of corporate public information; Vice President Cathryn Rape, Harmony, First Energy meter service and Harmony Borough mayor; Secretary Samuel F. Regal, Zelienople, retired Consolidated Natural Gas controller; and Treasurer Joseph White, Harmony, University of Pittsburgh associate professor of history.

Non-officer directors reelected to serve three-year terms through 2009 were Tim Shaffer, Prospect, attorney with Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham and former state senator; and Eleanor M. Wise, Jackson Township, retired Seneca Valley School District fourth grade teacher.

Continuing non-officer directors are Barbara Pabst, Evans City; co-owner of Pabst Blue Ribbon Farms and Pabst Blue Ribbon Antiques and retired Rockwell International executive secretary; Joan M. Szakelyhidi, Harmony, Butler Memorial Hospital microbiology supervisor; Barbara Vickerman, Zelienople, retired dairy farmer; and John L. Wise III, Center Township, vice president and secretary, Butler Eagle.

Harmony, western Pennsylvania's first National Historic Landmark District, ranks among the region's most significant historic sites. George Washington visited a Indian village here during his 1753 mission to New France’s Fort LeBoeuf that sparked the French & Indian War; a "French Indian" fired the war’s first shot at him nearby. Harmony originally encompassed about 7,000 acres spanning today's Jackson and Lancaster townships as the 1804 first American home of the Harmony Society of pacifist German Lutheran Separatists that gained international fame as 19th century America’s most successful communal group. The society sold its Harmony in 1815 to Mennonite "second founder" Abraham Ziegler. All of this, and other aspects of the area's rich history, are interpreted at the Harmony Museum, one of the region's few history museums that is open year-round.
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2007 HARMONY MUSEUM EVENTS

Harmony Museum: Harmony is a National Historic Landmark 30 minutes north of Pittsburgh’s Point that ranks as one of the region’s most significant historic sites. It also offers fun shopping at numerous antique, specialty and craft shops as well as quality family dining. George Washington visited the Lenni Lenape's (Delaware's) Murdering Town here during his 1753 mission to demand French withdrawal from the region, sparking the French & Indian War; a "French Indian" fired the war's first shot at him nearby. Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804; their Harmony Society became 19th century America’s most successful communal group. After Abraham Ziegler bought the Harmony Society’s 7000 acres in 1815, his and other Mennonite families became an important influence through much of the 1800s. Many of their descendants remain in the area. Charles Flowers made outstanding percussion hunting and target rifles here ca. 1850-1890. The Harmony Museum, open all year in the center of the National Landmark District, presents these and other aspects of Harmony's rich history and, by appointment, offers tours of additional sites. Harmony is at I-79 exits 87-88. Museum: Guided tours 1-4 p.m. except Mondays and holidays; reservations suggested for weekends, required for groups; phone 724-452-7341, toll free 888-821-4822, e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net. Web site www.harmonymuseum.org. Hours for its Museum Shop vary, and it can be visited online at www.harmonymuseumgiftshop.org.

At the Harmony Museum’s Stewart Hall unless noted.

February 10, Harmony Museum’s 41st annual Harmoniefest fundraising dinner, 6 p.m., commemorates Harmony’s 1804 founding by German Lutheran Separatists and 1805 formal creation of their communal Harmony Society. Program: "What Did George Washington Really Look Like?: The First Forensic Reconstruction of Our First President," presentation by Jeffrey H. Schwartz, University of Pittsburgh, who led a four-year project to reconstruct Washington as a youth, middle-aged commander in chief during the Revolution, and when inaugurated as president, resulting in the first "de-aging" of an individual -- recognizable as Washington but different from popular representations. Reservations required: 888-821-4822, e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net; Web: www.harmonymuseum.org.

April 14, Harmony Museum German dinner, menu of traditional German foods. Diners may provide their own wine or beer. 5-7 p.m. Reservations required: 888-821-4822, e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net; Web: www.harmonymuseum.org.

May 29, Harmony Museum’s annual "Quilt in a Day" program, 10 a.m.-Noon, presented by Patricia Knoechel, author and co-author of quilting books with sister and internationally syndicated television quilter Eleanor Burns. Reservations recommended: 888-821-4822, e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net; Web: www.harmonymuseum.org.

June 9, Harmony Museum Art Show/Plant Exchange, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Shop for works by area artists at the museum’s Stewart Hall and grounds, visit the nearby historic 1805 barn to exchange plants and buy from vendors of specialty roses and other plants. Lunch available at Stewart Hall. 888-821-4822, e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net; Web: www.harmonymuseum.org.

August 11, Harmony Museum’s annual Antique Gun Show in Stewart Hall, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., presenting historic firearms spanning Colonial era through late 19th century, including fine longrifles by Harmony master gunsmith Charles Flowers. 888-821-4822, e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net; Web: www.harmonymuseum.org.

August 18, Harmony Museum German dinner, menu of traditional German foods. Diners may provide their own wine or beer. 5-7 p.m. Reservations required: 888-821-4822, e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net; Web: www.harmonymuseum.org.

October 13, Harmony Museum German dinner, menu of traditional German foods. Diners may provide their own wine or beer. 5-7 p.m. Reservations required. 888-821-4822, e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net; Web: www.harmonymuseum.org.

November 10-11, Harmony Museum’s annual WeihnachtMarkt (German style Christmas Market) where local and regional artisans and other vendors offer a taste of German holiday season tradition with a memorable shopping opportunity for quality artwork, crafted goods, toys and other wares, including German imports. Related activities throughout the historic 200-year-old town, a National Historic Landmark with a number of antique, craft and specialty shops. Saturday 10 a.m.-8 p.m., Sunday Noon-5 p.m. 888-821-4822; e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net; Web: www.harmonymuseum.org.

Dec. 1: Washington Mission Commemoration. Hike with Virginia Maj. George Washington and guide Christopher Gist to site of Lenni Lenape (Delaware) village Murdering Town, hear about visit by Washington Nov. 30-Dec. 1, 1753, during his mission to order French from British-claimed territory, precipitating French & Indian War. A "French Indian's shot nearby, the war's first, missed Washington. Two-mile hike begins 1 p.m. at Harmony Museum's historic 1805 Mercer Road barn. 888-821-4822 ; e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net; Web: www.harmonymuseum.org.

December 9, Harmony Museum’s Candlelight Christmas fundraiser. Tour Christmas-decorated museum buildings 4-8 p.m.; elegant dinner, 5-7 p.m., requires reservations and includes tour admission. 200-year-old National Historic Landmark town center glows with luminaries after sunset. 888-821-4822, e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net; Web: www.harmonymuseum.org.
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NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARKS

National Historic Landmark Significance:

In 1935, Congress gave the Department of the Interior responsibility for designating nationally significant historic sites and promoting their preservation...The National Historic Landmarks program was established to identify and protect places of exceptional value in illustrating the nation’s heritage.

National Historic Landmark status has been conferred on some 2,300 sites that "possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States...and...integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association." National Historic Landmarks are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. All buildings within National Historic Landmark Districts are considered to be on the National Register. "National Historic Landmarks...are places where significant historical events occurred... prominent Americans worked or lived...represent ideas that shaped the nation...provide important information about our past, or that are outstanding examples of design or construction. [They] guide us in comprehending important trends and patterns in American history...."

National Historic Landmarks comprise only three percent of sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The additional 73,700 Register-listed properties "are primarily of state and local significance (whose)... impact is restricted to a smaller geographic area."

Harmony National Historic Landmark District:

Designation in 1974 of the Harmony National Historic Landmark District (Butler County) recognized the community’s national heritage and culture significance as the founding home (1804-1814) of the Harmony Society of immigrant German Lutheran Separatists. America’s most successful 19th century communal group went on to found New Harmony, Ind., in 1814, and Economy, Pa. (now Ambridge, Beaver County), in 1824. The Harmony NHL District comprises about eight blocks containing more than 50 principal buildings in the town center, and the noncontiguous Harmony Society cemetery at Edmond Street and Pa. 68, at the borough’s edge in Jackson Township. Historic Harmony, the local historical society and preservation advocate that operates the nine-property Harmony Museum and serves as NHL District steward, was founded in 1943 expressly to take ownership of the Harmony Society cemetery.

Of Pennsylvania’s 152 National Historic Landmark sites (only New York and Massachusetts have more), seven of which are NHL Districts, only 22 are in the western tier: Allegheny County has eight, Fayette five, Beaver and Washington three each, and Butler, Venango and Westmoreland one each. Of Pennsylvania’s seven NHL districts, three are in Philadelphia. Harmony’s was the first designated outside Philadelphia, Ambridge’s Old Economy NHL District was the second. The latter includes the six-acre Old Economy Village historic site, administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, and more than 80 privately owned original Harmonist structures. Other NHL Districts are in Bedford and Chester counties.

New Harmony Ind., also boasts an NHL District. The Harmony Society’s home 1814-1824, it was purchased by British social reformer Robert Owen, whose agricultural-industrial cooperative survived there only briefly.

Harmony’s Additional Historical Significance:

Harmony is unquestionably Butler County’s most significant historical site, with a heritage far richer than just the Harmony Society relationship that gained the town National Historic Landmark status. Some highlights:

The region was never home to substantial numbers of Native Americans, but in the mid-18th century a Lenni Lenape (Delaware) village called Murdering Town was situated on the north side of the Connoquenessing Creek near the future site of Harmony. Virginia Maj. George Washington stayed and obtained food there Nov. 30, 1753, during his mission that precipitated the French & Indian War. Returning on Dec. 27, Washington was shot at east of the village by an Indian that he and guide Christopher Gist identified as allied with the French. That was in effect the first shot of the French & Indian War, which began in earnest the following spring and became The Seven Years’ War, history’s first global war.

The road between Pittsburgh and Erie passed though Harmony from the late 18th through early 20th centuries. On it was transported some materials made in Pittsburgh for the ships with which Oliver Hazard Perry defeated a British fleet on Lake Erie in 1813, a critical American victory in the War of 1812. Reinforcements for Perry’s small force marched the same road and camped at Harmony, crossing the Connoquenessing on a bridge built by the Harmony Society. What became known as the Perry Highway, U.S. 19 was Harmony’s Main and Mercer streets until a bridge was built in 1936 at the north edge of Zelienople.

In 1815 the Harmony Society sold their town and surrounding land to Harmony’s Mennonite "second founder," Lehigh County blacksmith Abraham Ziegler. His and other Mennonite families resettled the area. The farmstead of Ziegler’s eldest son, David, including the 1805 Harmony Society barn now owned by Historic Harmony, the region’s oldest barn, has been designated eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, as has the nearby 1825 Mennonite meetinghouse, oldest west of the Alleghenies, also owned by Historic Harmony.

Rev. Jacob Schnee of Pittsburgh's Smithfield Lutheran Church, who had visited the Harmonists, agreed in 1816 to buy Harmony and, backed by prominent western Pennsylvania businessmen, in 1817 founded a pioneering boarding schools for girls in the 1809 building on the diamond that is now the main Harmony Museum facility. Upon Schnee's bankruptcy, Ziegler sold the town in lots. Mennonites remained a community influence for many years, but in 1902 the shrinking congregation closed its church. Many of today’s area residents are descendants of the 19th century Mennonites. In the mid-1820s Schnee established his own commune at New Harmony, Ind., after the Harmony Society returned to western Pennsylvania to establish Economy, now Ambridge, only 20 miles from the group’s first home.

Stephen Foster, then eight, and his mother and siblings lived in Harmony for several months during 1832 after the future composer’s family lost their home in Lawrenceville, now part of Pittsburgh. Charles Flowers, a former coal miner, began making fine percussion rifles in Harmony about 1850. One of the region’s last masters of the classic Pennsylvania style, he produced exceptional hunting and target longrifles during a career that continued into the 1880s and perhaps 1890s.

Harmony Borough received the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs’ 2004 Historic Preservation Award, established in partnership with the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission to recognize comprehensive programs to preserve built heritage with continued emphasis on economic and community revitalization. A longtime collaborative partnership of the municipal government and Historic Harmony was a core element of Harmony’s award success.

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UNUSUAL MODEL BUILDINGS, RAILROAD DISPLAYED AT HARMONY MUSEUM

Harmony, Pa. -- An unusual model railroad platform that delighted old and young alike when unveiled Nov. 11-12 at the Harmony Museum's WeihnachtMarkt (Christmas Market) will remain on view until early January.

The display was donated to Historic Harmony early this year by the Ronald Eckstein Family, after being a Christmas fixture of the Eckstein home for about 50 Christmas seasons.

Prominent on the layout are log buildings, a manger housing Nativity figures, sleighs, wagons and boats handcrafted between 1936 and the early 1940s by the late William E. Yobp of New Kensington for an expansive Christmas season living room display. Ronald Eckstein, whose late first wife, Lyda Lee, was William and Edith Yobp's daughter, built the model railroad platform in the 1950s for his O-27 gauge Lionel train and trolley, using some of Yobp's buildings for its village.

The display's log buildings are five meticulously constructed houses, steepled church, mill, and a barn with sandstone block foundation, all with interior illumination. According to Edith Yobp, of Creighton, the barn, mill and church were the first model structures her husband built. He worked on the projects every evening from October until Christmas Eve -- except for Thursday bowling nights. Her father, J.C. Tipton, provided advice for making the barn and wagons. William Yobp, who died in 1973, was head of his Alcoa heat-treating department.

The Lionel train is a model of The Western & Atlantic Railroad train pulled by "The General" of Civil War "Great Locomotive Chase" fame. The yellow trolley, operating on a separate track, is a Lionel Model 60. Over the years, Eckstein, of near Renfrew, added trees, a community Christmas tree, a rail fence, outhouses, stacks of firewood and other items. Some figurines are German imports from Yobp's original display.

The Yobp-Eckstein Christmas Display can be seen during regular guided tours of the Harmony Museum, open 1-4 p.m. daily except Mondays and holidays.

Harmony is at I-79 exits 87-88, about 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and 30 miles south of I-80. Its recorded history began with George Washington's visit to a local Indian village during his 1753 mission that sparked the French & Indian War. The communal Harmony Society of German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804. After they moved to Indiana in 1814, resettlement was led by Mennonites. Museum exhibits interpret this and much more area history.
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11/20/2006
CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator
724-452-7341 or hmuseum@fyi.net

NEW BOOK ABOUT OLD COUNTY MAP DISCUSSED AT HARMONY MUSEUM

HARMONY, Pa. -- The public is invited to a presentation by Violet Covert of Butler
about her recently published book, "Map of Butler County 1858," at the Harmony
Museum's Stewart Hall at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 12. Admission is free, and the
book will be available for purchase.

In her program Covert also uses the chronicle recorded by Sally Hastings about her
family's move to Western Pennsylvania to help the audience understand the region ca.
1795-1800, when the first pioneering families began to settle in Butler County. The
county was established in 1800.

