Old Economy Village

From the Museum Educator: Did you know that on this day, 197 years ago, the advanced party of the Harmonists (consisting of George Rapp and others) were traveling on the steamboat Ploughboy on the Ohio River on the way to their new home that would become Economy? They departed New Harmony, Indiana on May 24, 1824. They arrived on June 6th. Since they were traveling against the current, it took them 13 days to make the journey to the site of their third and final home. The illustration provided is not of the actual "Ploughboy" but is a steamboat from the 1820s era.

From the Museum Educator: Here is a photo taken in the garden last Saturday.

Are you interested in volunteering within your community? We’re interested in meeting you! There are tons of opportunities to exercise your creativity at OEV. Whether your interest lies in education, community building, arts and music, horticulture, trades and cooking, or architecture, there is a place for you at Old Economy Village. Come foster your creativity at Old Economy Village today!... Please contact Chloe Thomas at (724) 266 - 4500 x 104 or at [email protected] for any questions or to register. http://oldeconomyvillage.org/support/volunteer/

From the Museum Educator: This photograph was taken on Saturday in the garden.

From the Museum Educator: On Tuesday, I had some things I needed to move in the Mechanics Building. When I walked in, I heard voices and found our curator Sarah Buffington and volunteer Daniel Wolstrum hard at work in the Shoe Shop. Sarah and Daniel have been cleaning that space along with the artifacts in it. They are taking an inventory of the artifacts as they clean them. Here are two photographs of Sarah and Daniel in the Shoe Shop located within the Mechanics Building.

From the Museum Educator: This week when I was at the site installing some electric candles in the windows of the Feast Hall, I was surprised to see that the elk had been moved once again and that its antlers had been removed. It is now residing in Doctor Mueller’s office. There is some painting being done in the room it had been stored in. The antlers needed to be removed to get the elk through the door. Many of you have heard the story that the antlers displayed on this el...k, belonged to another elk. Those antlers were quite old and may have belonged to Harmonist. In fact they may be the very antlers of their pet elk. Some of our staff had a virtual staff meeting on Wednesday. Our curator, Sarah Buffington shared some photographs of old taxidermy animal mounts that had been on display many years ago at Old Economy Village. Many of those mounts were disposed of, because arsenic powder had been used years ago to keep insects from eating the fur. I was surprised to see that those old antlers were still attached to an elk head (the original owner). So, we never could prove that the antlers were from the Harmonist pet elk, but if they are, you can now see (in the photos of today’s post) the antlers, head and neck of the Harmonist elk that lived back in the 1820s. It raises the question, would George, Frederick or Gertrude Rapp recognize this elk? See more

From the Museum Educator: Here is a fun photograph taken in 2017 of our sleigh decorated for Christmas when it was still in the Granary. John Duss wrote about sleigh riding during the winter. He wrote: And sleighing was a community custom in which both old and young took part. Farm bobsleds were transformed into sleighs by the addition of wagonbeds filled with straw. One of these was reserved for the community band. All of the community’s magnificent teams were requisitioned and to the jingle of the sleighbells and the music of the band, away we’d ride to Rochester, or to Sewickley. If the latter was our destination, the sleighing party would [go] to an auditorium where the band and choir proceeded to give an impromptu concert.

From the Museum Educator: These two photos were taken today showing the progress of the ramps on the backside of the Mechanics Building and the Store. The Mechanics Building is further along.

Don't forget! There's still time to register for the virtual Meet Belsnickel event this Saturday at 11:00 AM!

From the Museum Educator: Still yet another symbol discussed in Hilda Kring’s book The Harmonists: A Folk- Cultural Approach is the canonical S. She writes the following: The S form was used by the Harmonists extensively in the designs for braces, pottery, furniture and silk ribbons. The S signifies the serpent; the seven deadly sins; the seven penitential psalms (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143); the seven virtues and the seven works of mercy, spiritual and corporal. In ...the world of numbers, seven is symbolic of perfect order, a complete period or cycle. Most remaining brick Harmonists houses in Ambridge still have the S braces. The braces were placed at the second floors and the attic floors. The walls of these brick houses were three bricks thick. The mortar used back then did not dry as quickly as the mortar today. These S braces had rods that went through the center of the S, through the three layers of bricks and into the floor joists. This held everything together while the mortar dried. In theory, once the mortar was dry, they could have removed these braces, but the Harmonists made them decorative and kept them in place. So according to Kring, these S braces had symbolic significance.

