Writing and photos by Wes Cipolla
Taylor Lanborn, center, in red hat, discusses the history of the Maidencreek Meetinghouse with his fellow Quakers.
Originally published in the Pottsville Republican-Herald on July 18, 2021.
I have fond memories of Route 61. During my childhood summers, it was a yellow brick road to the paradise that was Knoebels Amusement Park. The lush mountain scenery and small towns my family and I passed through, along with the increasingly elaborate billboards advertising the park (a 3-D ferris wheel!), made the journey as exciting as the destination. Last winter, I had the idea to do a column about interesting places people can visit on the way to Knoebels. During my research, I found that Knoebels is surrounded by an unusually large number of religious sites. Route 61 is a sort of pilgrimage route, probably the only one on Earth that ends with roller coasters and baked potatoes. You can call it El Camino de Kozmo. In this column, I seek to reveal the histories of these holy places and what they mean to the people who worship there. From great churches to one man’s passion, these sites tell diverse stories of faith, love and humanity’s relationship with the divine in Northeast Pennsylvania.
HAMBURG - It is the Fourth of July. There is silence in the Maiden Creek Friends Meetinghouse, save for chirping birds and the thick buzzing of flies. Members of the Religious Society of Friends, colloquially known as Quakers, have worshipped here since before there was an America to celebrate the independence of. There is no pulpit - Quakers have no clergy, believing that all are equal before God. The pews in the Meetinghouse face each other for the same reason. Every summer Sunday, the Quakers sit silently in this sacred space near the banks of Lake Ontelaunee. But this Sunday is different. Jessy Schaffer stood up and broke the silence.
“Thomas Jefferson gave us the immortal words that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,” she told her fellow Quakers. “That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And here we are, 245 years later, and we still have groups, people of color, LGBTQ, who are still fighting for those God-given, unalienable rights.”
Jessy Schaffer, center, worships in the Meetinghouse with her fellow Quakers.
She sat back down and started to knit.
Quakers worship in silence because they believe that silence brings them closer to the divine.
“It is a quiet space where we are all connected,” said Jeanne Elberfeld. “The Quakers call it the light moving through everyone, which is the divine spirit.”
Elberfeld, 59, of Orwigsburg, wonders if she is the only Quaker in Schuylkill County. She was raised Catholic, but was “not feeling at home” in the Church’s male-dominated hierarchy. The Quaker emphasis on equality appealed to her, as did the Meetinghouse’s natural setting.
“When you come here,” you sit and you hear nature all around you,” she said. “It’s peaceful, it’s powerful. I find that I get in the right mental space when I’m in this setting. You don’t come to preach, you don’t lobby or advocate, you sit until the spirit moves you out of the silence.”
Any schoolchild who’s heard the name William Penn knows that Quakers have had a massive impact on the history of this country. Quakers campaigned for gender equality and the abolition of slavery and gender equality. Their commitment to progressive politics has not changed. June 2021 events by the Reading Friends Meeting, which uses the Maiden Creek Meetinghouse, included a vigil for racial justice, “conscientious objector training” and a screening of the environmentalist animated movie “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax” starring Danny DeVito. A “social justice workshop” was scheduled for July 6. In 2020, Elberfeld was part of a nonprofit that did listening sessions about race and racism in Schuylkill County using the Quaker method. Participants were silent until they felt the need to speak. Schaffer, 40, of Laureldale, is a Quaker “newbie” who has attended meetings for a year. Raised Lutheran, she was looking for a faith that valued equality, acceptance and pacifism.
“There are times when the spirit just gives you a little nudge,” she said. “With this country being founded on everyone being equal, which is something that Quakers always believed in, we needed a reminder.”
Jessy Schaffer's knitwear represents the progressive, tolerant spirit of the Quakers.
The first thing that the Quakers of Route 61 want you to know is that they still exist. Second, they want you to know that they have nothing to do with the Amish and the Mennonites. The Quakers share the Amish and Mennonite respect for plain living and humility, but do not forbid their members from anything that the ordinary Christian is allowed to do. Third, they want you to know that despite what some bizarre Google search results might lead you to believe, they do not bury their dead standing up. The Quakers in the Maiden Creek Meetinghouse Cemetery are buried just like everyone else.
