Group forms to reopen Ginger Hill Grange
Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter
A group assembled Thursday at Ginger Hill Acres in Nottingham Township to begin plans to reopen the local grange.
Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter
The stage in Ginger Hill Grange where politicians once campaigned before rural residents.
Ashley Schultz of Nottingham Township examines the 1913 charter for Ginger Hill Grange.
Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter
The second-floor meeting hall in Ginger Hill Grange
Ginger Hill Grange
Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter
Ginger Hill Grange 1549 in Nottingham Township
The century-old Ginger Hill Grange building has a quaint stage that conjures visions of fiddlers performing live on the raised platform while square dancers spin on its polished wooden floors.
The building in Nottingham Township, which has held up well for its age, also was known for hosting campaign speeches in the rural area where it was a challenge for politicians to go door to door for votes.
“There were so many roots here back in the day,” said Jen Leach, who is among a group of local residents who met Thursday to begin plans to reopen the grange.
“We’re going to do our darndest to make this work,” said Leach, who operates a “hobby farm” in neighboring Somerset Township.
Oliver Hudson Kelley, a progressive Minnesota farmer and former clerk for the federal agriculture commissioner, and a group of his friends founded the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, also known as the grange, in 1867. While it was designed as a social organization for farmers in a similar form as Freemasonry, it quickly became a powerful lobbying group for farmers.
While there were once more than 100 granges in Washington and Greene counties, their numbers have dramatically dwindled as farming practices have changed, along with rural lifestyles.
Ginger Hill Grange 1549 closed last month after its membership dropped to fewer than 10 widows. Most of the interior furnishings, including kitchen appliances and tables and chairs, were donated to other area organizations, said Lizzie Bailey, public relations and membership director of Pennsylvania State Grange in Lemoyne.
An April 24 story about the closing in the Observer-Reporter in Washington resulted in the state grange receiving numerous inquiries from local residents who want to keep the Ginger Hill club alive, Bailey said.
She came to Nottingham Township Thursday to meet with about 10 people in a nearby horse stable to sign up new members of Ginger Hill Grange and to tour the 1913 hall.
“The community did not want to lose the grange,” Bailey said at Ginger Hill Acres, which is a short distance from the grange at 3389 Route 136.
The grange has about $2,400 left in its bank account. The electricity is still on, but work needs to be done quickly to repair a sinkhole that developed behind the building, Bailey said.
She suggested the grange begin a capital campaign to raise money and consider taking a loan from the state office to repair the hole.
The grange needs to have 13 members to be reinstated.
“I was thrilled that everybody stepped up,” Bailey said.
The Ginger Hill area is among the first to have been settled in the area. President George Washington was said to have visited a stone house in the village, which also was a meeting area for farmers who took part in the Whiskey Rebellion in the 1790s.
“The grange has been in the community for a long time,” said Ashley Schuetz, who operates the stable. “It’s always been a place to help the community.”
She said the original charter for the club shows a date of 1876.
The reorganized grange is asking any organization that received a donation of its property consider returning the items to the club.
Anyone interested in membership should contact Bailey at 717-737-8855 or at publicrelations@pagrange.org.