Harmony Museum celebrates 219th anniversary of borough foundation
HARMONY — Harmony Museum opened its doors to the public on Thursday, Feb. 15 for an open house to celebrate the 219th anniversary of the founding of the borough in 1805.
To be exact, it was the 219th anniversary of the day the group who settled the borough signed articles of association to formally incorporate the Harmony Society.
“It was a contract that the members would give their worldly goods to the community to use,” said Kathy Luek, president of Historic Harmony, the operator of the museum. “And then in return, they would receive a house, food, clothing, everything that they needed.”
Under normal circumstances, the museum only offers guided tours of the building at specific times of day, at $7 each for adults. On this day, guests were allowed to tour the museum on their own, and admission was free — although donations were encouraged.
Each room serves as a window into more than two centuries of Harmony’s history. Among the exhibits were a glass case full of rifles assembled by Charles Flowers, remnants of a wood-and-stone dam assembled by members of the Harmonists in Connoquenessing Creek in the 1800s, and a 1942 diorama of Bruce Willetts’ oil rig on Swain Hill Road put together by Willetts himself.
Another room features a precursor to the vinyl record, the Edison wax cylinder machine, along with a set of wax cylinders which would play an early form of prerecorded music.
Bob Davis’ favorite exhibit was a chunk of the massive stone from the village grist mill, built by the Harmony Society in 1811.
“Only part of it's here, but it was immense, apparently,” Davis said.
“My favorite was the kitchen area,” said visitor Kelly Scott. “It was very interesting learning that the butter molds determine what farm the butter comes from.”
One of the most popular attractions at the open house was the museum’s ancient wine cellar, located beneath what is now Stewart Hall, which is now hosts special events.
Last year, musician Eugene Friesen used the wine cellar as a studio to record his album, “In Harmony,” in which he performed modern interpretations of music written by the Harmonists. The Harmony Museum is still selling copies of the album on CD.
The wine cellar was made available for the public to access during the open house, but guests were told to beware of the uneven stairs leading down to the cellar.
According to Luek, the building on Mercer Street which now serves as Harmony Museum has gone through many different phases over the years, starting out as a warehouse before it served as a girls’ seminary from 1817 to about 1826.
“We have pictures of it being a barber shop and a grocery store,” Luek said. “At one time it was a Kaiser-Frazer car dealership, and that might be when Stewart Hall was attached.”
Occasionally, the museum still gets new artifacts for its collection.
“Maybe two weeks ago, a woman came in with some weaver’s shuttles for the looms,” Luek said. “You would put the yarn on and then move them through the warp.”
