Harmony Museum reopens with updated exhibits
Downtown Harmony was flourishing with activity Saturday afternoon as the Historic Harmony Museum opened for another season.
Executive director Katina Koontz said the museum’s exhibits were rearranged to follow three main periods of Harmony’s history including the town’s inception when the Harmonist-Mennonites arrived, George Washington’s trek through the Pennsylvania wilderness as a young major and Harmony’s local history including the Civil War.
The tour started in the Wagner-Bentel House, a duplex on Mercer Street with exhibits that show the furniture and artifacts the Harmonist-Mennonites used when the town was founded by Father George Rapp in 1804. The entire town is considered a National Historic Landmark, Koontz said.
“What most people come to this museum for is for that Harmonist-Mennonite story,” Koontz said.
The house includes artifacts the nomadic Harmonists would have taken with them from place to place before settling in Harmony, including how they stayed warm at night with stone and wood construction through grueling winters.
The George Washington cabin on Main Street explains Washington’s mission to contact French soldiers in Western Pennsylvania as a precursor to the French and Indian War. Its exhibits include more details on Washington’s mission, his path and what soldiers of each faction would have worn and carried.
The Warehouse Museum contains more of Harmony’s local history, such as the tools found in offices, school and kitchens, and toys. The warehouse contains exhibits showing how the Civil War and Underground Railroad affected the area, with the weapons, music and culture passing through. Another room pays homage to the Historic Harmony founder Dr. Arthur Stewart, a rural medical doctor, and shows what tools in his doctor’s office looked like. Quilters gather at the museum every Tuesday, Koontz said.
Betty Lambert, a previous Harmony Ambulance Service employee, offered a bonus fact during the tour, noting the ambulance service previous operated out of the same business.
The museum has nine total sites, including the Mennonite meeting house and cemetery, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, Mennonite log cabin, the weavers’ cabin, Ziegler’s log house, the Harmonist-Mennonite barn, the Harmonist cemetery and Rapp’s Seat, a hillside where Father Rapp would meditate, write sermons and watch over the field workers. Koontz said Historic Harmony will continue to tweak museum exhibits throughout the season and the building exteriors will be repainted in spring.
The museum is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. A self-guided walking tour of historic Harmony with 28 locations is also available for guests who want to visit outside business hours.