Covert notes that the oldest known Butler County map -- its large format intended
for wall display -- provides much valuable information for researchers and anyone
with an interest in county history. With her book, the 1858 map is available for
general public use for the first time, in a form that the author notes can go along
"as a travel and research companion along the highways and byways of Butler County."

Each of the county's 33 townships has its own chapter in Covert's book. The old
map's section depicting each is opposite a modern map of the same area. The author
also describes the county's formation and courthouses, school districts and historic
sites, as well as the locations of 11 known surviving maps. The book, printed by
Mechling Bookbindery of Chicora, also contains maps indicating cemetery locations.

For more information about the Sept. 12 program or Harmony Museum operations,
contact the museum office at 724-452-7341/888-821-4822 or www.harmonymuseum.org.

Harmony, which has been attracting visitors for nearly 200 years, is at I-79 exits
87-88, 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and 30 miles south of I-80. The
area's recorded history began with an Indian village visited by George Washington
during a 1753 mission to the region sparking the French & Indian War; a "French
Indian" fired it's first shot at him nearby. The communal Harmony Society of German
Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804, left in 1814 and were replaced by
Mennonites. Recognized for its historic preservation success, Harmony became a
National Landmark in 1974.

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CONTACT: Administrator Kathy Luek, 724-452-7341

HARMONY MUSEUM SETS HERB & GARDEN FAIR

HARMONY, Pa. -- The Harmony Museum’s second annual Herb & Garden Fair expands to include a plant exchange and sale, seminars and an art show on Saturday, June 10, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at four museum sites.

Gardeners may bring their own potted plants to trade for others, and purchase plants from among varied offerings by specialty garden and nursery vendors, at the Mercer Road barn museum annex and in the garden of the Wagner House annex next to the museum on Mercer Street. A series of seminars, between 10:15 a.m. and 2:15 p.m. at the Mercer Street log house museum annex, will cover such topics as roses, herbs, landscaping and pest control, and will include a presentation by gardener Trapper John.

A show and sale at the museum’s Stewart Hall will present works by some of the area’s most talented artisans, including paintings, drawings, silhouettes and photographs. The technique of painting on china will also be demonstrated.

Lunch will be available at Stewart Hall as well. Museum tours will be offered 1-4 p.m., and the museum’s gift shop and Harmony’s other delightful shops invite browsing throughout the event.

Harmony, a National Historic Landmark in Butler County 30 minutes north of downtown Pittsburgh, is among Western Pennsylvania’s most significant historic places. In the mid-1700s it was the site of the Lenape Murdering Town, visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission seeking French withdrawal from the region that sparked the French & Indian War; a "French Indian" fired the war’s first shot at Washington nearby. Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804, and their Harmony Society became 19th century America’s most successful communal group. After Mennonite Abraham Ziegler bought the society’s town and surrounding lands in 1815, Mennonites remained an important area influence for decades. During the second half of the 19th century, Harmony’s Charles Flowers made fine black-powder hunting and target rifles, many now viewed as works of art.

The Harmony Museum exhibits present these and other elements of the area’s unusual history. The town, which has attracted heritage tourism for nearly 200 years, retains an architectural character much like that of the rural German hometown villages of its founders. Harmony is at I-79 exits 87 and 88, about 30 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh, 10 miles north of Pennsylvania Turnpike exit 28, and 30 miles south of I-80.

HARMONY MUSEUM GIFT SHOP OPENS ONLINE SHOPPING WEBSITE

HARMONY, Pa -- Folks who just can't get to the Museum Gift Shop or have only an occasional opportunity to do so, especially out-of-towners, may now support the Harmony Museum by buying from the Museum Gift Shop through www.harmonymuseumgiftshop.org . Put it into your favorites so you can check in often! It is still in it's growing stages, so there's lots to be added yet! It's a secure web site so you can shop with confidence and ease! You can call us at 724-452-5509 with any questions you may have. We have a great and growing selection of items for your shopping pleasure. Our book selections include Harmonist, Indians, George Washington, Arts & Culture, Architecture, Eric Sloane, Pa History and Victorian Era. The kids haven't been left out either! There's a assortment of Sticker books, Paper Doll books, Coloring books and more! We also have our line of Harmony items - including our ornaments, Virgin Sophia plate, coasters, candles, etc. And there's also a selection of limited quantity gift items for your home or to give for any special occasion. If you're in town, stop by and see us, but if you just can't get here, it's the next best thing!

HARMONY MUSEUM CUTS FEES DURING RENOVATION PROJECT

HARMONY, Pa. -- Admission fees for the Harmony Museum have been reduced temporarily while some exhibits are unavailable to visitors during a renovation project. Guided tour fees are $2 for adults and $1 for children until renovation of the main museum building’s Mennonite Room is finished. Other discounts are suspended while these special rates are in effect.

Volunteers have been refurbishing rooms and exhibits with little disruption apparent. However, it was discovered on Saturday (March 11) that the Mennonite Room floor required extensive rehabilitation. It and two adjacent exhibit rooms will be closed until the floor work is completed and exhibits reinstalled.

Four other main museum public rooms, as well as the nearby Ziegler log house and Wagner House exhibits, remain open. The museum’s gift shop and multipurpose Stewart Hall are also unaffected.

The Harmony Museum, established in 1955, is open 1-4 p.m. daily except Mondays and holidays. Regular fees for guided tours are $5 for adults and $2 for children. The main museum building, built in 1809 as a warehouse and granary with a massive wine cellar, housed a school for girls 1817-1826. The ca. 1810 Wagner House was originally a two-family home. The ca. 1840 log house was relocated to from nearby Middle Lancaster in 1976.

The area’s recorded history began with Murdering Town, a Delaware Indian village visited in 1753 by George Washington during a mission to demand French withdrawal from British-claimed territory that assured war between Britain and France. Nearby, a "French Indian" fired the first shot of the French & Indian War at Washington. German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804 as the first home of their communal Harmony Society. After their 1814 departure, resettlement was led by Mennonites whose congregation faded away early in the 20th century.

Additional aspects of local history interpreted by the Harmony Museum include pioneer life, the early school for girls, outstanding percussion rifles made by Charles Flowers, the oil and gas boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and medical practices of rural doctors.

Harmony, is at I-79 exits 87-88, just 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh’s Point and 30 miles south of I-80.

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CONTACT: Administrator Kathy Luek, 724-452-7341
3/12/2006

HARMONY MUSEUM GERMAN DINNER - BENEFITS HISTORIC
HARMONY OPERATIONS.

HARMONY, Pa. -- Saturday, April 8: Welcome spring with a Harmony Museum German dinner,
5-7 p.m., Stewart Hall, $12. Beef, pork, wurst, potato pancakes, German potato salad, spaetzel, much more plus beverages, desserts. Diners are welcome to bring a beverage. Reservations recommended: 888-821-4822, www.harmonymuseum.org. Spend the afternoon, tour museum, stroll historic district, browse shops.

MAJOR BEQUEST, AWARDS PRESENTED
AT HISTORIC HARMONY’S HARMONIEFEST

HARMONY, Pa. -- The largest financial donation ever received by Historic Harmony was announced during the historical society’s annual Harmoniefest at the Harmony Museum’s Stewart Hall on Saturday evening (Feb. 11). In addition, three property owners received preservation awards, and the program concluded with storyteller Alan Irvine describing 18th century abductions of Pennsylvania settlers by Indians.

President John Ruch also noted that 2006 is the 40th anniversary of the revival of the historical society, established in 1943 but dormant since shortly after the end of World War II, and the 20th anniversary of Historic Harmony’s purchase of the museum building and of the borough’s local historic zoning ordinance.

He announced that Historic Harmony had earlier in the week received more than $66,000 as major beneficiary among several nonprofit groups benefiting from a trust fund established by member Charles G. Ziegler of Catonsville, Md., who died a year ago. The veterinarian was a direct descendant of Harmony’s Mennonite "second founder" Abraham Ziegler, who in 1815 bought the communal Harmony Society’s 7,000 acres in Connoquenessing Township that became the borough and parts of Jackson and Lancaster townships.

Ruch said that a substantial portion of the Ziegler bequest and a recent Ayres Foundation grant will be used for improvements to the museum’s multipurpose Stewart Hall and adjacent Wagner-Bentle House annex, and for long-delayed work to complete the reconstructed Mercer Street log house annex. The balance of the trust bequest will be invested.

Heritage Awards were presented to Glade Run Lutheran Services for preservation of Zelienople campus structures related to the former Orphans Home and Farm School; St. John’s Lutheran Stone Church for preservation of its 1829 Lancaster Township church; and William and Ann Schlichtkrull for preservation of their Jackson Township barn. Ruch said that of 79 properties honored since 1991 for preservation and restoration, 30 were in Harmony, 20 in Zelienople, 12 in Jackson Township, and 10 in Lancaster Township. "Perceptive owners have come to recognize that economic benefits of preservation and restoration go hand-in-hand with appreciation for heritage and improving the entire community’s quality of life," he said.

Irvine’s "Stolen Away" presentation told of two abductions during bloody 18th century Indian raids at opposite ends of the commonwealth, and their opposite outcomes. Five-year-old Frances Slocum was one of three children from different families taken in a deadly raid at the Slocum home near Wilkes-Barre in 1778. Her fate was unknown until, 59 years later, she was discovered living in Indiana Territory. Now the widow of a chief, she chose to remain there with her extended Miami family. Massie Harbison and her year-old son were taken from their family home near Freeport in 1792 by raiders who killed her two older sons. Her son in her arms, she escaped two days later near today’s Butler and got home after struggling through the forest for two more days.

FLEA MARKET BENEFITS HARMONY MUSEUM
MARCH 4, 2006

HARMONY, Pa. -- A flea market to benefit Harmony Museum operations will be held 8 a.m. - 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 4, at the museum's Stewart Hall, on the diamond at the center of Harmony's National Historic Landmark District. Food will be available. Sellers may set up on Friday afternoon, March 3. For information and table reservations, call 724-452-5860.

HARMONIEFEST DINNER - HISTORIC HARMONY'S ANNUAL FUNDRAISER FEBRUARY 11, 2006

INDIAN ABDUCTIONS OF GIRL, WOMAN
TOLD AT HISTORIC HARMONY’S HARMONIEFEST

HARMONY, Pa. -- Late 18th century abductions by Indians of a little girl and a young mother at opposite ends of Pennsylvania, with incredibly different outcomes, will be brought to life by well-known Pittsburgh storyteller Alan Irvine at Historic Harmony’s Harmoniefest dinner on Saturday, Feb. 11. The annual fundraiser, always well-attended, is open to the public.

The original Harmoniefest was an annual Harmony Society feast celebrating the 19th century commune’s formal organization by Harmony’s founders, pacifist German Lutheran Separatists who, while anticipating the imminent return of Christ, came to the United States seeking religious freedom grounded in separation of church and state. Historic Harmony’s event, begun in 1967, celebrates the area’s more than 250 years of recorded history, and since 1991 has also been the occasion for presentation of annual preservation awards.

Harmoniefest begins at the Harmony Museum’s Doc Stewart Hall with a 5:30 p.m. reception, admission is $25 per person, and reservations are required with a deadline of Friday, Feb. 3. Dinner entree choices are stuffed chicken breast, roast beef or vegetarian lasagna.

Irvine’s presentation, "Stolen Away," relates the taking of five year-old Frances Slocum in 1778 near today’s Wilkes-Barre, the horrific 1792 abduction of Massie Harbison at Freeport, and how each incident concluded. This will be his third appearance for a Harmony Museum program. Irvine has been a storyteller for more than 20 years, performing at such venues as the Whiskey Rebellion Bicentennial Festival, Old Bedford Village and National Road Festival. The visiting professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh has also published several articles.

This year’s Heritage Awards honor Glade Run Lutheran Services, Zelienople, for preservation of the 1853 Rev. William Passavant House, 1909 bell tower and other significant Beaver Street campus structures related to what was originally the Orphans Home and Farm School; St. John’s Lutheran Stone Church, preservation of its 1829 sanctuary, Stone Church Rd., Lancaster Township; and William & Ann Schlichtkrull, preservation of the barn at their Swain Hill Rd. home in Jackson Township.

Harmony is among western Pennsylvania’s most significant historic sites. The Harmony National Historic Landmark District comprises about 10 blocks in the borough that was separated from Connoquenessing Township and incorporated in 1840, as well as the noncontiguous Harmony Society cemetery at the edge of town in Jackson Township, formed from part of Connoquenessing Township 14 years later.

Separatists from the German Duchy of Wurttemberg began developing the area they called Harmonie late in 1804 as their first American home, organizing as the communal Harmony Society in February 1805. The Harmonist community, by then numbering about 850, moved to southwest Indiana in 1814 to build a new Harmony, returning to Beaver County in 1824 to establish Economy (now Ambridge), where the celibate society was dissolved in 1905 and is commemorated by the state-owned Old Economy Village.

In the mid-1700s a small Lenni Lenape (Delaware) village called Murderingtown was on the north side of the Connoquenessing Creek near the future site of Harmony. It was visited by young George Washington when he traveled to Fort LeBoeuf at today’s Waterford with a British ultimatum that the French withdraw from the region, assuring war between the two nations. Not surprisingly, the French declined, demanding instead that the British stay out of New France. Days later, the first shot of the French & Indian War missed Washington east of Murderingtown, fired on Dec. 27, 1753, by what he called a "French Indian."

Pacifist Mennonites led by Abraham Ziegler, Harmony’s "second founder" who bought the departed Harmony Society’s extensive property in 1815, resettled the Harmony area, and Ziegler ultimately sold the town lot by lot. Although their congregation faded away early in the 20th century as the Harmony Society met a similar fate just 20 miles away, many descendants of the 19th century Mennonites reside throughout the area.

Exhibits at the Harmony Museum, which has nine properties, present these and many other elements of the area’s history.

Additional information about Harmoniefest may be obtained from the Harmony Museum, 724-452-7341 (toll-free, 888-821-4822) or e-mail at hmuseum@fyi.net

FLEA MARKET -

HARMONY, Pa. -- Held at the Harmony Museum in Stewart Hall Saturday February 4 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Benefits Historic Harmony Operations. Breakfast Sandwiches and Coffee will be for sale in the morning and for lunch there will be Chipped Ham Sandwiches, Hot Dogs, Potato Soup, Chili and assorted beverages available to purchase. Sellers may set up on Friday afternoon, February 3rd. Call Suzie Rape, 724-452-5860, for table reservations.

GERMAN CRAFTS, MUSIC, FOOD PART OF HARMONY MUSEUM CHRISTMAS MARKET

HARMONY, Pa. -- Holiday and Appalachian folk music, craft demonstrations in an historic log house and classes on making decorative bows are part of the Harmony Museum's eighth annual Weihnachten Platz (Christmas Place), presented Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 12-13, in the tradition of holiday markets so popular in Germany.

