Trumbauersville Borough

Trumbauersville Borough

Aww, look how cute and eensy-weensy it is!

So the big thing about Trumbauersville is the Fries Rebellion of 1799, which involved a bunch of German farmers, disgruntled about property taxes, meeting up at the Trum Tavern (which was back then called something else) and marching to Bethlehem

But a lot of people already know about that, and anyway all the talk of Fries and taverns was making me too hungry. So instead I learned about the Union Church.


(Click the image for a larger view)

Or rather Union Church, aka Lower Milford Church, now known as Christ Church of the United Church of Christ.

Most of the stuff I learned was from Ol' Reliable, which is what I think I'm going to call W.W.H. Davis's History of Bucks County from now on. For example:

The ceiling of the audience chamber is handsomely painted in frescoe; a pipe organ stands in the gallery, and a shapely spire points heavenward. The size of the building is sixty-two by forty-six feet

and

The oldest stone in the graveyard bears date 1769, and the next oldest, that of Anna Huber, born 1722, died November 1773.

Here's another interesting tidbit: There was a man who preached in the church at Trumbauersville in the 1770s called Reverend John Theobold Faber. He was from Montgomery County. He also preached at the New Goshenhoppen church in Woxall and it was there that he died suddenly, in 1788, from "an apoplectic stroke" while preaching in the pulpit. He was succeeded by his son, who died of the same disease while preaching a funeral sermon in the same pulpit!

This sounded too crazy to be true, but I it just might be. An account of the Elder Faber's death was published in Clement Zwingli Weiser's 1882 book A monograph of the New Goschenhoppen and Great Swamp Reformed Church, 1731-1881. It reads:

Towards the close of his discourse he seemed to tire, but stood erect until he had uttered the word "amen," when he suddenly laid the palm of his right hand on his head, and whilst slowly sinking, softly uttered the words, "Come and help me!"

His elders, Peter Hillegass and Wendel Wieandt bore him speechless and unconscious to the adjoining schoolhouse. His wife approaching him he opened his eyes, and, recognizing her, simply said "My head!" Presently he breathed his last.

His remains were carried to the parsonage, more than a mile distant, on the same day. Two days later his grave was dug within the walls' of the church, beneath the pulpit.

An anecdote regarding the fate of Faber's son was printed in Henry Harbaugh's 1872 The fathers of the German Reformed Church in Europe and America, Volume 3:

On the 31st of January, 1833, while preaching a funeral sermon in the Goshenhoppen church, and near the close of his discourse, he was attacked by a stroke of palsy and was carried home in an unconscious state. He died on the 10th of February.

It is a remarkable coincidence, that his father, forty-five years before, in the same pulpit, and also while preaching a funeral sermon,was stricken down and died of the same disease. These two servants of Jesus Christ,father and son, are buried side by side under the altar of the church in Goshenhoppen.

I know, right?