From the Museum Educator: This photo (taken December 8) shows the progress of the capital project around the Frederick Rapp House. Stones are now in place for the foundation of the walkway. One of the new garden path lights can be seen behind the house.

From the Museum Educator: Another symbol discussed in Hilda Kring’s book The Harmonists: A Folk- Cultural Approach is the rose. In Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible, Micah 4:8 says, Unto thee shall come the golden rose Other Bible translations use the word it rather than golden rose. A nickname for Jesus Christ is the Rose of Sharon taken from Song of Solomon 2:1. The rose showed up in Harmony, Pa. and also in New Harmony. In New Harmony it was carved into th...e doorway and appeared in the glass design above the door of their 1822 Maltese Cross Church. In Economy the rose can be seen on the newel posts of the hand rails in the Rapp House and also in the ceiling of the Grotto. The rose design was also incorporated into some of the cloth and ribbons they produced in the town. They even had a cookie cutter in the shape of a rose for their ginger cookies. See more

From the Museum Educator: Even though we are still closed, we decided to do a little bit of Christmas decorating at Old Economy Village. We have garland strung along the front fence and electric candles in the front downstairs of the Rapp Houses. Today I finished installing candles in the Feast Hall. There are 40 candles in the Feast Hall, displayed in the front and both sides of the building. The photo shows one of these candles on the second floor of the Feast Hall with the former Harmonist Church in the background. Now people driving or walking on Church Street will hopefully enjoy our decorating efforts.

From the Museum Educator: In Hilda Kring’s book The Harmonists: A Folk- Cultural Approach she mentions several symbols that the Harmony Society used in their architecture and other things. I already mentioned her claim about the significance of the number six and that Kring pointed out the common bond brick pattern used on their buildings was five rows of headers and one row of stretchers. Today we are going to take a look at some of the doors used in the Village. Kring bro...ught attention to the six panels used in many of the doors throughout Economy. She wrote: The doors of the Harmonist houses were the common Christian Doors used by many sects. The six panels of the door are divided into an upper half depicting the Sign of the Cross, and the lower half depicting the open Bible. There are some exceptions to this design in the Rapp Houses, but most residences in Economy did use it. The one photograph is an interior photo taken in the Frederick Rapp House hallway showing the door leading into the parlor. The other photo is of a doorway of a Harmonist House at the corner of 15th Street and Church Street which is a private residence outside of the Old Economy Village.

I just published my seventh book, Sarah's Journey: Adventure in Old Economy Village. It's the second in the series about the living history museum in Ambridge, ...PA, my hometown. This coming of age book features teen Sarah Jeffers as she struggles with the feeling of not belonging. Although she's involved with volunteering as a summer helper in the Village and pulled into her sister's problems, her main goal is to find the portal into the past where she believes she belongs. The first book is titled Cathi and Katrina: Adventure in Old Economy Village. See more

From the Museum Educator: I checked out the chair lift progress today while emptying dehumidifiers. The one photo shows the chair lift area in the downstairs Feast Hall room where the Bear and Elk usually are displayed. The other photo shows the chair lift going in upstairs as viewed from the top of the steps. I’ve actually helped carry people in their wheelchairs up the stairs and that is a very difficult and scary thing to do. This lift will be wonderful for people with mobility issues and also getting items being sold by vendors to the upstairs. I’ve helped many a vendor carry their merchandise up the Feast Hall steps.