The market, at the museum's Stewart Hall in the town center, presents memorable shopping for quality artwork and goods ranging from Pennsylvania German fraktur (decorative folk art), German Belsnickles (Santas) and redware pottery, to wood carvings, treenware and ornaments, all by regional artisans. A mini-store offers German imports such as nutcrackers, toys, dolls and holiday decorations. Holiday baked goods are available as well, and there will be raffle drawings Sunday for holiday gift baskets.

Periodic spinning, weaving and candle dipping demonstrations can be viewed at the museum's nearby 1819 Ziegler log house annex. Classes there on decorative bow-making begin at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. each day; a $4 fee includes materials.

Wha-Kewe-nn, a West Virginia music group dedicated to preserving Appalachian heritage, performs with hammer dulcimer and other folk instruments at 12:30 and 2 p.m. Saturday. Guitarist Shelley McPharlin of Harmony's McPharlin Guitar & Violin studio, performs holiday selections Sunday afternoon.

Weihnachten Platz admission is $1 per person, free for children 16 and younger accompanied by adults. Admissions for hourly museum tours, 11-4 p.m. Saturday, Noon-4 p.m. Sunday, are lowered for this event, to $3 for adults, $1 for children 6-12, free for younger children.

Refreshments available both days include bratwurst with kraut, apple strudel and mulled cider. Outside Stewart Hall, apple butter simmers on an open fire.

The adjacent Harmony Museum shop has been restocked for the holiday gift season, and other shops in Harmony expand the market experience. Family dining is available at several nearby restaurants.

Harmony, a National Historic Landmark, is at I-79 exits 87-88, less than a mile east of Zelienople, 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and 30 miles north of Pittsburgh's Point, 30 miles south of I-80. Its recorded history began with an Indian village visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission to demand France's withdrawal from the region, sparking the French & Indian War. Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists settled the area in 1804 as the communal Harmony Society. They left in 1814, when resettlement was led by eastern Pennsylvania Mennonites.

CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or hmuseum@fyi.net
10/26/05

HARMONY MUSEUM CHRISTMAS MARKET REFLECTS TOWN'S GERMAN ROOTS

HARMONY, Pa. -- Nationally known Pennsylvania German fraktur artist Marta Urban of Westmoreland County and crafted goods importer Little Germany of Berks County headline artisans and other vendors preparing to bring a bit of German holiday season tradition to Harmony next month for the Harmony Museum's eighth annual Weihnachten Platz (Christmas Place).

While Germany's famed Christmas markets crowd town squares with booths for more than a month, the museum's version presents a one-weekend opportunity to find quality artwork, crafted goods, toys and other wares in an historical setting on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 12-13.

The market's emphasis is on the work of regional artisans and quality German wares, assuring shoppers of find items that will make memorable holiday gifts. Among them will be treenware, one of a kind German Belsnickles (Santas), woodcarvings, redware pottery, holiday ornaments, handmade soaps, Christmas cookies and gingerbreads, and much more.

Refreshments and live entertainment are part of the Weihnachten Platz experience. Bratwurst mit kraut und apfel strudel and mulled cider will be among goodies available to shoppers. Outside, apple butter will be simmering over an open fire. Museum tours will also be available.

The museum shop, the town's other antiques and crafts shops, and area restaurants that offer family dining with unique atmosphere add to the Harmony visitor's market eexperience.

Local artisans may still be considered for this year's Weihnachten Platz by contacting the museum office immediately at 724-452-7341, toll-free 888-821-4822, or hmuseum@fyi.net.

Harmony is at I-79 exits 87-88, only 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh's Point and 30 miles south of I-80. Its recorded history began with an Indian village visited by George Washington during a 1753 mission to the French near Lake Erie that sparked the French & Indian War. Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists settled the area in 1804 and organized the internationally famous communal Harmony Society. When they left in 1814, area resettlement was led by Mennonites from eastern Pennsylvania whose congregation faded away at the dawn of the 20th century. Many of their descendants still reside in the region.

CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or hmuseum@fyi.net
10/11/05

HISTORIC HARMONY RAISES $23,000 WITH MATCHING GIFT CHALLENGE

HARMONY, Pa. -- Historic Harmony's special two-month fund raising campaign that ended Sept. 30 raised nearly $23,000, spurred by a $5,000 matching grant from a funder that has requested anonymity.

Gifts from members and friends of the volunteer historical society and preservation advocate that operates the Harmony Museum reached $17,941. The $5,000 match produced a grand total of $22,941, enabling the organization to complete several important projects. One, exterior painting of the main museum building on Harmony's diamond, began on Oct. 3.

"We are grateful to everyone who contributed to the outstanding success of this campaign," said President John Ruch. "Especially after the Gulf Coast hurricane tragedies, I was concerned that we might fall short of being able to claim all of the offered $5,000 match. But as in the past, many people responded to Historic Harmony's need, contributions continued to climb throughout September and the total at month's end was more than three times greater than what we needed for the full match.

"The result is some much-needed fiscal breathing room with three months left of what has proved to be a year of unusual challenges," Ruch added. "Our donors once again have endorsed the importance of Historic Harmony's work to the community and region. This is a wonderful achievement during the museum's 50th anniversary."

Nonprofit Historic Harmony, founded in 1943, is self-supporting and receives no federal, state or county operational funding. Its mission is to preserve and promote knowledge of the Harmony area's history and heritage through its collections and outreach activities, foster tourism, and encourage preservation of historical resources in support of educational, quality of life, economic development and associated objectives.

The Harmony area was the location of an Indian village visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission demanding French withdrawal from the region, sparking the French & Indian War; a "French Indian" fired the war's first shot at him nearby. The Harmony founded in 1804 by the communal Harmony Society of German immigrants occupied today's town of Harmony as well as large areas of Jackson and Lancaster townships. When the Harmonists moved to Indiana in 1814, the area's resettlement was led by Mennonites. Their congregation faded away a century ago, but hundreds of descendants reside in the region.

CONTACT:
John Ruch 724-316-6002
Administrator Kathy Luek, 724-452-7341
10/4/2005

HARMONY MUSEUM PRESENTS OKTOBERFEST GERMAN BUFFET

HARMONY, Pa. -- The Harmony Museum celebrates the fall season and its colorful splash of beautify across western Pennsylvania's Germany-like hills with an Oktoberfest buffet dinner, 5-7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 15, at the museum's Stewart Hall.

Museum volunteers will serve up a spread including beef sauerbraten, roast pork, bratwurst, potato pancakes, German potato salad, spaetzel (German pasta), sauerkraut, red cabbage, vegetables, cucumber salad, apple sauce, breads, and a choice of beverages and desserts. Diners are welcome to supply their own German beverage.

Cost is $12 per person, with proceeds benefiting museum operations. Reservations are recommended and may be made with the museum office at 724-452-7341 or, toll-free, 888-821-4822.

Diners are urged to spend the afternoon strolling historic Harmony, a National Historic Landmark. The museum, on the town diamond, will be open 1-4 p.m. for guided tours. Local shops offer antiques, collectibles, and other quality items such as the works of local artisans. The landmark district is worth a leisurely stroll as well.

Honored during its bicentennial last year for its historic preservation efforts, Harmony has been a heritage tourism destination for nearly 200 years. The village is at I-79 exits 87-88, only 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh's Point and 30 miles south of I-80.

The area's recorded history began with an Indian village visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission to the French at Fort LeBoeuf near Lake Erie that sparked the French & Indian War; a "French Indian" fired its first shot at Washington nearby. German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804 and their communal Harmony Society soon gained international renown. When they left in 1814, resettlement was led by Mennonites whose many descendants still reside in the area.

Other aspects of local history represented in Harmony Museum exhibits and facilities include pioneer life, a 19th century girls' boarding school, percussion rifles made by Charles Flowers during the 19th century, the oil and gas boom of the late 1800s-early 1900s, and rural medical doctors.

CONTACT: Administrator Kathy Luek, 724-452-7341
9/28/05

QUILT SHOW RETURNS AT HARMONY MUSEUM

HARMONY, Pa. -- Quilters, quilt collectors and the Harmony Museum will display dozens of antique and contemporary quilts in a special show Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 16-18, in which area residents are encouraged to participate with quilts of their own.

The popularity of a week long show during Harmony's bicentennial last September persuaded Historic Harmony's auxiliary to organize the new presentation, which will include quilts from the museum's collection displayed within permanent exhibits as well as sale of some quilt items. The auxiliary also invites area residents to loan old or unusual quilts to the show and encourages Harmony residents to hang quilts from windows or porches or on clotheslines Saturday and Sunday, weather permitting, to lend eye-catching interest and color across the historic community.

The museum is at the center of Harmony's National Historic Landmark District, on the diamond at Main and Mercer streets. Hours are 5-7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 16; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17; and 1-5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 18. Admission is $3, including one raffle ticket for Sunday afternoon's drawing for a hand-sewn quilt. A salad lunch will be available on Saturday.

Visitors will see quilts from private collections, heritage quilts kept by families of museum members and friends, as well as contemporary quilts hand made by the museum auxiliary and others. The quilt to be given away, full-sized with an eight-point star pattern in navy blue and white, was made by members.

To loan quilts to the show, or obtain more information about it, contact the Harmony Museum at 724-452-7341 or toll-free 888-821-4822, or by e-mail at hmuseum@fyi.net.

Honored during its 2004 bicentennial by the state boroughs association for its longtime focus on historic preservation, Harmony is in western Butler County at I-79 exits 87-88, an easy 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh's Point and 30 miles south of I-80.

The area's recorded history began with a Delaware Indian village visited by George Washington during his late 1753 mission to French officers that helped sparked the French & Indian War; a "French Indian" fired the war's first shot at Washington nearby. German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804 and their communal Harmony Society soon gained international renown. When they left in 1814, the area's resettlement was led by Mennonites whose congregation faded away early in the 20th century.

Other aspects of local history represented in Harmony Museum exhibits and facilities include pioneer life, a 19th century girls' boarding school, percussion rifles made in Harmony during the 19th century by Charles Flowers, the oil and gas boom more than a century ago, and rural medical practices from the region's first physician in 1805 into the late 20th century.

CONTACT: Administrator Kathy Luek, 724-452-7341
8/16/05
EDITORS: Photos of museum collection quilts may be arranged.

HARMONY, OLD ECONOMY TO HOST COMMUNAL CONFERENCE

Harmony, Pa. - The 32nd annual Communal Studies Association conference will be held Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at Harmony and Ambridge, the first and final homes of the Harmony Society of German Lutheran Separatists that became 19th century America's most successful communal group.

Hosts are Historic Harmony, the volunteer historical society that operates the nine-property Harmony Museum, and Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's Old Economy Village. Extensive National Historic Landmark Districts reflecting their communities' exceptional importance in the development of American heritage; there are only seven NHL districts in all of Pennsylvania.

The conference is an international gathering of scholars, historic site personnel, members of present-day communes and others interested in historic and contemporary communal life. Its theme is, appropriately, "Festivals, Anniversaries, Rituals and Celebrations in Community." As 2005 marks the 200th anniversary of the formal organization of the Harmony Society at Harmony as well as the centennial of its dissolution at Economy, the conference will focus special attention on the Harmonists.

In 1804 the immigrants from southwest Germany began building their first American home at Harmony, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh in Butler County. The Harmony Society, by then counting nearly 900 members, moved to southwest Indiana in 1814 to build New Harmony, returning in 1824 to settle Economy (now Ambridge) along the Ohio River in Beaver County, only 20 miles from Harmony.

On Thursday evening, Sept. 29, attendees will be welcomed at a reception at the Harmony Museum's Stewart Hall, then cross the diamond for CSA's traditional conference opening dinner at Grace Church, the Harmony Society's meetinghouse 1809-1814 and Butler County's oldest church in continuous use. The conference convenes Friday at Old Economy Village and on Saturday at Harmony's Grace Church.

Friday's program opens at Old Economy Village with a plenary presentation on the history of the Harmony Society's final home by retired site historian and former site director Raymond Shepherd. It concludes with an evening concert of Harmonist music, including pieces not heard since the 19th century.

Saturday's sessions at Harmony begin with a plenary presentation describing the Harmony Society's German roots by religious scholar Hermann Ehmer of Stuttgart's Landeskirche Archiv. The conference concludes Saturday evening with an awards banquet and membership meeting at the Pittsburgh North Marriott Hotel in Cranberry Township.

Some 50 papers and discussion panels presented at the conference will further explore the Harmonists and address many other communal subjects, among them pietists and pacifists, New York's Oneida Community, Shakers, Hutterites, Japan's Imperial Buddhist nunneries, contemporary communal groups, Vermont's 1984 child-seizing raid on a community, Mormon polygamy, 19th century Scottish social reformer Robert Owen's New Lanark community, and celebrations centered around food, communal seekers and community sense of place.

In addition to host-site tours, conferees can observe a silk-winding demonstration at Old Economy and explore the heart of Harmony's landmark district.

Local conference organizers are Walter Brumm, Washington, Pa., recently retired California University of Pennsylvania professor; Mary Ann Landis, Old Economy Village site director; and John Ruch, Historic Harmony president. Conference program chair is Susan Love Brown, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Fla.

Thursday evening's Harmony Museum reception is sponsored by the Butler County Tourism & Convention Bureau. Friday's lunch and dinner at the Harmonists' Economy meetinghouse, now St. John's Lutheran Church, are sponsored by the Beaver County Recreation & Tourism Department. Saturday night's Pittsburgh North Marriott banquet is sponsored by the Butler Eagle and the family of its late Editor John L. Wise Jr., a descendant of one of the Mennonite families that resettled the Harmony area in 1815. A grant by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission will enable CSA to publish conference proceedings in a special issue of its scholarly journal, Communal Studies.

The Communal Studies Association, founded in 1974, is headquartered in Amana, Ia., and meets each fall at an historic communal site. Additional information about the 2005 conference program and registration is available at the CSA Web site, www.communalstudies.org, or by telephone from Gina Walker, CSA Treasurer, 812-464-1693.

Contacts:
Walter Brumm, Washington, Pa., Conference Chair, 724-222-7665
John Ruch, President Historic Harmony, 724-316-6002
Mary Ann Landis, Old Economy Village, 724-266-4500 Ext. 213
Gina Walker, CSA, 812-464-1896.
9/8/2005

HARMONY MUSEUM'S TWIN ANTIQUE SHOWS

HARMONY, Pa. -- Collectors of all stripes will find something of interest at twin Harmony Museum "Made in Western Pennsylvania" shows in late August. One presents antique firearms -- including those of the French & Indian War and longrifles by Harmony's 19th century master gunsmith Charles Flowers. The other offers general antiques. A preview session offers attendees first choice among quality items available for purchase.

The complementary, themed events will be held 9 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 27, and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 28. A preview 7-9 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 26, will offer wine and cheese refreshments and music by McPharlin Guitar & Violin of Harmony. The Harmony area has been an antiques shopping destination for years, and during the 1800s Charles Flowers became the region's last master maker of hunting and target longrifles in the classic Pennsylvania style, many decorated richly with inlays, brass and carvings.

