On Saturday, Hubby and I decided to venture out of the house despite some awful weather, and traveled up to a tiny town in Butler County called Harmony. It was a settlement created by the Harmony Society, a group of German anabaptists, back in the early 1800's. The land was eventually sold, buildings and all, to a Mennonite group, who resettled it as a Mennonite community. Traces of both groups' cultures still remain.We started out by touring the Harmony Museum.
There was so much history and culture encapsulated within the place, I could not stop looking around. And our tour guide was so nice. Part of the tour included other buildings, and she took a snow shovel and shoveled paths for us to access them, when she easily could have skipped that part of the tour. It was so awesome to see the bits of the past.
We also looked around at some of the other sites in town, including the Mennonite church and cemetery, Grace Church, The Harmony Inn (where we had lunch, yum!) and the Harmony Society cemetery. The Harmony Society cemetery includes a revolving stone gate symbolizing traversing between this world and the next, and none of the graves are marked.
The town is clearly very proud of their heritage, and I would love to go back for some of their special events, including the Christmas market. The time in Harmony was definitely well spent, and very peaceful.
You can view the rest of my photos from the visit here.