From the Museum Educator: In one of the pages of photographs in Christiana Knoedler’s book, The Harmony Society, she has included a photo of the painting that was done of George Rapp. On this photo page she relays the following story: According to the only available information, Mr. Rapp walked to Warsaw, New York, in 1830, in search of merino sheep. He purchased the animals he wanted from the farm of Major General Staunton, a veteran of the War of 1812. The general and h...Continue reading

From the Museum Educator: Hilda Kring in her book, The Harmonists: A Folk Cultural Approach makes the claim that the number six was very significant to the Harmonists. George Rapp used the Berleburger Bible which included some published notes interpreting certain passages of the Bible. This translation claimed that since man was created on the sixth day of the week, that six was the number of man. Kring makes the claim that Harmonists were preoccupied with this number an...d that it was used in their architecture in the brick buildings they built in Harmony, New Harmony and Economy. When laying the bricks, they laid five rows of stretchers (the long end of the brick) and then the sixth row was one row of headers (the narrow end of the brick). She makes the claim the number five plus one was not the building practice of the day. I’ve enjoyed reading Kring’s book, but do challenge her statement about that pattern not being commonly used. I did some online image searches of 19th century brick buildings and particular some built in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. I found several examples where the running bond pattern was five rows of stretchers and one row of headers. The photo shows this common bond pattern (five and one) used on Harmonist Houses.

From the Museum Educator: I am still amazed about how many United States Presidents the Harmony Society met or interacted with in some way. I found another such interaction in The Harmonists: A Folk-Cultural Approach by Hilda Kring. Frederick Rapp met with President James Madison in Washington. She included a letter in her book, written by George Rapp to Frederick Rapp on February 24, 1813. George Rapp wrote, I am most pleased that you had the pleasure of speaking with the President. Your journey was quite worthwhile.

From the Museum Educator: Sheep were important to the Harmony Society, especially Merino Sheep which originally came from Spain. John Duss wrote the following about the Harmonists while in Harmony, Pennsylvania: On the north side of the Creek were the sheep pens, and on the hills around about one might see more than a thousand sheep. The Society had been among the first to introduce the Merino breed into the country. They paid $1,000 for a ram and proportionate prices for ...a flock of ewes, and had unusual success in breeding them and in the manufacture of woolen cloth from such superior wool. The flocks were under the watchful eyes of three shepherds, who during the night slept in tents which were moved from hill to hill. Later in his book Duss writes: Curfew rang at 9:00 P.M., and all but the shepherds and watchmen were to be in their homes by that hour. (Herdsmen, by the way, slept in a wagon on wheels- a so called Noah’s Ark.). Karl Ardnt wrote that when Friedrich List visited Economy in the summer of 1825 he wrote that a shepherd was watching several hundred of the finest Spanish Sheep. Christiana Knoedler wrote that George Rapp purchased merino sheep in 1830 from the farm of Major General Staunton who lived in Warsaw, New York. Wool from Merino Sheep is still highly sought after today.

From the Museum Educator: Today I could only get to 14 of the 15 dehumidifiers in the Village because of all the construction happening around the Store building. I’ve included two photos of that construction. The one shows the backside of the Mechanic’s Building and Store. The excavated earth is for the footers of the ramps that will be added to the backsides of these two buildings. You can also see the finished paint job on the wooden addition of the Baker House (compare to last Saturday’s post). The other photo shows the front of the store. The sidewalk has been torn up so it can be redone. Notice the pretty fall colors of the leaves on the tree to the right of the Store building.

From the Museum Educator: John Duss wrote about sausage making within the Harmony Society. The sausages, by the way, were made by families-thus were they enabled to flavor them according to different tastes. The men and families took the meats to the smokehouse, where, tagged with the family name, they were suspended until properly smoked.... The photograph is of Jason Weber demonstrating sausage making and meat smoking at Erntedankfest at Old Economy Village.

This past weekend would have been Erntedankfest. Please tell us what you like about the event! (Please no comments about being closed.)This past weekend would have been Erntedankfest. Please tell us what you like about the event! (Please no comments about being closed.)