Antique civilian and military flintlock and percussion long arms and handguns, related accouterments, as well as high-quality reproductions, will be presented by Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia collectors, dealers and artisans in the museum's Stewart Hall on the diamond in the center of Harmony's National Historic Landmark District. This show is managed by Richard Rosenberger, an authority on 18th and 19th century firearms and co-author of "The Longrifles of Western Pennsylvania - Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties."

Antiques dealers and collectors, largely from the region, will offer quality general antiques and vintage collectibles, especially glass, pottery, folk art and primitives, as well as carriages and other conveyances, just five blocks away at the museum's restored 1805 barn on Mercer Road. Dealer-collector Brenda Benek is show chair.

A $5 entry fee on Saturday and Sunday provides admission to both shows and the museum, where exhibits include the outstanding Ball Collection of Flowers rifles and diverse antiques. Friday evening's shows-only preview is $10 per person. All proceeds benefit museum operations.

Additional information may be obtained from the Harmony Museum, 724-452-7341 or toll-free 888-821-4822, or e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net.

Harmony, which marked its bicentennial last year and retains the character of a German village (it received the 2004 Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs historic preservation award), is at I-79 exits 87-88, 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh's Point and 30 miles south of I-80.

The area's recorded history began with an Indian village visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission demanding French withdrawal from the region, sparking the French & Indian War; a "French Indian" fired the war's first shot at him nearby. German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804 and their communal Harmony Society soon gained international renown. They left in 1814 and the area's resettlement was led by Mennonites whose congregation faded away early in the 20th century. Additional aspects of local history interpreted by Harmony Museum exhibits include pioneer life and an early boarding school for girls. Harmony has been a heritage tourism destination for nearly 200 years.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Photos of a representative Flowers rifle and example of Western Pa. glass are available on request.

CONTACT: Administrator Kathy Luek, 724-452-7341
8/1/2005

HARMONY MUSEUM'S TRADITIONAL BUT AIR CONDITIONED GERMAN DINNER

HARMONY, Pa. -- Can't afford a trip to Germany this summer? Sick of the sweltering heat that's keeping you close to your home air conditioner? Then imagine yourself visiting a German village by taking a short trip to Harmony to enjoy a traditional German meal in air conditioned comfort on Saturday, Aug. 20, when the Harmony Museum presents another of its popular German dinners at its Stewart Hall.

>From 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., museum volunteers will serve up huhnchen brust in stopfen (stuffed chicken breast) or schweine braten gefullt (stuffed pork roast) with spaetzel (pasta) or German potato salad, sauerkraut or red cabbage, garden salad, bread, beverages and desserts.

Cost is $12 per person, and reservations (recommended but not required) may be made with the museum office, 724-452-7341 or toll-free 888-821-4822. Diners are welcome to bring their favorite beverages.

They're also encouraged to arrive early to tour the museum, open 1-4 p.m., absorb the Germanic atmosphere of Harmony's remarkable National Historic Landmark District, and browse interesting shops for antiques, collectibles, quality gift items and works in various media by local artisans.

Can't make it this month? The museum will have another German dinner on Oct. 15, when perhaps cooler weather will prevail.

Honored for its historic preservation efforts during its 2004 bicentennial by the state boroughs association, Harmony is in western Butler County at I-79 exits 87-88, a speedy 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh's Point and 30 miles south of I-80.

The area's recorded history began with a Delaware Indian village visited by George Washington during his late 1753 mission to French officers that helped sparked the French & Indian War; a "French Indian" fired the war's first shot at Washington nearby. German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804 and their communal Harmony Society soon gained international renown. When they left in 1814, the area's resettlement was led by Mennonites whose congregation faded away early in the 20th century, although many present residents are their descendants.

Other aspects of local history represented in Harmony Museum exhibits and facilities include pioneer life, a 19th century girls' boarding school, percussion rifles made in Harmony during the 19th century by Charles Flowers, the oil and gas boom more than a century ago, and rural medical practice from the region's first physician in 1805 into the late 20th century.

CONTACT: Administrator Kathy Luek, 724-452-7341
7/26/05

HARMONY MUSEUM
50TH ANNIVERSARY MARKED

HARMONY, Pa. -- The 50th anniversary of the Harmony Museum, Butler County's oldest museum, will be observed on Saturday, June 25, with a 1 p.m. ceremony and refreshments in the facility's Stewart Hall followed by free admissions until 4 p.m.

The museum's creation by the Harmony Volunteer Fire Company was a significant regional event a half-century ago. The golden anniversary celebration will include reminiscences about the museum's founding and presentation of a plaque commemorating fire company members' foresight in preserving area heritage.

The Harmonist Historic and Memorial Association (a volunteer group renamed Historic Harmony in 1991), was organized in 1943 to accept title to the cemetery of the communal Harmony Society that settled Harmony in 1804. It was reorganized in 1966 as an historical society, assumed responsibility for museum operation the following year and orchestrated designation of Harmony's National Historic Landmark District in 1974.

Historic Harmony later purchased the museum building and adjacent Wagner House museum annex from the fire company, operates the museum year-round, and now owns nine historic properties in Harmony and Jackson Township.

Two beloved residents were especially instrumental in the museum's founding, and the local history they co-authored was released at the institution's opening. The late Dr. Arthur I. Stewart, for whom the museum's Stewart Hall was named, practiced medicine in the community for more than 60 years and was a fire company member. The museum's Veith Library honors the late Rev. Loran Veith, pastor of Grace Church and fire company chaplain, and his late wife, Ruth.

During the June 25 anniversary celebration, Ruth Werner, Historic Harmony president from 1970 through 1972 and in 1982, will share recollections of "Doc" Stewart. Esther Veith Ziegler, daughter of Rev. and Ruth Veith and a museum volunteer as a teenager, will speak about her father. Historic Harmony President John Ruch will present a commemorative plaque to representatives of the fire company, including President Gary Campbell and members active in 1955. Harmony Borough Council President Jeff Smith will also speak.

The museum opening, on Saturday, June 25, 1955, was a well-attended event that also launched the town's week-long sesquicentennial celebration. At a presentation in the portion of Grace Church that was the original Harmony Society church, Lawrence Thurman, then senior curator of the state's Old Economy Village in Ambridge, spoke about the Harmonists and Harmony's early history. The Harmonists, who relocated to southwestern Indiana in 1814, founded Economy in Beaver County, now Ambridge, as their final home in 1824; the communal group was disbanded there in 1905.

Harmony, which retains the architectural character of a German village, is 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh's Point and 30 miles south of I-80, at I-79 exits 87-88.

The area's recorded history began with a Delaware Indian village visited by George Washington during a 1753 mission to demand French withdrawal from British-claimed territory, sparking the French & Indian War; nearby, on Dec. 27, 1753, a "French Indian" fired the war's first shot at Washington. German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804 and their communal Harmony Society early the following year, soon gaining international renown. When they left in 1814, the area's resettlement was led by Mennonites. Their congregation faded away early in the 20th century, but many present residents are their descendants.

Additional aspects of local history interpreted by the Harmony Museum include pioneer life, an early 19th century boarding school for girls, outstanding percussion rifles made by miner-turned- gunsmith Charles Flowers, the oil and gas boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the medical practices of rural doctors.

CONTACT: Administrator Kathy Luek, 724-452-7341
6/9/2005

FLEA MARKETS BENEFIT HARMONY MUSEUM

HARMONY, Pa. -- A series of Saturday flea markets between spring and fall will benefit Harmony Museum operations.

The markets will be held 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. More information: 724-452-5860.

-- May 7, at the museum's historic 1805 barn, 303 Mercer Road, just north of the Mercer Street bridge over the Connoquenessing Creek.

-- Sept. 10, at Stewart Hall in the main museum building, Mercer Street at the diamond.

-- Oct. 8, at Stewart Hall.

-- Nov. 5, also at Stewart Hall.

HARMONY MUSEUM SETS ANOTHER GERMAN DINNER

HARMONY, Pa. -- On Saturday, June 18, Historic Harmony will present another in its popular series of German dinners at the Harmony Museum's Stewart Hall to benefit museum operations.

Dinner is served from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. On the menu are beef sauerbraten or pork schnitzel with potato pancakes or potato salad, spaetzel (German pasta), red cabbage, cucumber and onion salad with sour cream, apple sauce, beverages, and desserts. Diners are welcome to bring along their own wine or beer.

Cost is $12 per person. Reservations are recommended and may be made by phoning the museum office, 724-452-7341. Diners are encouraged to tour the museum, which is open 1-4 p.m., explore the National Historic Landmark District and browse Harmony's unusual shops, including the museum's.

Additional German dinners are scheduled for Aug. 20 and Oct. 15.

Harmony, which celebrated its bicentennial last year and retains the architectural character of a German village, is 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh's Point and 30 miles south of I-80, at I-79 exits 87-88.

The area's recorded history began with a Delaware Indian village visited by George Washington during his late 1753 mission to demand the French leave the territory, sparking the French & Indian War; nearby, on Dec. 27, 1753, a "French Indian" fired the war's first shot at Washington. German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804 and their communal Harmony Society early the following year, soon gaining international renown. When they left in 1814, the area's resettlement was led by Mennonites; their congregation faded away early in the 20th century, but many present residents are descendants of those early Mennonites.

Additional aspects of local history interpreted by Harmony Museum exhibits include pioneer life in a log house, an early 19th century boarding school for girls, outstanding percussion rifles made in Harmony during the second half of the 19th century by Charles Flowers, a late 1800s-early 1900s oil and gas boom, and the practices of several country doctors.

CONTACT: Administrator Kathy Luek, 724-452-7341
5/2/2005

HARMONY MUSEUM SETS JUNE PLANT EXCHANGE

HARMONY, Pa. -- If you're looking to spiff up the front yard or landscaping around the house, or just brighten and individualize an apartment, you may want to take in the Harmony Museum's plant exchange and sale, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday, June 11.

Bring your own extra plants to the museum's historic 1805 barn to trade for others. The barn is just north of the Connoquenessing Creek bridge at 303 Mercer Road, adjacent to the first land cleared 200 years ago by the communal Harmony Society for agricultural and community purposes.

None to trade, but want to buy? A number of vendors will offer specialty roses and other plants just a few blocks away at Stewart Hall, in the museum on Mercer Street at the diamond.

Lunch will also be available at Stewart Hall, and the museum will be open for tours 1-4 p.m.

Contact the museum office for more information: 724-4532-7341.

Harmony, a National Historic Landmark in Butler County 30 minutes north of downtown Pittsburgh, is among Western Pennsylvania's most significant historic places. In the mid-1700s it was the site of the Leni Lenape Murdering Town visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission seeking French withdrawal from the region, sparking the French & Indian War; a "French Indian" fired the war's first shot at Washington nearby. Pacifist German Separatists founded Harmony in 1804, their Harmony Society becoming 19th century America's most successful communal group. In 1815 Mennonite Abraham Ziegler bought the society's town and thousands of acres surrounding it, and Mennonites would remain an important influence through much of the 19th century.

The Harmony Museum exhibits present these and other elements of the area's unusual history, and the town retains the architectural character of a rural German village.

5/2/05
CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or (toll free) 888-821-4822

PAT KNOECHEL'S QUILTING PROGRAM RETURNS TO HARMONY MUSEUM

HARMONY, Pa. -- Patricia Knoechel returns to the Harmony Museum's Stewart Hall with her latest Quilt in a Day presentations, "Egg Money Quilts and Irish Chain in a Day," at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, May 31.

She has written or co-written a number of books with her sister, Eleanor Burns, founder of Quilt in a Day of San Marcos, Calif., which has published more than 70 books on quilting. Burns' television programs are broadcast by Public Broadcasting System stations and RFD Network and internationally as well. The sisters are natives of the Zelienople-Harmony area whose designs often reflect their local roots.

The Egg Money Quilts segment of the May 31 program is based on Burns' newest book, "Egg Money Quilts, a 1930s Vintage Sampler." Knoechel says Irish Chain is a timelessly popular design, with single chains appealing to beginners and double chain color variations to more experienced quilters.

Quilts will be displayed, and Quilt in a Day books and supplies will be available for purchase. The Harmony Museum will be open for guided tours following the program. Additional information and reservations are available from the museum office, 724-452-7341.

Admission is $5 per person, and since Knoechel's previous presentations have attracted capacity audiences, reservations are recommended. Proceeds benefit museum operations. Additional information and reservations are available from the Harmony Museum office, 724-452-7341 or, toll-free, 888-821-4822.

Harmony, a National Historic Landmark 30 minutes north of downtown Pittsburgh, is among Western Pennsylvania's most significant historic places. In the mid-1700s it was the site of the Leni Lenape Murdering Town visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission seeking French withdrawal from the region, sparking the French & Indian War; a "French Indian" fired the war's first shot at Washington nearby. Pacifist German Separatists founded Harmony in 1804, their Harmony Society becoming 19th century America's most successful communal group. In 1815 Mennonite Abraham Ziegler bought the society's town and thousands of acres surrounding it, and Mennonites would remain an important influence through much of the 19th century.

The Harmony Museum exhibits present these and other elements of the area's unusual history, and the town retains the architectural character of a rural German village.
Harmony is at I-79 exits 87 and 88, about 30 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh, 10 miles north of Pennsylvania Turnpike exit 28, and 30 miles south of I-80.

5/2/05
CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or (toll free) 888-821-4822

PHMC EXPANDS NATIONAL REGISTER ELIGIBILITY FOR ZIEGLER-WISE FARM

HARMONY, Pa. -- The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission has more than doubled, to 56 acres, the portion of the Ziegler-Wise Farm designated eligible for addition to the National Register of Historic Places, the nation’s official list of resources worthy of preservation.

Construction of a huge townhouse and apartment complex is planned for much of the site, in Harmony Borough and Jackson Township, despite its historic significance. It is bounded by the Connoquenessing Creek, Mercer Road, Wise Road and a wooded ridge.

PHMC’s Bureau for Historic Preservation expanded the eligibility designation at the request of Historic Harmony, which operates the Harmony Museum and advocates historic preservation, economic development and tourism. Completing a comprehensive nomination process of PHMC and the National Park Service is required to place a site on the Register. "The expanded eligibility is an important gateway for formal nomination to the Register when time for that comes," said Historic Harmony President John Ruch. "It also encourages persistence in the broad community support for preserving the site’s historic open space and buildings."

PHMC’s earlier National Register eligibility designation, in 1994, applied to about 25 acres of what was then identified as the David Ziegler Farm. Included were Ziegler’s 1869 farmhouse, which perhaps replaced a Harmony Society structure there, the adjacent 1805 Harmony Society-built barn, both on Mercer Road, and part of what had been Ziegler’s farm westward along the creek from those buildings. David was a son of Mennonite Abraham Ziegler, Harmony’s "second founder" who in 1815 purchased the communal Harmony Society’s town and thousands of surrounding acres.

