The "A Walk Along Orange Street" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Opened the morning paper and there was my name once again.  Wasn't more than a month or so ago that one of LNP's writers, Jack Brubaker, aka "The Scribbler" sent a photographer to my house to take a photo that appeared in his column along with a story about my blog.  Pretty neat being featured in the paper and mentioning my blog.  Well, there it was this morning, once again, in "The Scribbler's" column.  

The father's book I was reading.

Seems that a few months ago I wrote to Jack, asking him what he knew about the Moravian Church that was supposed to be in Downtown Lancaster.  I've lived in Lancaster all my life and just couldn't remember where there was a Moravian Church in downtown Lancaster.  I recently read one of my Dad's old books called "Orange Street" which featured a story about a Moravian Church downtown.  Since I had no idea where it might have been located, I wrote an email to Jack who knows Lancaster inside and out.  He answered my question in this morning's paper, telling all his readers that the Moravian Church is in church heaven!  Seems the Moravian congregation maintained a stone building at 30 W. Orange Street from 1746 to 1967.  

The Moravian Church on West Orange Street.

A brick addition, encompassing part of the old edifice, was added in 1820.  Then in 1967, the congregation moved to a new location in Manheim Township at 1460 Eden Road and the old church was demolished.  Then in 2014 the Church returned to Downtown Lancaster at 227 N. Queen Street above the bus station.  At one time there was a Moravian Cemetery near the corner of Prince and Chestnut Streets.  It remained there from 1742 until 1917 when it was moved.  A stone marker designating where the original Moravian cemetery was located was installed near Lancaster's Post Office which was near the old Moravian Church.  The stone marker tells that the gravesites were moved to the Greenwood Cemetery and the names of those moved were recorded in the Moravian archives.  I want to once again thank "The Scribbler" for a job well done in answering one of the many questions I have emailed to him in the past few years.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

The stone telling of the Moravian Cemetery that was at this site until 1917.