Showing posts with label monochrome. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monochrome. Show all posts

Thursday, January 11, 2024

That Grand Old Poem Called Winter ...

“That grand old poem called Winter”

        ~ Henry David Thoreau

                ~ 1817 ~ 1862

A picturesque 19th century barn is the cornerstone of this peaceful and poetic winter monochrome scene – the barn and corn crib being part of the historic 1756 Troxell-Steckel Farm Museum – that I shot on a late February afternoon in Egypt, Pennsylvania.

The Coplay Creek runs through this 31 acre property, which was once part of a 400 acre farm. The centerpiece of the property is a stone farmhouse, built in 1756. A spring house and the barn are also on the property. The farmhouse is an authentic Pennsylvania German farmhouse and offers an example of Lehigh County agricultural history. The Troxell-Steckel house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

It is the region’s only authentically complete Pennsylvania German farm house, resembling its medieval ancestors and giving a captivating glimpse of the area’s farm history.

The Pennsylvania German farmhouse was constructed in 1756 by John Peter Troxell, an immigrant from Germany in search of a better life. When the structure was built, twenty years before the Declaration of Independence was signed, this farm sat on the edge of wilderness. George Washington was only 24 years old, and America was ruled by the King of England. At the time, the house was reported to be the largest residence on the Pennsylvania frontier. The fortress-like masonry walls of this structure are more than two feet thick.

In 1768, John Peter Troxell sold this farm to Peter Steckel, another immigrant from Germany. Pennsylvania Germans were one of the largest immigrant groups in Eastern Pennsylvania. Their traditions enriched American culture.

As someone of Irish-German heritage, I love getting a glimpse into Pennsylvania German history in the area.

This historic site is owned and operated by the Lehigh County Historical Society and is open for seasonal tours and events.

The Troxell-Steckel Farm Museum may also be accessed from the Ironton Rail Trail, which loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township.

The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.

 

In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.


 

Monday, March 20, 2023

Snowtime At The Springhouse ...

“I’ll own it’s cold for such a fall of snow.”

      ~ “Snow”

    ~ Robert Frost

     ~ 1884 ~ 1963

~ four time Pulitzer Prize winner

 

A fresh early March snowfall paints itself around the Springhouse at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania, as icicles fringe the roof of the log cabin on a sunny and beautiful late winter afternoon in this high contrast monochrome shot.

 

The log cabin, one of my very favorite places to be and to photograph, was part of Springhouse, the summer home of General Harry Clay Trexler (1854-1933), an American industrialist who built a business empire in Allentown. The park is his namesake.


 

Monday, January 9, 2023

The Icing Of December ...

“Music comes from an icicle as it melts, to live again as spring water.”

          ~ Henry Williamson

             ~ 1895-1977

      ~ English army officer, naturalist, farmer & ruralist writer

Cascading waters are frozen in harmony with early winter beauty on a late December afternoon when I captured this rich tone monochrome shot as temperatures rose to near 50 degrees along the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail).

 

I captured this shot this after setting out from the Cementon Trailhead of the D&L Trail in Cementon, Pennsylvania, part of the Asher F. Boyer Eagle Trail section of the D&L.

 

Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware Rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.