In 1743 and for many years this building would have been used by Reformed and Lutheran congregations and called a Union Church. It was also used as a class room. My Lutheran immigrant family worshiped in that church.
What a beautiful place Cliff! Wouldn't it be great to find some early photos of these buildings before they fell into ruin. Also interesting how the present church building has far more detailed architecture and cut blocks of stone compared to the more crude building. There was land still being cleared in that early day. And the curved stone walls in back of the old church may have had something to do with the mill race and water flow. I also wondered about flooding. Of course in that day they didn't have the run off of huge developments and shopping malls to deal with. There are ruins of an old mill down my road a mile or so. It was built in 1767. I have a list of all the mills in Lancaster Co. It is amazing how many there were. Saw and grist mills and ones to grind up bone for fertilizer. Thank You WW for sharing this super place. Bet there were cold winter Sundays in that big stone church. People would bring foot warmers and services lasted for long periods of time. I wonder if the weather had anything to do with the length of the sermons? DaveyJO
I wish that huge tree was not in there, the one limb is all ready pushing on the center wall, this is one of the best videos I have seen of this type of history, Thank you for posting, BTW, you just got another subscriber, ME! I will watch your videos love This!
A very puzzling design for an 18th Century Church. All the fireplaces would indicate a more permanent living space to me. Many churches in that era would have no heat at all. My home church in Pennsylvania dates to 1792 and at that time was a single room log cabin as well as a school. This was an immense stone structure for the 1740s in Lebanon County.
That's as awesome as it gets! Imagine the stories that building could tell if it could talk! Neat! Crazy that it's still standing!!! Love the window arches.
I love your videos. Thank you for showing us all these amazing places in PA. I have learned a lot, watching your channel, and I appreciate the extra effort it takes to document and share your cool adventures ^__^
Love stuff like this. I’ve always had a thing for old buildings but I REALLY love old abandoned buildings because it’s almost like they’re trapped in time.
I love the historical places you find. I wish we had history like that here. I live near Toronto, Canada, and the oldest wooden building is from the late 1700's on the Exhibition Grounds. There is an Indian burial hill in Scarborough and several others around, but that's it. Just imagine what the people from the past tell you. Imagine they worked so hard, making things themselves. I wish I had those skills.
cool!!! if you visit Tamaqua follow the railroad tracks north to see some mining remains and the Tamaqua powder works , which is an old abandoned town from early 1800.....then follow the tracks south of Tamaqua to see more mining ruins. if you go west on 209 they are repairing an underground creek with old stone arch work that hasn't seen daylight for over 200 years, and the Newkirk tunnel and abandoned steam boiler thank you for showing me new places to explore. look forward to each video. keep on hiking
Hey woodsman great find! Awesome to see our history is still intact. Have you ever been to the dreamland park near reading pa? I live in reading and want to go there. Would love to see a video on it. Keep em’ coming!
Amazing. Thank you for the journey into the past. It is hard to imagine the number of years and man hours of labor it took to create that church. It must have been quite stunning in its day. I hope to visit that county sometime in the future as I admire old stone structures. Great video.
I love churches and old school buildings. It's a shame there isn't any historical sign saying exactly what that stone building was. Like you said in the USA buildings that old are rare. This isn't Europe. The atmosphere was peaceful with the sounds of the birds and the spring water flowing and the green trees etc. Pretty video.
I agree those structures have so much history you would think the state or local historical society would want to preserve .Maybe before there gone . This is what I respect so much about your work sharing with us . awesome
I went to grade school in bucks county, pa with a quaker meeting house built in 1768, still in use. The school was founded in 1795 and I was part of the 200th graduating class. Awesome place- Buckingham Friends School. The windows in the meeting house are original and they have bulges at the bottom. Glass wasn’t made like today.
I wish I was rich I'd buy properties like this and restore them, find as many original records as I could and open them up for tours, or as a inn or something cool where people could learn about it or use it .
