ROOTS & BRANCHES

There’s a great Facebook group called “Berks History Buffs” that I recently joined, mostly to lurk but occasionally to weigh in on solving some interesting questions raised by those in the group.

Michael Emery posted a few weeks ago seeking help. “I recently purchased this photo that was taken by Cyrus Blatt of Bernville about 1870. The church building looks like Christ Little Tulpehocken Church (outside of Bernville) and the steeple looks like the old Zion Lutheran in Strausstown. Can anyone identify this church?”

Now I fancy myself as a bit of historian of the churches of Berks County—at least the 18^th and 19^th century ones!—since my nearly total Berks County pedigree has at least an ancestor or two in just about all of them.

But like all of us, I’m afflicted with a disease I described in my book The Family Tree Historical Newspapers Guide: Presentism.

What I call “presentism” is probably best described as “making the assumption that the state of things about you know them had always been the case.”

As it applies to helping Emery figure out which church building appears in his photo, many of the responses he received—including my first one!—were rooted in what churches and cemeteries today resemble the photo.

I first thought that the photo was Christ Little Tulpehocken Church in Jefferson Township, which was one that Emery had rejected.

Since this was gnawing at me, I decided I needed to take a drive and see for myself.

A quick stop at Christ Little Tulpy confirmed that Emery was correct—while the physical building was mostly a match for the photo, its placement in relation to its cemetery didn’t look the same.

We talked on Facebook about whether the cemetery could have been moved or if the one part of the building that didn’t match (the side windows) was an unaccounted-for renovation.

I had filed that “unaccounted-for renovation” part away as I went to my next stop: The historic congregation known now simply as Host Church but known over the years as St. John’s Reformed and St. John’s United Church of Christ.

Looking at the photo, I opined to Emery that a couple of obelisk-like tombstones shown on the photo would be the “tell” for this.

And when I got to Host, one of those obelisks with a statue on top of it looked like a dead-ringer … but the church building was different in several ways.

Since I have more direct-line ancestors buried at Host than all but one other church, I’m pretty familiar with it and its history.

In 1885, the Host building was lengthened, its windows were altered, and most importantly—the steeple moved to the other end!

Glenn Riegel, a regionally known photographer who’s somewhat of a 21^st century version of Blatt, was skeptical at first but concurred in the assessment.

It’s all about using knowledge of the past to override the present.