William Eisnhauer, a native of Port Clinton, looks at photographs of his boyhood home. PHOTOS BY JACQUELINE DORMER
Originally published in the Pottsville Republican-Herald on October 20, 2019.
Here in Port Clinton, history, like the smoke of the passing trains, tends to hang in the air. The train whistles howled in the rain like banshees on Sunday, underneath orange hills steamy with fog. Even on a morning like this, a handful of hikers departed from the Port Clinton Museum, kicking off the town’s fifth annual Apple Festival, a day intended to raise funds for the Museum.
“It doesn’t hold you back,” said Museum President Luke McLaughlin, 46 (the apples were his wife’s idea). “Rain doesn’t bother us. It’s a tribute to our heritage to see the trail.”
McLaughlin led the hikers through town with his knobby walking stick, pointing out Port Clinton’s ghost. He passed the railroad and the “foamers” who excitedly follow its journey, and a house that he remembers from the flood of 2007. The water reached the pasta in the cabinet, causing it to expand and the door to burst open with noodles. He passed an empty baseball field that was once where coal would be loaded on canal boats, and an overgrown pile of stones that was once a canal lock from the 1840s.
“This used to be a town where people lived here,” McLaughlin said, “went to work, came home, participated in the fire company, the little league, and as the people got older and passed away, the children started to leave.”
Facing an aging and declining population, the people of Port Clinton (309 of them, according to the last census) asserted their community bonds.
The Port Clinton Historical Society.
“We wanna try and promote the heritage of Port Clinton and the museum today,” said hiker Scott Birchman, 64. “For me, personally, it’s about history and taking care of the artifacts that are here.”
The Museum, which used to be a school, houses relics from the canal days, like a rudder handle and silver anchor from the early 1800s, discovered by Boy Scouts in 1973. The canal started operations in 1830, and its last load of coal went to a tuberculosis sanitarium in Hamburg in 1936. On every shelf there were rusty model ships and browning, spotted photographs showing drum corps, softball teams and Sunday school picnics, daintily-dressed dames, manly mustachioed coal miners and long-stockinged children, people with names like Herb and Mildred. One photo showed John Bausman, a lock tender who weighed 400 pounds and died in the shed that was built for him because he couldn’t fit in the door. The side of the lock house had to be demolished in order to remove his body.
“I like to support the Port Clinton Museum,” said Linda Evers, 69, Shillington. “This town is such an important part of the Appalachian Trail.”
Children play in the Historical Society museum.
Port Clinton has been part of the Trail since 1928. At least one hiker usually appears every weekend.
“I love to hike, I love history,” said hiker Tracey Davis-Witmyer, 45, Reading. “It talks about the past, basically, so the past is the gateway to our future.”
In the back room, women served apple pie, apple dumplings and just plain apples, along with soup, chili and haluski, to folks who could remember what life was like in the time of those photographs.
“The town isn’t clean like it used to be,” said Maxine Kokitus, 70, who has lived in Port Clinton her whole life, “the people aren’t friendly like they used to be. You wanna keep things going for as long as you can. It just reminds ya of when we were kids, the old trains that ya see.”
Kokitus attended school in the Museum, as did many other festivalgoers, children of railroad workers who remember swimming in the Schuylkill River and when there were three general stores instead of none.
Port Clinton's old-timers reminisce about the past over chili.
“It was a good little town,” said Hafer, 90. “I loved it! But when you get older, what could you do? They call it progress, but… It’s like anything else. If you enjoyed what you did as a kid, you don’t want it to change.”
Up the street, Saint John’s Church, the last remaining church in town, stood across the street from an inflatable decoration of Frankenstein’s monster sitting on the toilet. The coal-dark bell rang inside the cupola, as white and delicate as the lace doilies atop the piano in the church basement. Organist Arlan Kamp, 91, played as the choir practiced their hymns. After the original was destroyed by fire, construction on Saint John’s began in 1868
“Not many people come anymore,” Kamp said. “When I started, the church was about full every Sunday.”
The church’s Sunday school had to close for a few years due to the lack of children, but reopened when a handful of families joined the congregation. Donna Horton, 59, hopes that her grandchildren Cara, 4, and Colby, 2, will grow to be the next generation of worshippers. Inside the sanctuary, there were stained glass windows showing doves, farmers and angels. Yellowed sheet music sat at the organ, which made the floorboards vibrate. Faded paintings of Bible stories hung on the walls, and a peach-colored light-up cross hung from the ceiling. When asked what parts of the church were old and historic, Amy Kirkpatrick said, “our members.”
“This church has always been a center of the community,” said Kirkpatrick, 49, a pastor with a streak of hot pink in her hair. “We’re still a thriving town, there’s lots of people coming in and out for different events.”
St. John's Church in Port Clinton.
Along with the Fire Company and Museum, Saint John’s is one of three organizations left in the community. Kirkpatrick helped the Museum with the Apple Festival.
“The old-timers really like it here,” said choir member Laverne Sterner, 75. Having been in the church her whole life, she appreciates the history and community it offers.
“Some of the younger people want to have bingo,” she said. “Bingo was never allowed in the church, but times they are a-changing… I’m not one to move forward very well.”
The topic of Kirkpatrick’s sermon was bad days.
“We all have bad days,” she said, “but the bad days will end and the good days will come. In Jesus name we pray, amen.”
Does she believe the same about Port Clinton?
“I have found that the community is very friendly,” she said, “and there’s a great future here in this community. Our church is growing and thriving.”
“Small towns are dying,” said her husband John, 62. “I just think it’s good to see the history of the town and what it used to be.”
“We’ll see,” McLaughlin said about Kirkpatrick’s sermon. “There’s nothing I can do to guarantee it.”