Can you imagine the hundreds of memories this old church must hold. Once it must have stood proud and magnificent now it is reduced to a skeleton and abandoned. It could have been made into a nice family home. Probably cheaper to pull down and rebuild incorporating the stone. Thank you for sharing.
Just on the other side of the tulpehockin creek, there was a dynamite factory built about 1883. A year later, it blew up and the shockwave of the explosion, blew the roof of the new church.
I shared your channel with my dad. Love your videos. I’m a huge history fan. Especially local history. I grew up in Womelsdorf and loved that area’s history. Do you know anything of the resort up on South mountain in Wernersville? I know there are no trespassing there but maybe you could get permission. It’s not Galen Hall, it was another resort that burned down close to Caron Foundation.
I've read about that one, but they are rather strict about the no trespassing. The land belongs to the Wernersville water authority, they use it as their private hunting preserve.
A triumph of a video! One of your best! That lower area with the half-moon rock wall above the water is puzzling. Did it support a porch or boardwalk? Was it intended to impound a pool of that spring water? You certainly can't walk down there now with any degree of comfort. I suppose that will eventually cause the building to slump in that direction and completely collapse. What a nice owner to allow you access for your video.
Flowing Living water wld hv been preferred for Baptisms as it is considered more Holy. Also thought maybe shallow stock pond as well as flood control. Multipurpose
I have German ancestors that lived in Somerset, PA and eventually ended up in SW Virginia. I had a lot of Quakers in my ancestry as well and many lived in PA.
Pennsylvania has exceptionally good records. The state archives in Harrisburg is very good an old church records. Pennsylvania didn't issue birth certificates until 1906 so you really have to know the place and religion of your ancestors in order to get into some of these. I do understand that indexes are being built that might make it easier
i would like to know how they did the stone walls and arch way in the windows? and the walls are thick how do they do it? it looks like some of the brick work (fireplace) is more modern? building seems huge!
I want to clarify some of the information in the video. I live in the grist mill next to the ruins and I am also a member of the Christ Lutheran congregation. Our current belief is that the ruins are of a two-story school house erected in 1758. The account books indicate that the school house was stone and brick and that stoves were purchased for the upper and lower school rooms. The teacher most likely lived in the other half of the building. The original church building was probably log and was closer to the old cemetery where you parked. Part of the masonry work on the outside is the tail race for the mill (you are on the downstream side of the mill) mingled with stonework from the canal lock. It may have also allowed access of canal boats loading/unloading from the Union Canal and canal lock to the mill. The church still owns the ruins and the parsonage along with the barn and surrounding fields. The parsonage is currently being rented out. I assume you spoke to the tenants.
Thank you for the info. I'm a photographer and would love to take some photos of this amazing place (with permission). Can someone can give me an address or coordinates please?
If I owned that church, I would try to keep after it better, rather than let nature take its course. Simple clearing of bushes and some of those trees, give some respect to the building.....smh
THAT WAS NOT JUST A CHURCH. PERHAPS IT WAS A SCHOOL AND A CHURCH, HAVING AN EXPOSED BASEMENT, TWO STORIES AND A CENTRAL DIVIDING WALL WHICH CREATED 4 VERY LARGE ROOMS WAS QUITE ELABORATE FOR THAT TIME PERIOD.. IT IS JUST AS LIKELY IT WAS PART OF THE MILL COMPLEX. THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN AN EXCELLENT WAREHOUSE LOCATION, SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO THE CANAL FOR SHIPPING RAW MATERIAL IN AND FINISHED MATERIAL OUT. .
Interesting that they built a church within a few feet of a creek and right on top of a spring. Of course the spring was the equivalent of an 18th century refrigerator. I wonder what the history of flooding was there.
brant morrison, basement spring flows were utilized in many ways. A source of fresh drinking water, (BTW, natural spring water makes the best tasting tea)! To keep foods from spoiling. Meats, vegetables , etc, would be placed in containers then placed in the water to keep cold. The stream also kept the basement cooler during the summer months.
