Lititz

No Place Quite Like It

Calling all cars, trucks, motorcycles, airplanes, and runners and walkers. Come out and join the Rotary Club of Lancaster for their 6th Annual Rotary Wheels and Wings Festival & 5K, Saturday, June 24, at Lancaster Airport and Brethren Village. FREE to the Public. For info visit www.lancasterrotary.org. To register for the 5K, visit https://runsignup.com/Race/ PA/Lititz/WheelsWingsFestival5K

There is no place quite like Lititz, and everyone should plan to spend some time there while in Amish Country. Lititz Springs Park is a popular spot for locals, and the site for many community activities. Indeed, the town’s 4th of July Celebration, begun in 1818, is reputedly the oldest continuing community–wide observance in the United States. Historians say the springs are what brought Indians to the area. Spearheads have been found nearby, dating back to 6,000 B.C. A recent local journal states that “Main Street was traveled by human beings for at least 10,000 years.” When you come to Lititz, you’ll want to travel Main Street, too.

The Lititz story is tied to that of the Moravian faith in Bohemia. It was in the present–day Czech Republic that John Hus and followers founded the Moravian Church in 1457. Historians note that since this was 60 years before Luther’s Reformation, the Moravians may lay claim to being the oldest organized Protestant Church. But over the course of the Thirty Years War, its 200,000 members nearly disappeared. In the 18th century, a renewal of the Moravian Church came through the patronage of Count Zinzendorf of Saxony. He invited all those persecuted for their faith to come to his lands in Saxony.

As was the case with other persecuted religious groups in Europe, many Moravians sought freedom by taking the perilous journey to the New World, arriving in the early 1700’s, with the main settlements becoming established in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

Missionary work was integral to the faith, and preachers were sent from the Moravian community in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Zinzendorf himself arrived in America in 1742. A local resident, John Klein (Kline), was so moved by hearing Zinzendorf’s preaching that he made arrangements to transfer his lands over to the Moravian community in 1755. It was in the following year that the town actually got the name of Lititz, the German spelling for Lidice, where European Moravian reformers had taken refuge in 15th century.

In addition to mission work, music and education were important to the Moravians. In fact, the Lititz schoolhouse erected in 1746 marked the beginnings of what was to be Linden Hall, the oldest continuously operating residence school for girls in the United States.