The revision extends eligibility to 31 more acres: the rest of the field as well as a parcel at Mercer and Wise roads whose buildings include the mid-1830s Drovers Inn and stone barn of Aaron Shontz and his wife, Elizabeth, David Ziegler’s sister. Mennonites Jacob and Sarah Wise acquired the Shontz farm in the 1870s. Descendant John Wise and his wife, Stella, added the Ziegler farm to their holdings after World War II. The properties containing the Ziegler house and Shontz/Wise house and barn are still owned by Wise descendants. The Harmonist barn is owned by Historic Harmony and is being restored.

About 47 acres of the Ziegler-Wise Farm now eligible for National Register listing is the vacant field and wooded ridge where nearly 450 apartments and townhouses are to be constructed. Although PHMC last year called for an archeological study because of the site’s mid-18th century association with Native Americans, none has been done. Historic Harmony advocates keeping the land vacant to preserve an important historic resource as well as recreationally inviting green space in the fast-developing area.

According to Ruch, the Ziegler-Wise Farm was probably the site of the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) village called Murdering Town, visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission to Fort LeBoeuf that launched the French & Indian War. In 1805 it became the first nonresidential land cleared by the Harmony Society of German Lutheran Separatists. They farmed part of it, created a spiritual labyrinth and medicinal herb garden there, and erected the barn to shelter sheep. The original Pittsburgh-Mercer-Erie Road ran through it just west of the barn and today’s Mercer Road, crossing the creek on a Harmonist-built bridge. In 1813, materials for construction of Oliver Hazard Perry’s War of 1812 American fleet traveled that road to Erie, as in early 1814 did troops who stopped at Harmony on their way to help defend Erie from threatened British attack.

The Harmony area is Butler County’s most important historic place. The town center, immediately south of the Ziegler-Wise Farm, is a National Historic Landmark, a rare designation signifying the community’s exceptional contribution to national heritage. "Given its history," Ruch said, "it is not inconceivable that the Ziegler-Wise Farm could become an addition to the National Landmark District." The National Register-eligible Harmony Mennonite meetinghouse and cemetery, at the northwest corner of the site on Wise Road, is owned by Historic Harmony.

"The earlier National Register eligibility designation for the Ziegler-Wise Farm resulted from a consultant’s 1993 work related to planning for the Mercer Street bridge replacement completed in 2000," said Ruch. "Unfortunately, Historic Harmony was not a party to that particular review, and errors were made. Only recently did we become aware of the extent of deficiencies, and when we did, we had a responsibility to correct the record.

"The consultant’s greatest error was failure to fully recognize the extent of the Harmonist-rooted Ziegler-Wise Farm and scope of its extraordinary history. After completing our review, including a title trace back to the Harmony Society that began settling here in 1804, we explained the situation to officials at the Bureau for Historic Preservation. We’re gratified by their timely and positive response, which we hope will contribute to finding a way for the proposed apartment-townhouse project to go away in a manner that satisfies all parties."

Ruch emphasized that the site’s more than 250 years of recorded history links Native Americans, the Harmony Society, the Mennonite resettlers, including the Zieglers and Wises, and today’s community that values its wonderful heritage. The public interest is best served by recognizing this site for what it is, an important historic landscape with important historic structures worthy of preservation."

CONTACT: John Ruch, 724-316-6002 or 724-452-8834
3/24/2005

PHMC’S FRANCO SPEAKS, FIVE AWARDS SET
AT HISTORIC HARMONY’S HARMONIEFEST

HARMONY, Pa. -- Barbara Franco, executive director of the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission (PHMC), speaks about "The Value of Community: Remembering the Harmony Society" at the annual Harmoniefest dinner on Saturday, Feb. 12. This year’s event, at the Harmony Museum’s Stewart Hall, commemorates the 200th anniversary of the formal creation of the commune that founded the town and began developing several thousand surrounding acres.

Historic Harmony, the historical society operating the museum’s nine sites in Harmony and Jackson Township, also presents five Heritage Awards for preserving historic structures and efforts that support appreciation for area history.

Tickets, $22 per person, must be reserved by Friday, Feb. 4. Dinner choices are stuffed chicken breast, sirloin tip roast or vegetarian lasagna, and the event begins with a 5:30 p.m. reception. Harmoniefest is named for the Harmony Society’s annual observance of its founding but celebrates all 250 years of recorded area history.

Involved with museums and historical organizations since 1966, Franco became PHMC executive director in February 2004. She previously was president and chief executive of The Historical Society of Washington, D.C., where she headed creation of the City Museum that opened in 2003. Franco was Minnesota Historical Society assistant director of museums 1990-1995, and earlier was curator, coordinator of exhibits, then assistant director of The Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington, Mass.

Presentation of Heritage Awards has been part of Harmoniefest since 1991. This year, Historic Harmony honors John Axtel and Diana Ames, Pittsburgh, for preserving the ca. 1840 Daniel Stauffer House, Main Street, Zelienople; Harmony Council and its Bicentennial Committee, for the borough’s 2004 bicentennial observance; Indian Brave Campground, in Jackson Township adjacent to Harmony on the Connoquenessing Creek, for restoring a 1923 log cabin from the site’s former Emma Farm Camp of Pittsburgh’s Federation of Jewish Philanthropies; Judge Martin J. O’Brien, Butler, for assuring commemoration of the 1753 mission of George Washington that precipitated the French & Indian War; and Edna Scheidemantle, Lancaster Township, for her efforts to preserve township history.

Harmony is among western Pennsylvania’s most significant historic sites. Harmony National Historic Landmark District comprises about 10 blocks in the borough, incorporated in 1840 when separated from Connoquenessing Township, as well as the noncontiguous Harmony Society cemetery in Jackson Township, separated from Connoquenessing Township 14 years later.

Pacifist Lutheran Separatists who fled the German Duchy of Wurttemberg seeking religious freedom began developing the town and thousands of acres around it late in 1804 as their first American home. They organized as the communal Harmony Society with articles of association dated Feb., 15, 1805, and became 19th century America’s most successful communal group. In 1814 the Harmonists, then numbering about 850, moved to southwestern Indiana to build New Harmony. They returned to Beaver County in 1824 to establish Economy (now Ambridge) as their final home, where the celibate society was dissolved in 1905 and is commemorated at PHMC’s Old Economy Village.

A half-century before the Harmonists, the Harmony area was the site of a Lenni Lenape (Delaware) village visited by Washington during his mission seeking French withdrawal from the region, resulting in a demand that the British stay out of New France and sparking the first global war.

Pacifist Mennonites led by Abraham Ziegler, who personally bought the Harmony Society’s property, including the town, resettled the area in 1815. Their congregation faded away early in the 20th century as the Harmony Society was meeting a similar fate just 20 miles away in Ambridge. Many descendants of Mennonite families remain in the area, and Harmony retains an architectural character much like that of typical farming villages in Germany.

Additional information about Harmoniefest is available from the Harmony Museum, 724-452-7341 (toll-free, 888-821-4822) or by e-mail at hmuseum@fyi.net

Contact: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341
1/18/05

BUTLER COUNTY’S HARMONY RECEIVES PSAB HISTORIC PRESERVATION AWARD
WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA, DECEMBER 1753: WHAT IF WASHINGTON HAD BEEN KILLED
MENNONITE BISHOP’S 1816 HOUSE A GIFT TO HISTORIC HARMONY
HISTORIC HARMONY FINISHES BARN RESTORATION PROJECT
FRENCH & INDIAN WAR’S WESTERN PA. ROOTS ADDRESSED AT HARMONY MUSEUM
HARMONY MUSEUM SETS ANOTHER GERMAN DINNER - 6/19/04
COMMUNITY CELEBRATED, AWARDS PRESENTED DURING HARMONY MUSEUM HARMONIEFEST
HARMONY MUSEUM HOSTS MAY 15 LOCAL ARTISTS SHOW
CANDLELIGHT, TROMBONES ON ICE MARK HARMONY’S HOLIDAY SEASON
HARMONY’S CHRISTMAS MARKET OFFERS TASTE OF GERMAN CHRISTMAS
NEW HARMONY MUSEUM EXHIBIT TELLS HARMONY LINE HISTORY
"FOREST RAN RED" TO BE SHOWN AT HARMONY MUSEUM
CRAFTS, MUD STOMP, CONCERTS: HARMONY’S DANKFEST & BICENTENNIAL HARMONY

HARMONY BOROUGH                           HISTORIC HARMONY INC.
Municipal Building 218                                 Mercer St., P.O. Box 524
217 Mercer Street, P.O. Box 945                Harmony, PA 16037
Harmony, PA 16037                                    724-452-7341
724-452-6780                                             www.harmonymuseum.org
www.Harmony-PA.gov

BUTLER COUNTY’S HARMONY RECEIVES
PSAB HISTORIC PRESERVATION AWARD

    CHAMPION, Pa., June 7 -- Harmony Borough, one of western Pennsylvania’s few National Historic Landmarks and celebrating its bicentennial this year, today received the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs’ Historic Preservation Award for its comprehensive commitment to preserving heritage resources while emphasizing economic and community revitalization. With a population of about 1,000, it is nestled in a valley next to I-79 about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh in Butler County.
    Council President Jeffrey Smith and Vice President Charles Beighey accepted the award during PSAB's 93rd Annual Conference at Seven Springs Mountain Resort. The association created the award last year in partnership with the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission. Gettysburg was the inaugural recipient.
    "This award belongs to all residents of Harmony, who have long been interested in their heritage and since the 1980s have applied it with increasing effectiveness in pursuit of economic benefit," Smith said. "In the process, Harmony has become synonymous with important history and preservation leadership in Butler County and our region, and this award extends that reputation statewide and beyond.
    "To be in the same preservationist company as Gettysburg, the site of one of the most significant events in American history, is truly a great honor for Harmony. While I recognize that our heritage and historic assets are really quite extraordinary, I hope our success encourages other boroughs, no matter their size or tradition, to work hard to preserve their own history."
    Municipal government’s longtime and productive partnership with Historic Harmony, the area’s volunteer, nonprofit historical society and preservation advocate, has been a significant factor in Harmony’s preservation efforts, with Council providing legislative and political access and the society providing historical expertise. Smith said benefits of this relationship are reinforced by contributions of the borough’s Historic Architectural Review Board and enthusiastic involvement of businesses and residents.
    Harmony’s formal preservation efforts took root in 1969 when the importance of historic preservation was described in its comprehensive plan, which recommended creation of an historic district. In 1974, eight blocks at Harmony’s center and the noncontiguous Harmony Society cemetery about five blocks away in Jackson Township were designated a National Historic Landmark District, the first in Pennsylvania outside Philadelphia. After Historic Harmony completed an historic sites inventory, in 1986 Council established a local historic district identical to the National Landmark District. In the 1990s the local district was expanded substantially at the request of property owners.
    John Ruch, president of Historic Harmony, described the PSAB award as "important for the recognition it shines on borough government, property owners, residents and others for all they have accomplished together. Harmony represents many important pieces of American history, beginning with Native Americans and the French & Indian War. This award is wonderful encouragement for everyone to redouble their efforts to realize full economic advantages of the community’s historic resources, from restoration investment to expanded heritage tourism."
    Harmony’s National Historic Landmark District designation recognized its national heritage and culture significance as the founding home (1804-1814) of the Harmony Society of immigrant German religious Separatists, probably America’s most successful 19th century communal group. National Historic Landmarks, according to the National Park Service, possess exceptional value in interpreting U.S. heritage and "are places where significant historical events occurred... prominent Americans worked or lived...represent ideas that shaped the nation...provide important information about our past, or that are outstanding examples of design or construction." Landmarks comprise only about 2,300 (three percent) of sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The other 73,700 Register properties are of primarily state or local significance.
    Of Pennsylvania’s 152 National Historic Landmark sites, including seven NHL Districts, only 22 are in the western tier and Harmony’s district was the first in the commonwealth outside Philadelphia, which has three.
    Ruch said Harmony is Butler County’s most significant historical site and among the most important in the region, with a heritage far richer than just the Harmony Society relationship that gained the town National Historic Landmark status. Some highlights:

* In the mid-18th century a Lenni Lenape (Delaware) village called Murdering Town was situated on the north side of the Connoquenessing Creek near the future site of Harmony. Virginia Maj. George Washington and his party stayed there in November 1753 during his mission that precipitated the French & Indian War. A month later, Washington was shot at a few miles from Murdering Town by an Indian that he and guide Christopher Gist identified as allied with the French. Some historians consider it the first shot of the French & Indian War.

* The road linking Pittsburgh and Erie passed though Harmony in the early 19th century. On it was transported some of the materiel for the ships with which Oliver Hazard Perry defeated a British fleet on Lake Erie in September 1813, a critical American victory in the War of 1812. Volunteers who reinforced Perry’s small force marched what is now called Perry Highway (today’s U.S. 19) to Erie and camped at Harmony, where they crossed the Connoquenessing on a bridge constructed by the Harmony Society.

* In 1815 the Harmony Society sold the town and surrounding land to Lehigh County blacksmith Abraham Ziegler, a Mennonite who became Harmony's second founder. His and other Mennonite families resettled the area. The farmstead of Ziegler’s eldest son, David, including an 1805 Harmony Society barn now owned by Historic Harmony, the region’s oldest barn, have been designated eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, as is the nearby 1825 Mennonite meetinghouse, oldest west of the Alleghenies, also owned by the historical society.

* Lutheran Rev. Jacob Schnee of Pittsburgh agreed in 1816 to buy the town and, backed by prominent businessmen founded a pioneering boarding schools for girls in the Harmonist building on the diamond that is now the main Harmony Museum facility. Upon Schnee's personal bankruptcy, Ziegler sold the town in lots; the Harmony Institute for Young Ladies lasted until the mid-1820s. The Mennonite congregation faded away early in the 20th century, but many area residents are their descendants.

* Stephen Foster, then a child of eight, and his mother and siblings lived in a former Harmony Society house for several months during 1832 after the future composer’s family lost their home in Lawrenceville, now part of Pittsburgh. The much-altered building survives.

* The area was part of western Pennsylvania’s oil and gas boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; in the 1870s Pennsylvania produced nearly all of the world’s oil, with Butler County accounting for about 75 percent of the total.

* Charles Flowers, a former coal miner, made fine percussion rifles in Harmony ca.1850-1890 and was one of the region’s last masters of the classic Pennsylvania style of hunting and target rifles.