Thanks for the reply. I knew some people when I lived in the east who had houses that had been built in the 1700s. Some of the houses had springs that would run through the basement (usually at just a trickle) that could fill these shallow stone troughs that would retain the cool water at a usable depth to provide some cool food storage space. Cooling beer and wine in bottles or soda in cans was the main modern use of the springs. I can see that milk, cheese and butter may last in there and other things, as well. The houses would sometimes have flooding problems due to the springs. I can't imagine that church built just six feet away from a creek escaped that fate. I recall the basements (made of large stone blocks) would also harbor a variety of newts or salamanders.
I read something about the biological basis for deja vu, and no it is not some new agey reincarnation thing. It has to do with the memories of our ancestors somehow physically residing and passing along in DNA. You may very well indeed have had ancestors worship there.
as you show me this in Hamilton ohio there is an old cemetery Saint Petes Lutheran church and school founded in 1805 here is a link to that kowallekfamily.com/wp/genealogy/st-peters-lutheran-church-burials/ I have a list of the people buried their maybe some of your family members are there as well. by the way the stones when I was there in 70's to 1980 stones are broken the farmer use the cemetery for grassing fo his cows but I do have a list for all the people in there have a great day
I was thinking that it's got an odd structure for an old church - compare with drawings of the oldest German churches (I have ancestors at Stouchsburg too, so it would have been nice to have the old church still around). The churches tended to be a lot smaller and not so many floors and rooms, I believe.
I love old buildings like that too. I probably could spend hours in there just looking around and imagining how it looked when first built.
Wonderful channel I love this, I always dreamed of going back in a time machine. Maybe it's my ancestors draw me to come. Thanks for sharing
Thanks for watching
In 1743 and for many years this building would have been used by Reformed and Lutheran congregations and called a Union Church. It was also used as a class room. My Lutheran immigrant family worshiped in that church.
What a beautiful place Cliff! Wouldn't it be great to find some early photos of these buildings before they fell into ruin. Also interesting how the present church building has far more detailed architecture and cut blocks of stone compared to the more crude building. There was land still being cleared in that early day. And the curved stone walls in back of the old church may have had something to do with the mill race and water flow. I also wondered about flooding. Of course in that day they didn't have the run off of huge developments and shopping malls to deal with. There are ruins of an old mill down my road a mile or so. It was built in 1767. I have a list of all the mills in Lancaster Co. It is amazing how many there were. Saw and grist mills and ones to grind up bone for fertilizer. Thank You WW for sharing this super place. Bet there were cold winter Sundays in that big stone church. People would bring foot warmers and services lasted for long periods of time. I wonder if the weather had anything to do with the length of the sermons? DaveyJO
Love history, I just ran into your videos and love them! Great job
That was before 1776, a turning point in our history. I love this!
some revolutionary war veterans probably went to this church every Sunday as kids in the 1750s and 60s! very interesting to think about
Awesome old building. Thank you for taking folks to see it.
Love seeing all the work that went into building this. So amazing its still standing after all these years!!!
Another great adventure sir ! Loved this one.
Such a lovely building, must have been wonderful when it was first built. Love to hear the birds singing, very interesting video, thank you Cliff.
I wish that huge tree was not in there, the one limb is all ready pushing on the center wall, this is one of the best videos I have seen of this type of history, Thank you for posting, BTW, you just got another subscriber, ME! I will watch your videos love This!
A very puzzling design for an 18th Century Church. All the fireplaces would indicate a more permanent living space to me. Many churches in that era would have no heat at all. My home church in Pennsylvania dates to 1792 and at that time was a single room log cabin as well as a school. This was an immense stone structure for the 1740s in Lebanon County.
I know where id be getting my water from now on... Nicely done Teach. Great video thank you for bringing us along...
