Lehigh Valley Marketplace

By Kathryn Finegan Clark

The winter holidays begin in Martin’s Creek the first Tuesday in December.That’s when the community Christmas tree suddenly springs to life in the night sky. About 200 residents, or about one-fifth of the town, gathered for last year’s tree-lighting ceremony, an old-fashioned festive tradition in its 20th year.

During the holiday season, Martin’s Creek and surrounding Lower Mount Bethel Township are places where yesterday and today collide.

Even during the holiday season, Martin’s Creek and surrounding Lower Mount Bethel Township are places where yesterday and today collide. Seemingly endless acres of cornfields unfold in the shadows of PPL’s futuristic cooling towers. Those watching the tree lights begin to glow can also see blinking strobes atop the energy company’s twin stacks. Power to light that 20-foot tall Christmas tree is produced at the plant.

Community and industry co-exist peacefully in the township. Most residents believe PPL is a good neighbor. The company has set aside 215 acres for wildlife habitat, land preservation and public recreation, a concept of which the original inhabitants, the Lenni Lenapes, would have approved. Residents and tourists enjoy boating, biking, hiking, hunting and fishing.

Steeped in nearly 300 years of history, the township is rich in ancestors but equally endowed with possibilities for the future. Lower Mount Bethel, the third oldest township in Northampton County, originally was an Indian settlement. It still has more open space than any of the other townships, but that continues to shrink.

Even so, exciting new projects are under way. The new Lower Mount Bethel Welcome Center opened in April. The 1,600 square-foot center was built with green technology on nine acres donated by PPL. It is near the north end of the Tekening Trails, which offer five miles of scenic hiking on PPL property along the Delaware River and through the woods.

Along the Delaware, six little “colonies” still retain their names. They are Riverton, where men taking Durham boats to Philadelphia could get a stiff drink before facing Foul Rift, a settlement near rapids where many lives were lost; DePue’s Ferry (whose name is self-explanatory) Del Haven, a place of charming summer cottages; Hillendale, with its gorgeous setting and Sandts Eddy, named for the many Sandt families who lived along the dangerous river.

Interestingly enough, Martin’s Creek’s story largely has been one of comings and goings. Scotch-Irish pioneers led by Alexander Hunter arrived in the early 1730s. At Bethel Church in 1744, David Brainerd, an itinerant Presbyterian missionary, preached to the Native Americans who lived in the village. He converted the famous Chief Tatamy to Christianity.

Germans came in droves in the mid-18th century and conflict between the differing cultures drove the outnumbered Scotch-Irish away. Now the descendants of the original Scotch-Irish are scattered across the country and frequently search for their roots in the small town named for settler James Martin, who built the community’s first mill. A hundred years after the first settlers left, Italian immigrants arrived, seeking work in nearby slate quarries. Their cultural blending had a happier result.

Industry, too, has come and gone. The slate industry came to life and flourished during the 19th century, later losing its prominence. Wrapped around the years when the 19th century became the 20th, nearby cement producers employed thousands of workers.

Alpha Cement and Lehigh Portland Cement were industry leaders until production slowed, finally ending in the 1960s. The area then became a bedroom community with most residents commuting to non-agricultural jobs in neighboring towns. In the 1950s, 60 dairy farms flourished in Lower Mount Bethel; today only 10 remain.

Two octogenarians from Martin’s Creek are the movers and shakers in today’s community: Rita B. Swope, who is a descendant of one of the earlier families, and O.R. Pacchioli, whose ancestors arrived with the wave of Italian workers. She’s the History Lady, and he, owner of an insurance agency, is the Sports Man. Both attended Rider College in New Jersey and brought their new skills home with them.

Ms. Swope turned the mere concept of a museum into reality in 1983. She and a group of volunteers founded the Hunter-Martin Settlement Museum to preserve historical ties they feared would be lost. More than 700 items have been collected and are on display at the museum on Route 611. Included are a deed handwritten by William Penn’s sons, a spinning wheel, hand-woven coverlets, an old undertaker’s body basket, an ancient sewing machine and a pair of snowshoes.

The museum occupies an 1803 one-room school house, where students shared lessons with Native American children who had come from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, to work on the farms.

Next to the museum is the Old English Presbyterian Cemetery. The cemetery contains the remains of early settlers, including those of one Robert Lyle, whose wealth of descendants is said to include Civil War generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson as well as six U.S. presidents.

Ms. Swope has also picked up more recent history. Members of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), she said, trained at the Martin’s Creek Airport during World War II to fly non-combat missions, freeing male pilots for the deadlier flights.

Mr. Pacchioli was a baseball star when he was in college and never lost his love for the game. The Martin’s Creek Creekers, he claimed, “are the envy of the Blue Mountain Baseball League.” The Creekers’ home games are played at Martin’s Creek’s Pacchioli Field. The Creekers are one of eight teams marking more than 50 years of baseball in the Lehigh Valley.

Nearly two centuries after David Brainerd began his mission with the Lenni Lenapes, St. Rocco’s Roman Catholic Church, now a landmark in Martin’s Creek, was also established as a mission church–but this time to serve the Italian community.

One of the ways St. Rocco’s maintains its rich cultural heritage and shares it with others is the annual St. Rocco’s Festival celebrated during the days surrounding Aug. 17, the saint’s feast day. It’s a four-day fair parishioners plan for the entire community.

Martin’s Creek is another little Lehigh Valley town that holds many secrets and has remade itself, surviving and prospering as the nation grew. It’s ready for the future.