6/7/04
CONTACTS:
Harmony Borough: Jeff Smith, 724-452-6780 or harmonyborough@zoominternet.net
Historic Harmony: John Ruch, 724-316-6002 or hmuseum@fyi.net
PSAB: Nicole Faraguna, 717.236.9526, Ext. 44 or nfaraguna@boroughs.org

HARMONY MUSEUM SETS ANOTHER GERMAN DINNER

HARMONY -- The Harmony Museum has canceled a house and garden tour scheduled for Saturday, June 19, replacing it with another of its popular homemade German dinners to be served from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. that same day at its Stewart Hall.. Proceeds benefit museum operations.
    The dinner menu will offer German style beef or pork served with red cabbage, potatoes and other vegetables, spatzle (German pasta) and a dessert. The cost is $10 per person, and reservations are recommended. The museum’s previous dinners have been sellouts.
    For additional information and reservations, contact the Harmony Museum, 724-452-7341 or, toll free, 888-821-4822.
    The museum is operated by Historic Harmony, a volunteer nonprofit historical society. It has nine historic properties in Harmony and adjacent Jackson Township.
    Celebrating its bicentennial this year, Harmony was founded in 1804 on lands in what was then Connoquenessing Township, as the first home of the communal Harmony Society of pacifist German Christian Separatists. A National Historic Landmark, Harmony is at the site of an Indian village visited by young George Washington during a 1753 mission that precipitated the French & Indian War. Nearby, a "French Indian" fired at Washington in what some historians consider the war’s first shot.
    When the Harmonists left in 1814, the area’s resettlement was led by Mennonites. Their congregation faded away early in the 20th century, although many descendants reside in the area. A pioneering school for young women opened in 1817 in what is now the main museum building on the town diamond. Harmony and adjacent Zelienople became boroughs in 1840. Jackson and Lancaster townships, in which most Harmonist-Mennonite lands were located, were created in 1854, so this year also marks their sesquicentennials.
    Harmony’s successful preservation efforts, coupled with economic and community revitalization, won it the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs’ 2004 Historic Preservation Award.

CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341

FRENCH & INDIAN WAR’S WESTERN PA. ROOTS
ADDRESSED AT HARMONY MUSEUM

HARMONY, Pa. -- Slippery Rock University professor and historian David Dixon will describe Western Pennsylvania roots of the French & Indian, which became the global Seven Years’ War, at the Harmony Museum’s Stewart Hall on Tuesday, May 11. Admission is free for the 7:30 p.m. program, another in a series of events that also mark this year’s Harmony’s bicentennial. Refreshments will be served.

This spring marks the beginning of the nation’s six-year 250th anniversary commemoration of the French & Indian War. Conflict was assured when, in late 1753, George Washington, just 21, delivered Virginia Royal Gov. Robert Dinwiddie’s demand that French forces leave British territory. France considered the "Ohio country" part of New France, and refused.

Dixon participated late last year in 250th anniversary commemorations of the 1753 mission, which twice took Washington through what became Butler County. Traveling to meet French officers south of Lake Erie, he stayed with Delawares (Lenni Lenape) at their Murdering Town, which became the site of Harmony. Returning a month later, a "French Indian" shot at him nearby. Some historians argue it was the war’s first shot.

In spring 1754, troops and Indian allies led by Washington came back to the region to reinforce Virginians building a stockade at the Forks of the Ohio, but the French had expelled them and built Fort Duquesne. That May 28, at Great Meadows (southeast of Pittsburgh), Washington ambushed the party of Ensign Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville, dispatched to warn the British out of New France. Jumonville and a third of his men were killed. Then, on July 4, a large force under Coulon’s brother, Capt. Louis Coulon de Villiers, forced a humiliating surrender on Washington at his hastily erected Ft. Necessity in the same area.

These events were the first skirmishes of what would be called the French & Indian War, the beginning of what in 1756 became history’s first global conflict, the Seven Years’ War, pitting Great Britain, Prussia and Hanover against France, Austria, Russia, Saxony, Sweden and Spain. The North American fighting ended in 1760; the 1763 Treaty of Paris also brought peace to Europe and India, and ended France’s North American ambitions.

CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or 888-821-4822
4/23/04

HARMONY MUSEUM HOSTS MAY 15 LOCAL ARTISTS SHOW

HARMONY, Pa, -- More than a dozen artists and artisans who contribute to the area’s growing reputation as an arts community will showcase their work at the Harmony Museum’s Stewart Hall on Saturday, May 15. The show and sale, sponsored by the Harmony Business Association, will be open 10 a.m.-4 p.m., and admission is free.

Works on display will represent a variety of media, including paintings in oils, acrylics and watercolors, drawings in inks, pencil and charcoal, and ceramics and pottery. Most will be for sale, and the artists, many of whom also work on commission, will be available to discuss their work.

Among those participating are Joan Bobchak, Marge Gardner, Jan and Paul Jay, Daniel Jimick, Nita McCreery, Jan Piciernicki, Clay Purviance, Bruce Shakely, Diane Smith, Dorothy Shumsky and Ray Zielinski.

A National Historic Landmark rich in history, Harmony is celebrating its bicentennial during 2004. The area’s written history began with an Indian village that was visited in 1753 by 21-year- old Virginia officer George Washington during his mission to demand the French get out of British territory, setting the stage for the French & Indian War. A "French Indian" shot at him nearby.

Permanent settlement of Harmony and its immediate area was begun in 1804 by the pacifist communal Harmony Society of religious German Separatists. They left in 1814, with resettlement led by Mennonites whose congregation expired early in the 20th century. With many area homes and other buildings restored or refurbished, the community’s architectural character remains reminiscent of rural Germany.

Guided museum tours will be available during the show. Exhibits include Native Americans, Washington’s 1753 mission, the communal Harmony Society, Mennonite resettlement, 19th century Charles Flowers longrifles, Victoriana and the area’s oil eras, and more.
Harmony is in western Butler County at exits 87-88 of I-79, about 30 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh and 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and 30 miles south of I-80.

CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or 888-821-4822
4/23/04

COMMUNITY CELEBRATED, AWARDS PRESENTED
DURING HARMONY MUSEUM HARMONIEFEST

HARMONY, Pa., Feb. 15 -- Historic Harmony, which operates the Harmony Museum, presented Heritage Awards for preservation and restoration during Saturday evening’s annual Harmoniefest dinner and historical program, which was also the first of many anticipated community celebrations during 2004 to mark Harmony’s bicentennial and sesquicentennials of Jackson and Lancaster townships.

Heritage Awards were presented to:

* Erich and Karen Huy, Jackson Township, preservation and facade restoration of a 1920 Arts and Crafts house at 211 S. Pittsburgh St., Harmony.

* Thomas and Helen Oliverio, preservation of their late 19th century Victorian home at 100 S. High Street, Zelienople. In 1966 the Zelienople mayor and his wife were cited for preserving the Rapp-Stewart House in Harmony.

* St. Gregory Roman Catholic Church, preservation and restoration of its 1911 St. Gregory School, 115 Pine St., Zelienople, oldest area school building still used for that purpose, which was updated while restoring its original architectural character.

President John Ruch noted that Historic Harmony has presented 84 Heritage Awards since 1991 "because more and more property owners recognize that preservation and restoration and adaptive use have economic as well as aesthetic value. In addition, many are demonstrating that they care about the architectural face of community history and can excite others about it as well. This year’s honorees represent all of these progressive virtues, and we congratulate them for jobs well done."

Historic Harmony also made Zelienople Attorney Philip P. Lope an honorary member and presented him a plaque in recognition of his longtime generous service as legal counsel to Historic Harmony.

A full house audience, including several public officials, filled the museum’s Stewart Hall. The program concluded with a concert by a chamber group of the Old Economy 1830 Orchestra and Singers, which reprise musical groups of the communal Harmony Society that founded Harmony in 1804. Their performance of music from the archives at Old Economy Village in Ambridge, founded in 1824 as the Harmony Society’s final home, included compositions by Christoph Muller, Harmony Society "renaissance man" whose Harmony home still stands a half-block from the museum.

Ruch told the audience that architect Roger A. Weaver, whose office occupies the Muller House, was absent because he was in southwestern Indiana to represent Historic Harmony at the Harmoniefest held Friday evening in New Harmony, where the Harmony Society resided 1814-1824. Weaver gave a presentation there on "200 years of Harmony, Pa."

Jackson and Lancaster were among 20 Butler County townships created on March 29, 1854. Jackson, cut from Cranberry and Connoquenessing townships, was named for President Andrew Jackson. Lancaster was also formed from part of Connoquenessing Township. There is no record of how it was named; but the origin appears to have been its principal village, Middle Lancaster, founded in 1835 by black preacher Thomas Baldwin.

Half a century earlier, in the fall of 1804, Georg Rapp and the first of his Pacifist German Separatist followers began building Harmony and developing farms and mills on thousands of surrounding acres. The Harmony Society moved west to build New Harmony, then came back to western Pennsylvania to establish Economy, now Ambridge, where the celibate commune faded away as the 20th century began.

In 1815 the society sold its Butler County property, including Harmony, to Mennonite Abraham Ziegler, and several Mennonite families settled on area farms while Ziegler occupied a Harmonist house on Harmony’s diamond. While the Mennonites also faded away a century ago, Harmony and its neighboring townships have continued as a living community with a unique history of national importance, and many of their descendants reside in the area.

Each year the Harmony Society marked the commune’s anniversary with a celebration they called Harmoniefest. Historic Harmony’s annual Harmoniefest celebrates the community’s entire heritage and history.

Contact: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341
2/15/04

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HISTORIC HARMONY FINISHES
BARN RESTORATION PROJECT

HARMONY -- Restoration of western Pennsylvania’s oldest barn advanced substantially when installation of replacement siding and related repairs were completed last week.

The barn, on Mercer Road in Jackson Township, was built in 1805 by the communal Harmony Society of German Separatists that founded Harmony 200 years ago. It has been owned since 1999 by Historic Harmony, which operates the Harmony Museum.

It was re-sided with vertical hemlock boards. Wood representing Pennsylvania’s state tree was also used in replacement doors. The siding work began in January, but was interrupted by a delay in delivery of all the boards needed. In addition, a cracked post and two small areas of deterioration in still beams, revealed when old siding was removed, were repaired.

"We were not replacing original siding from 1805,:" said Historic Harmony President John Ruch. "That was obvious anyway, but our architectural consultant, Roger Weaver, concluded that this is at least the second time the siding has been replaced."

Major structural repairs, critical to the building’s restoration, were completed a year ago. Extensive slate roof repair was done previously.

"Because the structural work last year was completed at less cost than anticipated," Ruch said, "we decided we needed to move up siding replacement. Gaps between boards allowed rain and snow inside. It took a while to get the new material, but now the building is weather tight and much more secure overall."

Barn specialist Seth Byler of Volant performed the structural work last February as well as the siding project. All of the work was funded with a $15,000 Department of Community and Economic Development grant, sponsored by State Rep. Dick Stevenson, and contributions. Last fall, electrical service was also installed.

According to Ruch, the next project will be to install two-inch-thick floor planks in three bays from which inadequate 20th century flooring was removed last year. He said the historical society is buying floor planks from a smaller old barn in eastern Butler County, but is looking for more. Most planking in two center bays appears to be original or old replacement.

Historic Harmony purchased the barn to assure its preservation. It was built to shelter sheep by the communal Harmony Society, which left the area in 1814, and is the only Harmonist-built barn remaining among the three communities the society founded during the first quarter of the 19th century: Harmony, New Harmony, Ind., and Ambridge, Pa.

Harmony and extensive lands around it were purchased in 1815 by Mennonite Abraham Ziegler. Many Mennonite farm families settled on former Harmonist land that became parts of Jackson and Lancaster townships. The barn was on the farm of Ziegler’s son, David, who modified it in the 1850s, perhaps in repairing tornado damage.

Contact: Kathy Luek, Administrator 724-452-7341

2/19/04

MENNONITE BISHOP’S 1816 HOUSE
A GIFT TO HISTORIC HARMONY

HARMONY, Pa. -- The Bishop John Boyer House in Jackson Township, built in 1816 by the first pastor of Harmony’s 19th century Mennonite congregation, has become the ninth historic property of the volunteer, nonprofit organization that operates the Harmony Museum.

Lillian Frankenstein of Zelienople donated the Boyer house to Historic Harmony, and the deed transfer was recorded this week. The 2 1/2 story cut stone building is on 1.2 acres at 295 Perry Highway (U.S. 19), at the north end of Mercer Road. A large spring house is in the hillside behind the house.

"We are grateful that Mrs. Frankenstein valued the significance of this property to the area’s and Butler County’s heritage, for her desire to preserve it for the benefit of future generations, and for her confidence in Historic Harmony to provide that protection," said John S. Ruch, Historic Harmony president.

"We are pleased to accept one of the most important structures involving the Mennonites who had a major influence in the area during the 19th century. Many descendants continue to do so," he added. "Most surviving Mennonite structures are outside of Harmony’s National Historic Landmark District, which relates largely to the communal Harmony Society that founded the town.

"We have made no decisions regarding the long term future of the Bishop Boyer House," Ruch said. "It is a private residence, will likely remain one for some time, and therefore stays on the tax rolls."

Boyer, also a farmer, supervised construction in 1825 of the Mennonite’s meetinghouse, or church, on Wise Road about a half-mile south of his home, where the congregation had established its cemetery 10 years earlier. He may have patterned the church on the 1755 Hereford meetinghouse in Berks County from which he came to Harmony. He died in 1828. The meetinghouse and cemetery have been an Historic Harmony property since 1977.

Harmony, which celebrates its bicentennial in 2004, was founded in 1804 by German religious Separatists led by Georg Rapp who organized as the Harmony Society, 19th century America’s most successful communal group. Nearly all of its members lived in Harmony, including those who worked the commune’s outlying farmlands. The Harmonists moved in 1814 to southwestern Indiana, returned in 1824 to build Economy (now Ambridge) in Beaver County, and dissolved in 1905.

When the Harmonists left, they sold about 7,000 acres, including the town, to blacksmith Abraham Ziegler, a Lehigh County Mennonite considered Harmony's second founder. The Zieglers were accompanied in settling the area by several other large Mennonite families, principally the Boyers, Moyers, Rices and Wises. Many were farmers who, unlike the Harmonists, built homes on their farms in what became Jackson and Lancaster townships, which celebrate their sesquicentennials in 2004.

After failing to sell the town to a Pittsburgh pastor who founded a girls’ boarding school in a Harmony Society warehouse on the town diamond (now the Harmony Museum), Ziegler sold it in lots containing Harmonist-built houses, mills and commercial buildings.

Mennonites had a significant presence through much of the 19th century, but the congregation had dwindled to an aged handful of members when it closed the meetinghouse in 1902. An Amish Mennonite Brethren congregation recently became the first group in a century to worship there regularly.