Thanks
These type of churches should be given the love and care that they deserve,but most of all the maintenance. Tony
Cool video, I love that it's still standing. Thank you for the history, love that too.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing it with us!
Very cool WW sounds like you met some nice folks too. Thanks
That's as awesome as it gets! Imagine the stories that building could tell if it could talk! Neat! Crazy that it's still standing!!! Love the window arches.
I thoroughly enjoyed this video----thank you
Great video! Love the history.
I love your videos. Thank you for showing us all these amazing places in PA. I have learned a lot, watching your channel, and I appreciate the extra effort it takes to document and share your cool adventures ^__^
Thanks for watching
Love stuff like this. I’ve always had a thing for old buildings but I REALLY love old abandoned buildings because it’s almost like they’re trapped in time.
Love this! My old house is built on a spring too. Water is always cold.
I love the historical places you find. I wish we had history like that here. I live near Toronto, Canada, and the oldest wooden building is from the late 1700's on the Exhibition Grounds. There is an Indian burial hill in Scarborough and several others around, but that's it. Just imagine what the people from the past tell you. Imagine they worked so hard, making things themselves. I wish I had those skills.
cool!!! if you visit Tamaqua follow the railroad tracks north to see some mining remains and the Tamaqua powder works , which is an old abandoned town from early 1800.....then follow the tracks south of Tamaqua to see more mining ruins. if you go west on 209 they are repairing an underground creek with old stone arch work that hasn't seen daylight for over 200 years, and the Newkirk tunnel and abandoned steam boiler
thank you for showing me new places to explore. look forward to each video. keep on hiking
Fantastic as usual. Thanks
Nice find bro,really enjoyed the video,dropped a like!!
Thanks
Everything so green and beautiful.
What a find thanks so much..glad the dog was okay with you :)
Truly amazing. That must have been a massive labor of faith and family that put that place together. It must have been beautiful.
This was a good one.thanx!
Hey woodsman great find! Awesome to see our history is still intact. Have you ever been to the dreamland park near reading pa? I live in reading and want to go there. Would love to see a video on it. Keep em’ coming!
Amazing to see so much of it still standing. Awesome.
Thanks 4 sharing.
Amazing. Thank you for the journey into the past. It is hard to imagine the number of years and man hours of labor it took to create that church. It must have been quite stunning in its day. I hope to visit that county sometime in the future as I admire old stone structures.
Great video.
Thanks
I love churches and old school buildings. It's a shame there isn't any historical sign saying exactly what that stone building was. Like you said in the USA buildings that old are rare. This isn't Europe. The atmosphere was peaceful with the sounds of the birds and the spring water flowing and the green trees etc. Pretty video.
I agree those structures have so much history you would think the state or local historical society would want to preserve .Maybe before there gone . This is what I respect so much about your work sharing with us . awesome
Very cool old building!
Awesome find!
I went to grade school in bucks county, pa with a quaker meeting house built in 1768, still in use. The school was founded in 1795 and I was part of the 200th graduating class. Awesome place- Buckingham Friends School. The windows in the meeting house are original and they have bulges at the bottom. Glass wasn’t made like today.
That’s a lot of stone work!! Love it!!
Yea...that took a LOT of work!
I wish I was rich I'd buy properties like this and restore them, find as many original records as I could and open them up for tours, or as a inn or something cool where people could learn about it or use it .
Awesome find very cool.
Cool I liked find building to.They,re interesting.
Excellent video !
Thank You to the owners for letting you enter and share this ruined historical site, You do a good job recording and telling what you know.
Cool site, thanks for putting it on TH-cam.
This plaplaces is awesome. Great video.
Thanks
Beautiful old church. I can't believe its still standing. Stone work was well done back then. Great history.
So cool your somehow related to it! Awesome!!
