Donations restore historic Harmony cabin, construction begins
Recent donations have fully funded a $19,000 restoration project at Historic Harmony’s Ziegler Log Haus, with construction beginning on its worn-out shingles late last week.
“It’s a really good thing we started this project, because they were really disintegrating,” said Rodney Gasch, president of Historic Harmony. “We didn’t have any leaks yet, but it was only a matter of time before the roof would start leaking.”
Originally constructed by Harmonists in 1819 four miles away in Middle Lancaster, the building was dismantled by Historic Harmony volunteers and reconstructed at its current site in 1976, as part of a bicentennial project.
The cabin has since become a prominent museum in the borough, showcasing the early 17th century life of the Harmonists.
“It is furnished as an early 1830s pioneer would have lived, with a rope bed — a bed that instead of springs has ropes — there are spinning wheels, we have candles hanging as they would have been made and there’s a big stone fireplace,” Gasch said
After 47 years, though, the reconstructed roof has been in dire need of an update.
“At the time the cabin was moved, wood shingles were put on the roof and they are now almost 50 years old,” Gasch said. “That’s about their life.”
The project aims to completely replace the wooden shingles with slate, he said, as a means of prolonging its life from 50 to 100 years.
“And we wanted state slate that, stylistically, was appropriate for an 1800s cabin,” he said. “Some of the slate that is available is more appropriate for a Victorian house, the ones that have fish scale edges.”
And the wealth of recent donations, according to Gasch, has helped make that goal a reality.
In late April, Historic Harmony reached out to the community hoping for donations of historic slate.
“We located two people who had buildings that had been torn down, and the slate had been salvaged and it was kind of stacked in the way,” Gasch said. “And so we’re using some of that donated slate for the roof.”
Not only did that slate help cut the cost of materials for the project, according to Gasch, but it proved an ideal fit for the cabin.
“Luckily this slate was the appropriate rectangular slate, slate that will look good on this cabin,” he said.
In April, the group also received a $7,500 Preserving America Grant from American Corner to help with the project’s cost.
“They’re a foundation based in Georgia that supports U.S. history projects, especially from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War,” Gasch said. “And you know, we fit right in that time frame.”
In a final stroke of good fortune, Historic Harmony was gifted $1.2 million earlier this month from the late state Sen. Tim Shaffer — a former board member.
“That allowed us to go ahead with the project, because the money from Tim Shaffer’s bequest would fill out the rest of the budget to cover the slate,” he said.
The final $19,000 project will completely replace the cabin’s roof, Gasch said, as well as provide a new roof ridge and copper flashing for the chimney. The reconstruction is being completed by Slateworks of Evans City.
“It’s really looking great,” Gasch said. “We’re just about halfway done on one side, and it’s really looking wonderful.”
As construction continues on the Ziegler Log Haus, Gasch said the organization is already eyeing its next project.
“This is just one of a couple changes that will be visible in the main square of Harmony,” he said. “Next year, we’ll start work on the ‘Window Project,’ which will be funded by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, as well as Tim Shaffer’s bequest.”
According to Gasch, the Window Project will replace the current windows at the Harmony Museum with ones matching the original ones from 1809. The building also will be given a fresh coat of paint and tuck-pointed — removing poor mortar and replacing it.
Historic Harmony was awarded a $99,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in late July, according to Gasch, with Shaffer’s bequest helping cover the “crucial” matching portion of the grant.
“We knew it was going to be a challenge to raise that money to match, and Tim Shaffer’s bequest will allow us to make that match without a problem,” he said.
Meanwhile, Gasch said construction on the Ziegler Log Haus’ roof should be completed soon.
“Within the next two weeks I think it will be completed, depending on the weather,” he said. “It’ll go pretty fast.”
For now, the facility remains closed for construction, but Gasch said it is normally part of the museum’s weekly tours — Tuesday through Saturday at 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.
“We would expect that after Labor Day, once we clean up any dust that’s fallen from the construction process, it’ll be open for tours,” he said. “It’ll be back as part of the regular museum tour.”