Historic Harmony was founded in 1943 to preserve and promote the area’s unique history, encourage preservation of historic sites and foster tourism in support of community quality of life, economic development and related objectives. Its Harmony properties are the museum, the adjacent Mercer Street Harmonist Wagner House and nearby Harmonist-era log house museum annexes, Main Street’s Mennonite-era Henry Denis Ziegler log house museum annex, and the part of the Harmonists’ Vineyard Hill containing Rapp’s Seat, the Harmonist leader’s meditation site above the Connoquenessing Creek. Historic Harmony’s other Jackson Township properties are the Mennonite meetinghouse and cemetery, Harmony Society cemetery on Pa. 68, and 1805 Harmony Society barn on Mercer Road.

CONTACT: Historic Harmony President John Ruch, 724-316-6002 or 724-452-8834, or Administrator Kathy Luek, 724-452-7341 or 888-821-4822.

12/30/03

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WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA, DECEMBER 1753:
WHAT IF WASHINGTON HAD BEEN KILLED

HARMONY, Pa. -- Suppose young Virginia militia Maj. George Washington had been killed 250 years ago this month in either of two incidents in western Pennsylvania wilderness: On Dec. 27, 1753, a "French Indian" shot at him several miles from Harmony (then the site of an Indian village called Murdering Town). Two days later, he tumbled from a raft into the ice-choked Allegheny River.

Would someone else have led the Continental Army to victory in the American Revolution? Who would have been the new nation’s first president? Could the United States have formed without him?

Answers to these and other "what if" questions can never be known. The Native American’s musket shot, perhaps the first of the French & Indian War, missed its mark in wintery wilderness somewhere northeast of today’s Evans City, Butler County, about 40 miles north of Pittsburgh. And when he fell into the river, Washington somehow got back onto the raft and warded off hypothermia at an island campfire.

American history unfolded as it did because Washington cheated death twice within about 48 hours while returning from meetings at a French fort near Lake Erie that precipitated the French & Indian War, during which he would survive more close calls.

The 250th anniversary of the dramatic but little-known shooting that could have changed the course of history will be commemorated on Saturday, Dec. 27, with events organized jointly by Historic Harmony, which operates the Harmony Museum, and Evans City Historical Society.

The observance begins at noon north of Evans City with a hike on a trail near Pa. 528 much like that traveled by Washington, guide Christopher Gist of Cumberland (then Wills Creek), Md., and the treacherous native. The Indian, apparently a French ally, offered to show major and guide a quick path to the Forks of the Ohio but led them away from the future site of Pittsburgh. Reenactors Jason Cherry of Butler as Washington, Ken Cherry of Butler as Gist, and Todd Johnson of McKeesport as the Huron Ghost in the Head, will join the hikers. [A shuttle will pick up hikers at trail end, so anyone wishing to participate must register with the Harmony Museum, 724-452-7341, by Friday, Dec. 19.]

At 2 p.m., two miles east of Evans City at a Daughters of the American Revolution monument marking the 1753 incident, the Cherrys and Johnson will reenact the shooting, then describe Washington’s journey. Author and Slippery Rock University history professor David D. Dixon will explore consequences for American history had the young Washington died that December 250 years ago.

In October 1753 Washington, only 21, had no military experience. Volunteering for the hazardous mission, he was appointed a major in the militia by Virginia’s royal governor, Robert Dinwiddie, and set off from Williamsburg to deliver Dinwiddie’s ultimatum that the French leave British territory. In mid-December he reached Ft. LeBoeuf (Waterford, Pa.), where French officers rejected Dinwiddie’s demand. Traveling in difficult winter conditions, Washington made it back to Williamsburg in mid-January to tell Dinwiddie the bad news. When Washington left Ft. LeBoeuf, the French moved quickly to strengthen their regional presence, evicting Virginians erecting a fort at the Forks of the Ohio and building Ft. Duquesne there.

On May 28, 1754, several miles northwest of Great Meadows (near Uniontown, southeast of Pittsburgh), troops and Indian allies led by Lt. Col. Washington ambushed a small French party headed by Ensign Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville, who had been dispatched to warn the British out of New France. Jumonville and one-third of his men died. On July 4 a large French force under Coulon’s brother, Capt. Louis Coulon de Villiers, forced a humiliating surrender on Washington at the hastily erected Ft. Necessity at Great Meadows.

These were the first skirmishes of the French & Indian War (1754-1760), which would help trigger history’s first global conflict, the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) that pitted Great Britain, Prussia and Hanover against France, Austria, Russia, Saxony, Sweden and Spain. The 1763 Treaty of Paris brought peace to North America, Europe and India, and ended France’s North American ambitions.

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HARMONY, Pa.: Historic Harmony, the historical organization that operates eight Harmony Museum sites in and near Harmony, a National Historic Landmark in Butler County celebrating its bicentennial during 2004, announced its calendar of major events. Harmony is at I-79 exits 87-88, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and 30 miles south of I-80. For more information phone 724-452-7341 or, toll free, 888-821-4822, or e-mail hmuseum@fyi.net.

2004 Harmony Museum events:

Saturday, Feb. 14, 2004 -- Annual Harmoniefest dinner and regional history program at Harmony Museum’s Stewart Hall, 5:30 p.m., reservations required by Feb. 10. Members of Old Economy Village’s recreated 19th century Harmony Society orchestra will perform Harmonist, Mennonite, other music. First event of yearlong celebration of Harmony’s 2004 bicentennial and sesquicentennials of neighboring Jackson and Lancaster townships. Harmoniefest commemorates February 1805 founding at Harmony of the communal Harmony Society by German Separatists who established the town in late 1804.

Saturday, June 19, 2004 -- Annual Historic House & Garden Tour and Lunch, 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Self-guided tour of historically and architecturally significant buildings and inviting gardens begins at the Harmony Museum’s Stewart Hall. Includes some museum properties.

* Saturday, June 19: 5-8 p.m., Harmony Museum German Dinner, Stewart Hall

* Thursday, July 1: 8 p.m., Harmony Business Association concert, Allegheny Brass Band & Zambelli fireworks, Harmony Inn

* Thursday, July 15: 7:30 p.m., HBA concert, Dixie Doc, Harmony Inn

* Thursday-Saturday July 15-17: Zelienople-Harmony Area Chamber of Commerce Horse Trading Days, Zelienople & Harmony.

* Saturday, July 17: 10 a.m-4 p.m., HBA Local Artists Show & Sale, Stewart Hall; time TBA, Anything That Rolls Race, Mercer Street

* Thursday, July 29: 7:30 p.m., HBA concert, Hewlett, Anderson & Waslousky, Harmony Inn

* Thursday, Aug. 12: 7:30 p.m., HBA concert, Vanilla Soul, Harmony Inn

Saturday-Sunday, Aug. 28-29, 2004 -- Annual Dankfest pioneer crafts festival in and around National Historic Landmark District. Costumed artisans demonstrate authentic crafts that were part of 18th-19th century pioneer and rural life. Museum and landmark district tours, German and other foods, entertainment, antiques and crafts shopping throughout quaint village. 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. Saturday, Noon - 6 p.m. Sunday.

* Saturday-Sunday, Aug. 28-29: 11 a.m.-6 p.m./Noon-6 p.m., 34th annual Harmony Museum Dankfest; 5 p.m. Saturday, fiddle contest, Museum Barn

Harmony Bicentennial Week, Saturday, Aug. 28-Saturday, Sept. 4

* Saturday, Aug. 28: 11 a.m., Parade, Spring St. to Museum Barn; 7 p.m., HBA concert, Kim Thomas & Diamonds in the Rough, Museum Barn

* Monday, Aug. 30: 7 p.m., "Iptingen, Germany," illustrated presentation on George Rapp’s home town by John Ruch, Stewart Hall; 8 p.m., Eugene & the Nightcrawlers, Museum Barn

* Tuesday, Aug. 31: 7 p.m., "Harmony, The Movie," debut showing of Harmony video, Stewart Hall; 8 p.m., Sweet Adelines, Museum Barn

* Wednesday, Sept. 1: 8 p.m., Whimsy and the Lots, Museum Barn

* Thursday, Sept. 2: 7 p.m., "The Harmony Line," illustrated presentation about 1908-1931 Pittsburgh, Harmony, Butler & New Castle Railroad interurban by John Makar, Stewart Hall; 8 p.m., Seneca Valley High Barbershop & Beautyshop concert, Museum Barn

* Friday, Sept. 3: 8 p.m., John Burgh Band Square Dance, Museum Barn

* Saturday, Sept. 4: Noon-4 p.m., Doc Stewart Babies Reunion, Stewart Hall, and Emma Kaufmann Farm Camp Reunion, Borough Building; 8 p.m., Grand Finale, Old Economy Orchestra Concert & Zambelli fireworks, Museum Barn

Saturday-Sunday, Nov. 13-14, 2004 -- Annual Weihnachten Platz (Christmas Place) crafts market at museum’s Stewart Hall and other historic buildings. Festive holiday shopping for quality handcrafted items by dozens of artisans in an historical setting like that of internationally popular Christmas markets in German towns and villages, with demonstrations, entertainment, food, refreshments, museum and National Historic Landmark District tours. Additional shopping for antiques and specialty items at village shops. Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday noon-5 p.m.

Sunday, Dec. 12, 2004 -- Annual Candlelight Christmas, with rooms of museum buildings decorated for the holiday season, illuminated with candles and oil lamps. Walking tours of National Historic Landmark District, lined with luminaries, are available. Entertainment, refreshments, shopping at museum’s and other inviting antiques and crafts shops throughout Harmony’s old town section. 2-8 p.m.

(CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Harmony Museum Administrator, 724-452-7341

6/8/04

CANDLELIGHT, TROMBONES ON ICE MARK HARMONY’S HOLIDAY SEASON

HARMONY, Pa. --Holiday decorations, a Trombones on Ice concert on the diamond, a crafts market and special displays highlight the Harmony Museum’s annual Candlelight Christmas, 2-8 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 12. The old-town center, a National Historic Landmark District, takes on a special glow from luminaries after sunset.

Rooms in the main museum building and Wagner House annex, as well as the nearby Ziegler log house, are decorated by designers and museum volunteers. Crafts, wine tastings and refreshments are offered, and the cozy museum store is another gift-shopping opportunity. A $1 donation per adult is requested for admission to the museum’s Candlelight Christmas, and a 3 p.m. walking tour of the Landmark District is available for a small fee.

This is Harmony’s fourth holiday season with a free Trombones on Ice concert, created by Bruce Lazier of Lazier’s Harmony Music Studios and now established solidly as part of the historic town’s Christmas tradition. Brass players from throughout western Pennsylvania are invited to join in, students who play in school bands or their own groups as well as adult amateur and professional musicians. Lazier says he won’t be surprised if 80 or more musicians join this year’s spontaneous band for the concert that begins at 2 p.m. on the steps of Grace Church of Harmony.

At the museum, visitors can also enjoy toy displays -- including model train layouts complementing the museum’s newly installed rail lines exhibit. And Harmony’s bicentennial -- settlement began at the debut of winter 1804 -- gets a final tribute with a borough-prepared display of old postcard views.

Harmony, which retains the quaint architectural character of an old German village, is 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh’s Point and 30 miles south of I-80 at I-79 exits 87-88. The area’s recorded history began with a Delaware Indian village, called Murdering Town, that was visited by young Virginia Maj. George Washington during his late 1753 mission to demand French withdrawal from British territory, sparking the French & Indian War. The war’s first shot was fired at Washington in nearby woods by a native allied with the French.

Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists founded Harmony in 1804, and their communal Harmony Society soon gained international renown. After they left in 1814, resettlement of the area was led by Mennonites, whose congregation faded away early in the 20th century. Additional aspects of local history interpreted by the Harmony Museum include pioneer life in a log house, an early 19th century boarding school for girls, the outstanding Pennsylvania-style percussion rifles of gunsmith Charles Flowers, the oil and gas boom of a century ago, and the medical practice of country doctors.

11/23/04

CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or 888-821-4822

HARMONY’S CHRISTMAS MARKET OFFERS TASTE OF GERMAN CHRISTMAS

HARMONY, Pa. -- Artisans, craft vendors and Butler County’s only winery offer a taste of the Christmas season in Germany at the seventh annual Harmony Museum Weihnachten Platz. The holiday marketplace features shopping, food, drink and live entertainment 11 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday and noon-5 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 13-14.

Weihnachten Platz (Christmas Place) provides festive holiday shopping for quality handcrafted items in an historical setting, adapted from Germany’s popular Christmas markets.

Vendors will sell and demonstrate in the museum’s Stewart Hall and adjacent grounds at Main and Mercer streets in the heart of Harmony’s National Landmark District, as well as at the adjacent Wagner House annex and two nearby log houses. Goods include Santas, decorative redware, imported handmade German articles, stained glass, woodenware, candles, rustic country items, jewelry, fiber arts, bath products, dried herbs and flowers, and holiday ornamentations.

In addition, Historic Harmony Auxiliary quilters sell their handmade works, and members of Ellwood City’s Fiber Arts Guild demonstrates spinning and weaving. The Wine Kradel of Sarver offers private label wines in the museum’s cavernous 195-year-old wine cellar. The museum shop in the Wagner House is another venue for shoppers seeking special items for holiday giving.

Each vendor contribute articles for a silent auction that ends at 5 p.m. on Sunday. Food, beverages and baked goods are available. Entertainment is by instrumental groups, including dulcimer players.

A $2 admission donation is requested for adults. Museum tours (1-4 p.m.) are available for a small additional fee. All proceeds benefit Historic Harmony, the nonprofit volunteer group that operates the nine-property Harmony Museum. More information is available from the museum at 724-452-7341 or, toll-free, 888-821-4822.

Harmony, with the quaint architectural character of an old German village, is at I-79 exits 87-88, just 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh’s Point, 30 miles south of I-80. Its recorded history began with an Indian village visited by Virginia Maj. George Washington during a 1753 mission to the French near Lake Erie that sparked the French & Indian War. Pacifist German Lutheran Separatists settled the area in 1804, organizing as the communal Harmony Society that gained international renown. After they left in 1814, resettlement of the town and surrounding countryside was led by Mennonites whose congregation faded away at the start of the 20th century.

CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or hmuseum@fyi.net
11/1/04

NEW HARMONY MUSEUM EXHIBIT TELLS HARMONY LINE HISTORY

HARMONY, Pa. -- "Pardon me, boys, is that the Harmony Line?"

Had the Glenn Miller Orchestra starred in "Sun Valley Serenade" in 1931 instead of 1941, might it have occurred to songwriter Harry Warren to make a Pittsburgh-based interurban railway famous instead of choosing Cincinnati’s old "Chattanooga Choo Choo"? Well, probably not. The electricity-powered Pittsburgh, Harmony, Butler & New Castle Railway, the Harmony Line for short, just doesn’t grab the ear the way "Chattanooga" and steam-ey "choo choo" does.

But the 1908-1931 Harmony Line does enjoy popularity more than seven decades after it closed down, largely in recognition of the lost convenience of zipping comfortably between city and country insulated blissfully from today’s perils of congested highways and road rage.