Can you imagine the hundreds of memories this old church must hold. Once it must have stood proud and magnificent now it is reduced to a skeleton and abandoned. It could have been made into a nice family home. Probably cheaper to pull down and rebuild incorporating the stone. Thank you for sharing.
Great explore today. Thanks for sharing
Hey Cliff this is not far from me. I took a few pictures of the church you were at. the last one in this video. Thanks for sharing.
Seeing this in person must be a exhilarating feeling.
Now that is cool 😎 you were lucky to find that one
Just on the other side of the tulpehockin creek, there was a dynamite factory built about 1883. A year later, it blew up and the shockwave of the explosion, blew the roof of the new church.
That's a really beautiful place
That! Was very cool! Great adventure!
I don't get why they would have built over the spring tho.
Would love to see that place restored and preserved in some form or fashion.
I shared your channel with my dad. Love your videos. I’m a huge history fan. Especially local history. I grew up in Womelsdorf and loved that area’s history. Do you know anything of the resort up on South mountain in Wernersville? I know there are no trespassing there but maybe you could get permission. It’s not Galen Hall, it was another resort that burned down close to Caron Foundation.
I've read about that one, but they are rather strict about the no trespassing. The land belongs to the Wernersville water authority, they use it as their private hunting preserve.
It’s like If walls could talk. What would it tell. Beautiful.
Sandra Plonka right
A triumph of a video! One of your best!
That lower area with the half-moon rock wall above the water is puzzling. Did it support a porch or boardwalk? Was it intended to impound a pool of that spring water? You certainly can't walk down there now with any degree of comfort. I suppose that will eventually cause the building to slump in that direction and completely collapse.
What a nice owner to allow you access for your video.
Thanks
That place is fasinating!
Excellent piece of history, just wondering how they manage to build a stone walls right. Thanks for sharing.
Wow !
cool find!
Wow 🙏🙏🙏
Great find, i could spend hours there.
I agree that the pond behind the church could have been used for baptisms because I noticed a path on the other side leading down to the pond.
Awesome the owner let you look at the church. In its day it must of been a beautiful church.
Some of those other buildings nearby seem to have the same foundation.
What material did they use to bond the stones together? Love the building...
not sure, some places seemed like there was no bonding between the stones - dry stacked
would be a great place to metal detect
Flowing Living water wld hv been preferred for Baptisms as it is considered more Holy.
Also thought maybe shallow stock pond as well as flood control. Multipurpose
Looks like it's a 1000 years old from King Arthur's time or something
My German ancestors passed through PA they could have been a part of that congregation. Were there any headstones?
Amazing ruin, in very good condition, considering.
That's great
Is there a cemetary associated with the church? Great video, thank you!
Leisa Irwin good question
I'm not sure if there was one right down by this church, but there is one up on the hill where I parked
I have German ancestors that lived in Somerset, PA and eventually ended up in SW Virginia. I had a lot of Quakers in my ancestry as well and many lived in PA.
Pennsylvania has exceptionally good records. The state archives in Harrisburg is very good an old church records. Pennsylvania didn't issue birth certificates until 1906 so you really have to know the place and religion of your ancestors in order to get into some of these. I do understand that indexes are being built that might make it easier
i would like to know how they did the stone walls and arch way in the windows? and the walls are thick how do they do it? it looks like some of the brick work (fireplace) is more modern? building seems huge!
I noticed that to . Why is the fireplace red brick
Would the spring have cooled the house
I love seeing old ruins of old buildings...When I'm in Pa I'd like to check it out myself..Do u live in Pa? Or just explore in Pa?
Yes, I live in PA
The Wandering Woodsman maybe sometime we can meet up and go to explore somewhere together..
What history.
History of the church would be good.
Wow that built twenty years before the fall of New France.
