The Museum and Parish House

The Museum is the focus of the Hummelstown Area Historical Society
also know as the Parish House building.
Located at N. Rosanna and North Alley (no street number) in Hummelstown, PA 17036.
Phone: 717-566-6314.

In addition to having an excellent collection of general artifacts of the Hummelstown area from the 1700's, the museum contains an extensive arrowhead collection.

To learn more about the arrowhead collection click here.

To see the sanctuary and Ellis Simpsons mannequins click here.

2008 Accessions List

Monthly General Meetings and Programs Open to the public Third Monday of every month, except July - there is no general meeting. In December the general meeting is held on the second Monday

The Parish House Building . . .

The Parish House building which serves as the museum for the Hummelstown Area Historical Society was built in 1815 as Zion Lutheran Church, the second for the congregation organized in 1753, which had dedicated its first edifice, a log structure, in 1766.  The illustration on  this folder shows the structure as it appeared after remodeling in 1855.

Upon the erection of the new brownstone church in 1893 the old building was used for community activities including a public library and reading room.  Literary and musical programs were held with both local and outside talent, but these activities succumbed to declining interest by the end of the century.  Then in 1911 the tower was completely removed and the entire building remodeled to accommodate the Sunday School which had outgrown its quarters in the 1893 building.  Since then its appearance has remained essentially unchanged.  During a period when the Hummelstown Public Schools were overcrowded the lower rooms served as classrooms. In 1965 facilities were provided for the Sunday School in connection with the brownstone church and the Sunday School moved out.  The rooms again became available for the public but that use declined and the building saw little activity until November, 1971, when the Lutheran congregation granted its use to the Historical Society.  The building has long been known locally as the “Parish House.”

In this building you will find more than 14,000 items which reflect the way of life in the Hummelstown community for more than two centuries. 

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.

A Brief Hummelstown History. . .

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.