Along Old Petersburg Road

 

What we now know as Woodcrest Avenue was still called the old Petersburg Road at the turn of the 20^th century. Like the avenue, the road began at Second Avenue and Spruce Street. The intersection was marked by three greenhouses and a brick dwelling that Calvin S. Loeffler⁽¹⁾ built on the northwest corner.

Loeffler apparently was a man of many talents. That he was a florist is apparent from his interest in greenhouses, but at different times he was also a teacher; a barber; a ladies’ tailor; and a producer of operas.⁽²⁾ In this last capacity he gave the town two productions, "The Fall of Jerusalem" and "Belshazzar." For these presentations, each requiring more than eighty participants, he used local talent. A stage was constructed over the pool at the head of the stream in the Lititz Park, and here the operas were given to large and appreciative audiences.

When Loeffler died, his wife Fannie sold the greenhouses to Harry Girvin and the brick dwelling to Frank Dengate, an official of the Animal Trap Company.⁽³⁾ The Girvin family occupied the house on the southwest corner of the intersection. The greenhouses and the brick dwelling became the property of Clyde Hendricks in 1937.

South of the intersection in the early days of the century the road was flanked by groves of walnut, hickory and oak trees. Most of these trees were removed in 1925. The wooded area on the east side was used for camp meetings, provided for by a pavilion and other facilities. During July and August the grove was used by churches from Lancaster. One summer a Negro church from Baltimore held a camp meeting there.

The grove on the west side of the old Petersburg Road was known as Miller's Woods.  During the summer it was a haven for Gypsies⁽⁴⁾. They engaged in horse trading with the local farmers, and their women wove baskets and peddled them from house to house. These Gypsies wintered in Lebanon, though for a brief period a band who wintered in York used the woods.

In this same grove was a small house which was used in the summer by a man known only as Joseph. It was almost impossible to understand him when he talked because he kept his mouth crammed with chewing tobacco and, in addition, had a deep German accent.

Beyond the woods was the farm owned by an eccentric bachelor named Peter Burkholder, whose sister Fannie was the wife of Calvin S. Loeffler. This farm extended toward Lititz on both sides of the road and included the land on which St. James Catholic Church is now located. The farm was later sold to a John Stauffer, who also operated a small quarry on it. The quarry eventually filled with water, and the local boys sometimes found sport in pushing his farm implements into it. The property was next sold to Israel Doster, who used the farm and the grove on it for family and church picnics.

Doster sold it to Samuel Becker, who many years ago converted it into a development for comfortable homes. Today the old camp meeting grounds and Miller's Woods are entirely residential.

~ by Irvin B. Miller and Dr. Byron K. Horne, LHF Historic Journal, Winter 1997

Editor’s notes:

⁽¹⁾Calvin Schram Loeffler (1868-1932); see Find a Grave Memorial

⁽²⁾Though the authors of this article identify the works as operas, accounts published in The Lititz Express at the time describe them as sacred cantatas, sung, but not acted, by costumed choristers with orchestra accompaniment. While no composer is identified for either work, it is quite possible that “The Fall of Jerusalem” was the sacred cantata of that title written in 1901 by London composer and cantor Marcus Hast (1840 – 1911). The Lititz production took place during the last week of July 1909. “Belshazzar; or The Fall of Babylon,” which had been performed in August 1908, has eluded identification. After two successful productions at the Springs, Loeffler staged another sacred cantata, “Jephtha’s Daughter,” in the Linden Hall gymnasium in December 1910.

⁽³⁾Now Woodstream Corporation

⁽⁴⁾The “Gypsies” (now understood as a pejorative term) of this era were Roma migrants of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, primarily from the Balkans, southeastern areas of Europe. Their ancestors had moved from India into the Balkans in the thirteenth century. While some settled in urban communities, others lived a semi-nomadic life, setting up encampments for a time in an area where they found work, then moving on. They were noted as metal workers, horse traders, crafts people, fortune tellers, and musicians.