A caravan of horses and horse-drawn wagons kicked off with the sound of a whistle Thursday from a Leacock Township farm – a journey that will take its Amish participants about 30 miles north and back in time a couple centuries.
The group of a few dozen people emerged from a field a mile or so outside Intercourse, headed for the Nicholas Stoltzfus Homestead in Wyomissing, Berks County. After camping out in the Narvon area Thursday night they expected to arrive at the homestead on Friday, to join a celebration planned for Saturday morning.
“I just saw the horses’ tails, but it was cool,” said Sadie Mae Stoltzfus, a neighbor assembled near the route’s start to cheer them on. “I wish I was with them.”
Organizers had planned a more ambitious journey, from Philadelphia to Wyomissing, but when those plans faltered the shorter trek was developed instead.
Older participants were generally riding in the covered wagons on Thursday while young men and young women rode horses. They waved to bystanders and there were smiles on many of their faces.
Abner Stoltzfus, a poultry farmer and horse blanket manufacturer, was stationed along the route with a few family members to check it all out. He grew up nearby.
“It’s not me – I’m not interested in all that historian stuff,” he said. “But that’s fine – it’s neat.”
The Nicholas Stoltzfus Homestead was once the home of a family who were, in 1766, the first members of the Stoltzfus family to arrive and settle in the English colony of Pennsylvania.
The horse and wagon caravan was headed there for the dedication of the 20-by-40-foot Beiler-Renno Pavilion, an event open to the public on Saturday morning.
Their trip through New Holland and along smaller byways evokes the historical link between Lancaster and Berks counties – two early centers of Amish population in North America.
The log cabin-style structure at the homestead is being constructed with rocks salvaged from a barn built in the early 1700s by Amish pioneer Jacob Beiler and logs from Joseph Renno’s 1760 cabin. Efforts to preserve and restore the property along the Tulpehocken Creek have been underway for about 20 years.
Nicholas Stoltzfus, a German immigrant, and his Amish wife, Anna Elisabeth Bachmann, became the forebears of the tens of thousands of Stoltzfuses in America today. Most of the people who are currently part of the Lancaster Amish settlement are related in some way to Nicholas and Anna.
The immigrant couple were among the roughly 80 Amish families that arrived in Philadelphia between 1733 and 1775. Nicholas and Anna lived in Leacock Township before settling in Wyomissing in 1770-71.
After the trekkers headed toward a one-room schoolhouse just up the road, Sadie Mae Stoltzfus and several family members walked back toward their homes. They planned a little party to mark the occasion.
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