A new Harmony Museum exhibit presents the history of the interurban line, as well as that of the freight railroad still serving the area. Operated today by CSX Transportation, it previously was part of the Baltimore & Ohio and originally was the Pittsburgh & Western. Artifacts include a section of rail, spikes and spike plates, a whistle similar to those on Harmony Line cars, a Harmony Line catenary electrical insulator, photographs and other items.

The semi-permanent display was assembled by intern Vincent Stefanos, who will receive a history degree from Slippery Rock University next month.

Harmony is one of western Pennsylvania’s few National Historic Landmarks. Its history began with a Delaware village visited in 1753 by George Washington during his mission to France’s Fort LeBoeuf that sparked the French & Indian War. Nearby, a "French Indian" fired the war’s first shot at Washington. The town was founded in 1804 by the communal Harmony Society of pacifist German Lutheran Separatists. After they left in 1814, the area was resettled by Mennonites, also pacifists, whose many descendants still live here.

Harmony is at Interstate 79 exits 87-88, about 30 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh, 10 miles north of Pennsylvania Turnpike exit 28, and 30 miles south of Interstate 80. The museum, on the town diamond, is open 1-4 p.m. daily except Mondays and holidays. Reservations are suggested for weekends and required for groups.

CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or toll-free 888-821-4822
11/11/04

"FOREST RAN RED" TO BE SHOWN AT HARMONY MUSEUM

HARMONY -- The public is invited to a free showing at the Harmony Museum on Sept. 14 of the award-winning French & Indian War documentary, "When the Forest Ran Red: Washington, Braddock and a Doomed Army."

The 68-minute documentary presents the story of the summer 1755 defeat in southwestern Pennsylvania of a British force led by Gen. Edward Braddock that was advancing on the Forks of the Ohio and France’s Fort Duquesne there.

Historic Harmony will present the film at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 14, in the Harmony Museum’s Stewart Hall. Light refreshments will be served. The Museum is at the center of the National Historic Landmark District in Harmony, which is celebrating its bicentennial.

"When the Forest Ran Red" describes events that led to Braddock’s mission, which collapsed in an ambush by French soldiers and their Native American allies. Braddock was mortally wounded. The young George Washington, whose mission through the region -- including what would become Butler County -- during 1753 and 1754 helped spark the war, was one the few British officers not killed or wounded in Braddock’s disaster. Hundreds of re-enactors appear in the documentary. Several historians, including "Crucible of War" author Fred Anderson, provide commentary, and works by well known area artists Robert Griffing and John Buxton help illustrate the story.

Harmony’s recorded history began with a Lenni Lenape (Delaware) village visited by Washington during his 1753 mission to the French at Ft. LeBoeuf. Nearby, a "French Indian" fired what may have been the French & Indian War’s first shot at Washington. Harmony was founded in 1804 by the communal Harmony Society of religious German Lutheran Separatists who built the town, farmed thousands of neighboring acres and operates several mills in the area. After they left in 1814, the area was resettled by Mennonites whose congregation faded away by the early 1900s, although many of their descendants remain. Harmony became a separate borough in 1840.

With many buildings restored or refurbished, Harmony retains the architectural character of a rural German village. One of only 22 National Landmarks in western Pennsylvania, it received the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs’ 2004 Historic Preservation Award for its comprehensive commitment to preserving heritage resources while emphasizing economic and community revitalization.

CONTACT: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or 888-821-4822
8/31/04

CRAFTS, MUD STOMP, CONCERTS: HARMONY’S DANKFEST & BICENTENNIAL HARMONY, Pa. -- A celebratory parade to kick things off. Pioneer crafts, even a "mud stomp" for kids. This National Historic Landmark’s incredible history. Concerts, country and blues to 19th century sectarian and patriotic. Special displays, reunions, and A wacky Anything That Rolls race. Finally, a bang-up Grande Finale.

All of this and more are offered in Harmony from Saturday, Aug. 28, through Saturday, Sept. 4, as the town that began with the sprawling communal Harmony Society of nearly 900 German immigrants observes its bicentennial. The celebration starts with the Harmony Museum’s 34th annual Dankfest, continues with daily programs and concerts, and concludes with a orchestral performance and a Zambelli Internationale fireworks show. A new book about Harmony and bicentennial mementos will also be available.

The parade at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 28, gets things started, going west on German Street, north on Main, east onto Mercer Street at the diamond, ending at the barn built in 1805 by the German pioneers. Re-enactors portraying soldiers and Native Americans at an Old Stone House French & Indian War encampment will linger after the parade. Two Dankfest encampments will lend added atmosphere, with LegionVille Historical Society’s site including a diorama of the Army’s first (1792-93) training camp, 20 miles west in Beaver County, and Union Army reenactors representing the Civil War era.

Dankfest opens as the parade concludes, presenting pioneer crafts, historical exhibits and tours. Children can help mix log house daubing mud with their feet. Antiques and collectibles will be sold at the barn. Tours of the Harmony Museum, landmark district and the Harmony Society’s 1809 church building are offered, and visitors enjoy browsing a farmers’ market and local shops. Quilts, from local collectors or locally made, will fill the 1825 Mennonite meetinghouse on Wise Road during Dankfest and throughout Bicentennial Week.

Also on Saturday, antique cars will be displayed at the barn and classic sports cars and motorcycles in the diamond. A 5 p.m. fiddle contest is followed at 7 p.m. by a Harmony Business Association concert by Kim Thomas & Diamonds in the Rough. Sunday, Aug. 29, will be Mennonite Day at Dankfest, for which descendants of local 19th century Mennonites are invited to the museum’s Stewart Hall.

The borough’s Bicentennial Week continues through Sept. 4, with free concerts on the lawn at the museum’s Mercer Road barn each evening except Thursday. Programs in the museum’s Stewart Hall, all at 7 p.m., are a presentation on Monday, Aug. 30, about the German home town of Harmony and Harmony Society founder George Rapp; the debut on Tuesday, Aug. 31, of "Harmony, The Movie," and a choral performance and a presentation on Thursday, Sept. 2, about the Harmony Line interurban railway.

As the celebration wraps up on Saturday, Sept. 4, two reunions are set for Stewart Hall. Dr. Arthur I. Stewart delivered some 1,400 babies while serving the community for more than six decades, and they are invited to bring photos and recollections of "Doc." Also, people who as children of Pittsburgh families attended Harmony’s Emma Farm Camp between the 1930s and 1970s will enjoy a special exhibit and share recollections. A block west on Mercer Street, gravity-powered vehicles will compete in an Anything That Rolls Race, postponed from mid-July.

That evening, Old Economy Orchestra, from the Harmony Society's final home in Beaver County, an historic site administered by the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, will perform at the Mercer Road barn. Capping the bicentennial celebration will be a Zambelli Internationale Fireworks show.

Harmony’s history began with a Delaware village visited by George Washington during his 1753 mission to the French Ft. LeBoeuf, sparking the French & Indian War. Near here, a "French Indian" fired what some consider the war’s first shot at Washington. Harmony was founded in 1804 by George Rapp’s communal Harmony Society of German Lutheran Separatists. After they left in 1814, the area was resettled by Mennonites whose congregation faded away in the early 1900s. Stephen Foster lived here briefly as a child, Charles Flowers made fine percussion rifles, and the area participated in an oil and gas boom a century ago.

Dankfest parking and admission is free, with modest fees for tours and the quilt show. Hours both days are noon to 5 p.m. Most Bicentennial Week events are at 7 p.m. or 8 p.m., and the quilt show will be open daily except Monday 1-4 p.m. Harmony is at Interstate 79 exits 87-88, about 30 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh, 10 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and 30 miles south of Interstate 80. Follow Historic District and Dankfest signs.

CONTACTS:
Historic Harmony: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or toll-free 888-821-4822
Harmony Borough: Jeff Smith, Council President, 724-452-6780

BICENTENNIAL, DANKFEST, CONCERTS, MORE:
HARMONY’S A HAPPENING PLACE AUG. 28-SEPT. 4
Click here to see the schedule of events.

HARMONY, Pa. -- The Harmony Museum’s 34th annual Dankfest pioneer craft festival on the last weekend of August is extra-special this year. On Saturday, Aug. 28, a parade precedes the festival’s opening and formally begins the National Historic Landmark borough’s week-long bicentennial celebration that includes free evening presentations, concerts and a fireworks show.

Participants in Saturday’s 11 a.m. parade will include the Seneca Valley High School marching band; antique autos and sports cars; historical military groups; public officials; local organizations; and fire fighting vehicles. The parade will proceed from Spring and German streets to Main Street, through the diamond and then along Mercer Street to the museum’s 1805 barn.

Dankfest presents authentic pioneer crafts, historical exhibits and tours. Most artisans will demonstrate their skills near log houses on Mercer Street, while others will be at the museum’s Stewart Hall. They show a public that has always known the ease of modern life the technologies that sustained pioneers. Antiques and collectibles will be sold at the barn. The museum’s 1825 Mennonite meetinghouse on Wise Road will be filled with quilts, a display that continues through Bicentennial Week. Museum and National Historic Landmark District tours are offered, and visitors enjoy browsing the Dankfest farmers’ market and Harmony’s shops.

A LegionVille Historical Society encampment will show a diorama of the first U.S. military training camp where Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne readied the Legion of the United States (later the Army) in 1792-93. Union Army reenactors will present a Civil War camp. Soldiers and Native Americans, participating in a weekend French & Indian War encampment at the historic Old Stone House north of Moraine State Park, will stroll Dankfest for a time on Saturday after marching in the parade.

On Saturday, antique cars will be displayed at the barn and classic sports cars in the diamond. Sunday, Aug. 29, will be Mennonite Day, with descendants of local 19th century Mennonites invited to bring along genealogical information and old photos of family and area sites and to sign a guest book at Stewart Hall.

Dankfest is also known for good food and refreshments with a German touch, including sausages, chicken, roast beef, potato pancakes and homemade root beer.

On Saturday at the museum’s barn, a late-afternoon fiddle contest is followed at 7 p.m. by the Harmony Business Association’s final free summer concert, a performance by Kim Thomas & Diamonds in the Rough.

Dankfest concludes late Sunday, but Bicentennial Week continues Monday, Aug. 30, through Saturday, Sept. 4, with free concerts at 8 p.m. daily on the lawn at the museum’s Mercer Road barn. Programs at 7 p.m. in the museum’s Stewart Hall, are Monday’s presentation about the German home town of Harmony and Harmony Society founder George Rapp, Tuesday’s debut of "Harmony, The Movie," and Thursday’s presentation on the early 20th century Harmony Line interurban railway.

Reunions are part of the celebration’s final day. Dr. Arthur Stewart, a physician who served Harmony for more than six decades and was a founder of Historic Harmony, the historical society that operates the Harmony Museum, delivered some 1,400 babies. They are invited to Stewart Hall with photos and recollections of "Doc" Stewart. A block away at the Borough Building, people who as Pittsburgh children attended the Emma Farm Camp here between the 1930s and early 1970s are invited to view a camp photo exhibit and share recollections.

That evening brings the grand finale of Harmony’s Bicentennial Week, an Old Economy Orchestra concert at the barn followed by a Zambelli Internationale Fireworks show.

A new book about Harmony and bicentennial mementos will be available during the celebration.

Harmony’s recorded history began with a Lenni Lenape (Delaware) village visited by George Washington during a 1753 mission to the French at Ft. LeBoeuf, sparking the French & Indian War. Nearby, a "French Indian" fired at Washington what may have been the war’s first shot. Harmony was founded in 1804 by the communal Harmony Society of religious German Separatists. After they left in 1814, the area was resettled by Mennonites whose congregation faded away by the early 1900s, although many of their descendants remain. Stephen Foster lived here briefly as a child, Charles Flowers made fine percussion rifles, and the area participated in the region’s oil and gas boom of a century ago.

With many buildings restored or refurbished, Harmony retains the architectural character of a rural German village. One of only 22 National Historic Landmarks in all of western Pennsylvania, this year it received the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs’ Historic Preservation Award for its comprehensive commitment to preserving heritage resources while emphasizing economic and community revitalization.

Dankfest parking and admission is free, with modest fees for tours and the quilt show. Hours both days are noon to to 5 p.m. Harmony is at Interstate 79 exits 87-88, about 30 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh, 10 miles north of Pennsylvania Turnpike exit 28, and 30 miles south of Interstate 80. Follow Historic District and Dankfest signs.

CONTACTS:
Historic Harmony: Kathy Luek, Administrator, 724-452-7341 or toll-free 888-821-4822
Harmony Borough: Jeff Smith, Council President, 724-452-6780
7/26/04

HARMONY BICENTENNIAL WEEK
Schedule of Events

Saturday, Aug. 28
11 a.m., Parade, Spring St. to Museum’s Mercer Road Barn
Noon-5 p.m., Dankfest, Harmony Museum pioneer crafts festival
5 p.m., fiddle contest, Mercer Road barn, presented by Butler Eagle
7 p.m.: Harmony Business Association concert, Kim Thomas & Diamonds in the Rough, Museum Barn, presented by Butler Eagle & Harmony Museum

Sunday, Aug. 29
Noon-5 p.m., Dankfest

Monday, Aug. 30
7 p.m., "Iptingen, Germany," illustrated presentation on hometown of Georg Rapp, founder of Harmony and communal Harmony Society, by John Ruch, Stewart Hall
8 p.m.: Eugene & the Nightcrawlers, Museum Barn, presented by Dambach Lumber

Tuesday, Aug. 31
1-4 p.m., Quilt Show, Mennonite meetinghouse, Wise Road
7 p.m., "Harmony, The Movie," debut showing of Harmony video, Stewart Hall, presented by Armstrong
8 p.m., Sweet Adelines, Museum Barn, presented by VEKA

Wednesday, Sept. 1
1-4 p.m., Quilt Show, Mennonite meetinghouse, Wise Road
8 p.m., Ace Brown and his Hell Divers, Museum Barn

Thursday, Sept. 2
1-4 p.m., Quilt Show, Mennonite meetinghouse, Wise Road
7 p.m., "The Harmony Line," illustrated presentation about 1908-1931 Pittsburgh, Harmony, Butler & New Castle Railroad interurban, by John Makar, Stewart Hall
8 p.m., Seneca Valley High School Barbershop Quartet and Beautyshop Quartet, Museum Barn

Friday, Sept. 3
1-4 p.m., Quilt Show, Mennonite meetinghouse, Wise Road
8 p.m., John Burgh Band, Museum Barn, presented by JADCO

Saturday, Sept. 4
1-4 p.m., Quilt Show, Mennonite meetinghouse, Wise Road
Noon-4 p.m., Doc Stewart Babies Reunion, Stewart Hall
Noon -4 p.m., Emma Farm Camp Reunion, Borough Building, Mercer Street
8 p.m., Grand Finale: Old Economy Orchestra Concert, Zambelli Internationale Fireworks show, Museum Barn presented by Armstrong

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