1984 Pennsylvania Dutch Country 2 (4/8-9/1984)

Sunday, April 8, 1984

Bacon-cheese waffles this morning! Left at 8:45 to drive to the Amish Homestead on SR 462 off US 30 in Lancaster, PA. We paid our $3 and started the tour.

Amish Homestead brochure

It was sunny but still cool today. Saw a waterwheel that pumped water to be stored in a 3rd floor tank to provide running water for the house.

Water wheel

Water pump

The house was a typical grossdadi/adjoining houses with additions for each generation.

Amish Homestead

We passed some geese, horses, and pigs, and saw some new piglets. Also lambs and a barn with more horses. AS said before, Pennsylvania law requires a milking machine and refrigeration if they want to sell their milk. So the bishops got together and okayed the use of diesel generators, since they have no physical connection with the outside world, as interpreted by the Amish. We looked out over the fields and the vegetable gardens, the latter are the responsibility of the women. The barn had a lightning rod, because the actual owner was not Amish. We went to the tobacco shed and were shown the basic tools. The garage had several buggies, including the open buggy each boy gets when he turns 16, and the closed buggy they get when they get married. There was also a market wagon. Again, Pennsylvania law requires them to have a slow-moving vehicle fluorescent orange triangle, and battery-run flashers and turn signals.

The oldest part of the house did have electricity heat and air-conditioning because Pennsylvania state law requires those things in public places. We went first in the kitchen with its wood stove with a flat iron on it, and a gas iron on the gas stove. A propane gas refrigerator was in the pantry, but many Amish rent freeze lockers! There were canned goods. There was nothing decorative, everything must have a purpose. No human/graven images on anything like the calendar. The sink had three faucets, the third for rain water. A treadle sewing machine. Dark green window shades.

We went into the parlor set up as if it was this house’s turn to host the every second Sunday church service lasting four hours. Could have up to 200 people. The ministers and bishops are picked by lot and serve for life. Everyone in the “parish” is invited to the weddings. Wedding gifts are given after the honeymoon when the couple goes around visiting those who came to the wedding. The hymnals have no music, which is handed down by ear. We went to an upstairs bedroom to see clothes hanging on pegs on the wall. They want clothes without ornamentation, to be totally unlike German uniforms, of those who persecuted them. A minimum of buttons, no lapels, no pockets. The women use straight pins to hold their dresses together. Absolutely no buttons for the women. Only married men wear beards, but no mustaches, since the German soldiers wore them. We learned a lot of interesting facts today!

Next we drove to Paradise and saw a half-marathon being set up. In Paradise, we went to Basketville, a basket and wicker outlet. I bought a tall cylinder basket and a picnic basket. We stopped at a group of shops in hopes of getting chicken corn soup or something for lunch, but only found a bakery open. Went across the street to see nicely displayed antiques.

We headed back to Lancaster to Lancaster Central Park along the Conestoga River to visit Rock Ford Plantation.

Rock Ford Plantation ticket

We first climbed the hill to read a stone memorial about the Irishman Edward Hand, a surgeon who immigrated to the U.S. and joined the American forces, became Army Adjutant General, and was friends with George Washington. We were directed first to the barn, an original had burned down leaving only the foundation and stonework. A barn from a similar era was moved and built on top. 

Rock Ford Plantation barn

The lady there told us about a discount we had heard about at Ephrata Cloister. She took our Ephrata tickets and gave us Rock Ford tickets that she said we could use for further discounts. We found it hard to believe her logic, thinking that the special tickets we got at Ephrata were the actual discount tickets, but we went along. There were some cases of artifacts found when digging in the area, including remains of Indians from 2-3000 BC. Upstairs in the barn were displays of pewterware, porcelain, kitchen items, baskets, quilts, and furniture left by a Zoe and Henry Kaufman, from that era.

Our discount tickets cost $2 each and we headed in to the 1792 Georgian home.

Rock Ford Plantation home

A girl in period dress took us through the four rooms of the first floor, with two young men who apparently were studying furniture or antiques or something. If they weren’t told, they asked what style each piece of furniture was; Mary & William, Pembroke, with lattice struts, ladderback chairs, Windsor chairs, Chippendale tables, Sheridan tent beds, Hepplewhite chests, etc.! The memorized spiel of these girls (one on each floor) included naming all the furniture! We saw adjustable candle stands, carpenters’ models, General Hand’s study with a specially made chair for him with long legs, sugar cones, liquor bottle boxes, reflecting candle stands, a rare Gilbert & Sullivan on glass painting. Ha, ha! I mean a Gilbert Stuart copy reverse painted on glass. Two-piece mirrors due to a glass tax, a 10-plate stove, etc. In the gift shop in the basement was a poster of Lancaster doors. There was also a frog mug, with a ceramic frog inside the mug for over-imbibers. We returned to the barn to get back two of our Ephrata tickets since the lady informed us we had given her four of them…

We went to the Garden of Five Senses, which was also in the park.

Garden of Five Senses

They hadn’t spring cleaned yet, so the sight hadn’t grown yet, the touch had disappeared, the smell had dried up, and there was no taste. Hearing was easy, just sit on a bench and listen! We did hear band music and taps being played on a nearby hilltop in a cemetery.

Amish horse and buggy

We left and drove through Lancaster to Wheatland, the home of President James Buchanan, which was a 19th century Victorian/Federal mansion with guides in hoopskirts!

Wheatland brochure

Wheatland     

We saw parts of the Presidential china in a pantry, plus a set of ugly blue Wedgewood. We were told that James Buchanan was the only Pennsylvanian to become President, and he was the only bachelor president. He was a lawyer and the Congressman. Because he was a bachelor, his niece Harriet Lane acted as First Lady and hostess at the White House. She was orphaned and brought up by her uncle. The dining room was elegant, the parlor was Rococo, and the study was masculine. Upstairs was Harriet’s bedroom and a few more stairs led to a hallway with one of the largest porcelain pieces in the world, a large blue and white bowl whose twin is at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. We saw the President’s bedroom where if the bed seemed short, it was because they felt the heart would stop if they laid completely flat. So they slept propped up on pillows. There was also a bathroom with the President’s footbath. The other fixtures were put in later. Next the death room. There were examples of so-called “stump art” with yarn flowers made three-dimensional with bark or leather underneath. The kitchen was the gift shop. We went out to check the President’s privy with varying size holes. The carriage house had a lovely restored carriage.

We drove up SR 72 looking for covered bridges that were indicated on a map, but never found them. Did see a tiny facsimile used over a waterwheel.

We got back to Sue’s place and I helped make dinner. We went through Sue’s attic where she found that her problem mouse had been eating the wheat paste. She gave me a pot, food grinder, and a cable spool, as well as an acrylic recipe file box where she had cross-stitched flowers to decorate the front. She also gave me a jade plant and lots of cuttings.

Monday, April 9, 1984

I left at 7:45 and made my way to I-81 to I-80, getting to I-95 and was home (in Pawtucket, RI!) by 14:30.