P. S., The Mourning War was still on, Washington was a fresh faced young officer...
nice
I want to clarify some of the information in the video. I live in the grist mill next to the ruins and I am also a member of the Christ Lutheran congregation. Our current belief is that the ruins are of a two-story school house erected in 1758. The account books indicate that the school house was stone and brick and that stoves were purchased for the upper and lower school rooms. The teacher most likely lived in the other half of the building. The original church building was probably log and was closer to the old cemetery where you parked. Part of the masonry work on the outside is the tail race for the mill (you are on the downstream side of the mill) mingled with stonework from the canal lock. It may have also allowed access of canal boats loading/unloading from the Union Canal and canal lock to the mill. The church still owns the ruins and the parsonage along with the barn and surrounding fields. The parsonage is currently being rented out. I assume you spoke to the tenants.
Amazing info thanks
Thanks for that
Thank you for the info. I'm a photographer and would love to take some photos of this amazing place (with permission). Can someone can give me an address or coordinates please?
Before French and Indian war?
If I owned that church, I would try to keep after it better, rather than let nature take its course. Simple clearing of bushes and some of those trees, give some respect to the building.....smh
THAT WAS NOT JUST A CHURCH. PERHAPS IT WAS A SCHOOL AND A CHURCH, HAVING AN EXPOSED BASEMENT, TWO STORIES AND A CENTRAL DIVIDING WALL WHICH CREATED 4 VERY LARGE ROOMS WAS QUITE ELABORATE FOR THAT TIME PERIOD..
IT IS JUST AS LIKELY IT WAS PART OF THE MILL COMPLEX. THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN AN EXCELLENT WAREHOUSE LOCATION, SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO THE CANAL FOR SHIPPING RAW MATERIAL IN AND FINISHED MATERIAL OUT. .
Interesting that they built a church within a few feet of a creek and right on top of a spring. Of course the spring was the equivalent of an 18th century refrigerator. I wonder what the history of flooding was there.
brant morrison, basement spring flows were utilized in many ways. A source of fresh drinking water, (BTW, natural spring water makes the best tasting tea)! To keep foods from spoiling. Meats, vegetables , etc, would be placed in containers then placed in the water to keep cold. The stream also kept the basement cooler during the summer months.
Thanks for the reply.
I knew some people when I lived in the east who had houses that had been built in the 1700s. Some of the houses had springs that would run through the basement (usually at just a trickle) that could fill these shallow stone troughs that would retain the cool water at a usable depth to provide some cool food storage space. Cooling beer and wine in bottles or soda in cans was the main modern use of the springs. I can see that milk, cheese and butter may last in there and other things, as well.
The houses would sometimes have flooding problems due to the springs. I can't imagine that church built just six feet away from a creek escaped that fate.
I recall the basements (made of large stone blocks) would also harbor a variety of newts or salamanders.
Where's the batharoom???
i like the way you have respect for your old buildings in the states theres an abbey up the road from the 8th century, nobody gives a shit.
I read something about the biological basis for deja vu, and no it is not some new agey reincarnation thing. It has to do with the memories of our ancestors somehow physically residing and passing along in DNA. You may very well indeed have had ancestors worship there.
1743 when German Lutherans were living in Pennsylvania as British subjects
as you show me this in Hamilton ohio there is an old cemetery Saint Petes Lutheran church and school founded in 1805 here is a link to that kowallekfamily.com/wp/genealogy/st-peters-lutheran-church-burials/ I have a list of the people buried their maybe some of your family members are there as well. by the way the stones when I was there in 70's to 1980 stones are broken the farmer use the cemetery for grassing fo his cows but I do have a list for all the people in there have a great day
Unfortunately when that tree falls down, the building will probably go with it
Love it, those trees need to be taking out , they will destroy those walls within the next few years.
Sorry.
This is not a church.
I promise you.
This is a mill.
I was thinking that it's got an odd structure for an old church - compare with drawings of the oldest German churches (I have ancestors at Stouchsburg too, so it would have been nice to have the old church still around). The churches tended to be a lot smaller and not so many floors and rooms, I believe.