Taylor Lanborn walks past the Meetinghouse cemetery.
The biggest controversy about the cemetery is the military veteran markers at some of the graves - unusual for a faith renowned for its pacifism. Taylor’s son Jim Lanborn, 54, tells me a common Quaker joke - ask ten Quakers their opinion on something, and you’ll get 11 answers.
“It is expected that each Quaker views God in their manner,” said Jim’s father Taylor Lanborn, 87. Taylor calls himself a “pure-bred Quaker,” and can trace his ancestry back twelve generations. The last of his ancestors to come to America arrived in 1710. There is no official Quaker doctrine - only a “Book of Discipline” which gives broad guidelines on how a Quaker is expected to live and behave.
“In more recent decades,” he said, “I think there are more and more Quakers who do not look upon God in the traditional manner. Quakerism and science are very similar, in that we look for answers. We don’t start with the answer. The other religions pretty much start with the answers and then work very hard to explain them, whereas Quakers start with the questions and search for the answers.”
Oh, and one more thing - Taylor wants you to know that “the so-called Quaker Oats does not exist.” They make good cereal, he admits, but their venerable mascot is a relic of the past. The Quakers of today have managed to keep their humble traditions alive while embracing the modern world. Taylor is the bridge between Quaker past and Quaker present.
“This guy is a walking encyclopedia,” Schaffer said about Taylor. “He could tell you more than you would want to know about anything, and I say that out of love.”
The Quaker faith was founded in the mid-1600s, not by William Penn but by George Fox. In the next 100 years, Quakers seeking religious tolerance would come to America in droves, including the ones who constructed the Maiden Creek Meetinghouse in 1759. Due to the construction of the Lake Ontelaunee reservoir in 1926, the Meetinghouse was dismantled, moved to a new location and reconstructed brick by brick. All of the graves were moved as well.
The Meetinghouse is a Historic Site of Berks County.
The Meetinghouse is one of the few remaining masterpieces of Quaker architecture. Taylor pointed out the “upping block,” which allowed riders to get on their horses without scandalously revealing their ankles. Inside, the Meetinghouse has two rooms, meant to separate men and women. Quakers always worshipped together, but once a month they “did business.” Quakers believed that men and women were equal, and enforced that equality by making men and women do business separately. Quaker leaders found that despite the tenets of their faith, men still dominated women in conversation. They blamed this on “the influence of the world.” While “doing business,” men would discuss business and property while women would discuss education and the welfare of the children.
“That’s the reason our congregations are called meetings,” Taylor said.
The Meetinghouse guest book shows visitors from across the country.
Eventually, the spirit moved Taylor out of the silence.
“Our actions can have consequences,” he said. “Some of those consequences occur much later. Other actions can be rather dramatic, and you realize them immediately.”
He recalled the meetinghouse where he grew up, the one founded by his ancestors. Recently, he was mowing the meetinghouse cemetery when he disturbed a hornets’ nest under the tree. The telling of this tale was interrupted when Tyler Ernst got a text message - his ringtone was the sound of Chewbacca roaring. It was he and his girlfriend Anastasia McGough’s first time at the meetinghouse. Both are 27 and from Leesport.
“I like being outdoors because it helps me connect to my faith,” said McGough, herself the descendant of Quakers. “It allows you to find strength within yourself and also gives you a community.”
“It allows the time to self-ground, it doesn’t force you to think anything,” Ernst said. “It allows for free thought, which in this day and age is very important. When people are too attached to material things, they lose sight of peace and natural harmony.”
Taylor continued his story. His encounter with the hornets reminded him of when he was a teenager mowing his ancestral farm in southern Lancaster County, and he hit a nest of yellow jackets. His father did the same thing.
“Coming this Fourth of July more than any other [we must think of] the human consequences of what was decided 240-some years ago. We as Quakers like to praise ourselves that we were ahead of the curve because of these consequences. I like to think that’s correct.”
Both Taylor and his wife’s great-grandparents were imprisoned for housing fugitive slaves.
“We may be a little bit prouder than we should be about what our ancestors did,” he said. “I hope that we in the Society of Friends can be ahead of the curve of these considerations.”
He sat back down.