Ephrata Cloister File: Correspondence on receivership, Court Opinions, Briefs and Testimony, Copies of Deeds and Surveys, Ephrata Minute Books, and Board of Trustees Minute Books. Grouped by type of material and arranged variously, 1814-1956. Note: These materials were microfilmed before they were acquired by the Pennsylvania State Archives. Therefore, the arrangement of the materials on the microfilm is different from the arrangement of the materials listed on our finding aid., This Digital Object is provided in a collection that is included in POWER LIBRARY: Pennsylvania Photos and Documents, which is funded by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries of Pennsylvania/Pennsylvania Department of Education., Grouped by type of material and arranged variously. Court briefs (1929-1934, 1944-1946), court dockets (1931-1938), deeds (1895-1922), photographs, newspaper clippings, and general correspondence (1929-1956) relating to the acquisition of the Ephrata Cloister by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Included are minutes of the Ephrata Cloister Board of Trustees (1814-1932). Organized along the banks of the Cocalico Creek in Lancaster County in 1732 by Georg Conrad Beissel (1690-1768), the Ephrata Cloister was a German Pietist community of religious celibates who practiced vegetarianism, adult baptism by total immersion, and held their worship services on Saturdays. At its peak, the community consisted of approximately 85 celibate men and women and was supported by an associated community of more than three hundred married householders who lived on surrounding farms. The community became noted for its extensive printing operation and manufactured its own ink and paper. Members of the community composed hundreds of hymns and created fine examples of the Germanic calligraphic writing form known as Frakturschriften. The Cloister earned a place in the history of the American Revolution by serving as a military hospital for sick and wounded soldiers from the battle at Brandywine Creek in 1777. The Ephrata Cloister community influenced the creation of the Snow Hill Nunnery in Franklin County and a small German Seventh Day German Baptist community in Bedford County. After the last celibate Ephrata member died in 1813, the householders incorporated as the German Seventh Day Baptist Church of Ephrata in 1814 and continued to occupy the grounds until 1941. The site today contains the largest concentration of medieval Germanic-style log and half-timber buildings to be found anywhere on the continent of North America. The acquisition of the property by the Commonwealth resulted in protracted litigation involving rival factions within the religious society and the final agreement specified that surviving members could continue to hold worship services in the Cloister meeting house until the last living member of the religious society died. The minute books commence with the text of the act of the legislature that incorporated the German Religious Society of Seventh Day Baptists of Ephrata under the trusteeship of Christian Bowman, Jacob Gorgas, Able Witmer, Samuel Fahnestack, Jacob Kimmel, Obed Fahnestock, and Jacob Konigmacher on February 24, 1814. The legal briefs are for the case of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania versus Seventh Day Baptists of Ephrata, a corporation, and Reuben S. Kachel, William Y. Zerfass, Theodore S. Zerfass, William K. Bechtel, M. Kathryn Kachel, and Milton D. Enck, Trustees, and proclaiming to be Trustees, of Seventh Day Baptists of Ephrata, Pennsylvania (Case No. 136 in Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County, 1931). There are extensive transcripts of testimony taken at the hearings in the quo warranto proceedings against the Seventh Day Baptists of Ephrata on October 23, 1930 and in February 1933. Correspondence relates to the long-standing legal disputes between factions within the religious community that resulted in the posting of state police at the Ephrata Cloister to protect property rights during the condemnation proceedings. The deeds are modern typescripts of early deeds for the transfer of tracts making up the present 25-acre Ephrata Cloister property. These include the transcript of the original deed for the 89-acre tract transferred by John Mayle to Father Friedsam (Conrad Beissel), et. al. as joint tenants on September 22, 1762, and all subsequent deeds affecting or reducing the size of the property. These are accompanied by a plan for the plot of land acquired by the Commonwealth and the surrounding land titles in Ephrata Township prepared in October 1938 and three copies of a blueprint survey of the land at Ephrata Cloister prepared in 1935 and revised in 1937 that depicts the footprints of both the then extant and several demolished buildings. Newspaper articles relating to the takeover of the Cloister by the Commonwealth are from the Ephrata Review of July 8, 1932 and January 14, 1937. Photographs depict two views of the Brothers’ House called Bethania, now demolished, and the surviving Saron (Sisters’ House) and Saal (Meeting house). Also included are two copies of Historical Account of the Ephrata Cloister and the Seventh Day Baptist Society by A. Monroe Aurand, Jr. (Harrisburg, 1940) and a copy of Historical Sketch of Snow Hill (Nunnery), 1829-1929 by Emma C. Monn (reprinted 1935). A folder marked General Correspondence, 1940-1956, contains a variety of materials that trace the final transfer of ownership of the property to the Commonwealth including a history of the proceedings and provisions for maintenance of the cemeteries.
