The Museum And Parish House Of Hummelstown

About Us:

The Parish House and the adjoining cemetery stand on land deeded to the Lutheran congregation by Frederick Hummel who in 1762 founded the town, laying out into lots a tract of land originally warranted to Henry Chambers in 1744. This section for which he paid 200 pounds sterling became the center of the present town. The founder's last resting place is marked by a monument in the cemetery just north of the building.
Five years before his death the founder, Captain Frederick Hummel, on June 11, 1774, led a public meeting in Frederickstown as the community was first known, when a resolution was adopted protesting the repressive measures of the Mother Country. The Revolutionary spirit was high in the little community and a goodly number of its residents served in the War for independence. The graves of some of them may be seen in the cemetery along with a special marker placed by the DAR.

The town was located on the Berks-Dauphin Turnpike, a toll road; later it was served by the Union Canal which paralleled the Swatara Creek bordering the north and west and opened in 1827. The Lebanon Valley Railroad arrived in 1858 and a corollary of this was the establishment of stone cutting and shipping yards of the Hummelstown Brownstone Company whose quarries were located in the hills two miles south. This enterprise was the area's leading employer at the time and their product carried the name of Hummelstown far and wide.

The Civil War (1861-1864) took nearly 200 of the area's men, many serving in the "Hummelstown Company" (C), 127th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers. In 1865 Samuel Walmer founded Walmer's Carriage Works which in the "horse and buggy days" was an extremely important industry in the community, carried on by as many as three firms at one time, and providing many men with employment.

A weekly newspaper, The Sun, was established in 1871 and still comes out each week.
Hummelstown became a borough in 1874, having previously been a part of Derry Township. The town had a fire company as early as 1819; established free schools in 1822; served originally by town pumps, candles and oil lamps, the community got its water works in 1888, electric power and light plant in 1892.
Trolley car service first arrived on the Campbelltown line in 1904, from Hershey 1905, and Harrisburg also in 1905. The first automobile to be owned in the community was purchased the same year.
The community sent nearly 200 men and women to military service in World War I and 600 in World War Il, losing 19 in the later.