Historic Pennsylvania: Ephrata Cloister, Founded in 1732 by Conrad Beissel and a group of German Pietists, who established a Protestant monastery known as the German Seventh Day Baptist. Veiw shows interior of the Saal (Church). The chamfered pilasters are two stories high. The table is pegged pine plank, 16.5" x 21". On the wall, an original Fraktur-Shriften (Biblical sayings and poem) in the early writign school. Restoration by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
Ephrata Academy - Built in 1837 by the Religious Society of Seventh Day (German) Baptists. At one time it was a fashionable boarding school. It served to carry on the fine education tradtion of the 18th century Ephrata Religious Community. It was later used by the township school system as late as 1926.
