Perhaps this all was rather predicatable, if not downright boring, for those who know the city of Allentown’s local American Revolutionary history, as well as perhaps for even the contemporary American minor league baseball fan, this tour of the IRONPIGPEN’s to celebrate the FOURTH OF JULY Holiday.
Nonetheless, with climatic suspense or otherwise, there can really be only one place for the IRONPIGPEN to end up on this trip through old Northampton Town. This would be, of course, at America’ Safest Place. For a quick review, we have already visited the following locations:
KING GEORGE INN — 3141 Hamilton Blvd
FARR BUILDING — 739 Hamilton St (Hospital Plaque is acutally on 8th Street)
MCGIVERN BUILDING — 361 Gordon St (site of Hessian POW camp)
Now, as we know from prior discussions, the Americans lost to the British at the BATTLE of BRANDYWINE (Sept 11, 1777). This news from the front prompted the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS to flee Philadelphia to Lancaster and, later, York. At this same time, it was determined that the LIBERTY BELL, the great symbol of a fledgling nation, should be moved to a safer place to avoid capture by the Britsh Army, who were well-known to be melting down everything in sight they could get their hands on in order to manufacture new cannon as well as the requisite balls for both cannon and muskets.
Wisely, as it turned out. Brandywine was followed by another defeat at the BATTLE OF WHITEHORSE TAVERN (Sept 16, 1777) and the British Army under the command of GENERAL SIR WILLIAM HOWE entered the city of Philadelphia with winter approaching on September 26, 1777.
Before that transpired, as we have learned, Whitehall’s JOHN JACOB MICKLEY and his 11-year-old kid made it down to Philadelphia following the Brandywine debacle and, naturally with help, loaded the Liberty Bell onto the family wagon. Mickley and son with wagon team then joined a caravan involving what historians put at somewhere between 300 to 700 wagons. One report listed a force of 200 Continental cavalry were detailed for protection. The cover-story for public consumption was that this was a routine Continental Army baggage train evacuating Philadelphia with the rest of the military personnel and public officials.
To further throw anyone interested off the trail, it was announced to the general citizenry of Philadelphia, many of whom were Tories (Loyalists of the British Crown), that the Liberty Bell had been sunk at the bottom of the Delaware River rather than permit its capture and destruction by the British Army.
In the meantime, Mickely and the wagon with the secret and solemn cargo made it to Bethlehem on the night of September 23, 1777. Mickley’s wagon having broken down, the Liberty Bell was transferred to the wagon of FREDERICK LEISER, who taxied the iconic treasure over to Northampton Town and ZION’s REFORMED CHURCH. There, the pastor was a man named ABRAHAM BLUMMER, who had a son, Henry.
As the matter shakes out, Henry was married to a woman named Sarah, who, as luck would have it was the daughter of one John Jacob Mickley.
The Liberty Bell was put underneath the floorboards of the church, where it remained unmolested until it was returned to Philadelphia after the British Army had departed in the latter half of 1778.
Zion’s Reformed Church still stands today, on Hamilton Street in between 7th and 6th Streets. Appropriately, there is a huge plaque outside the church chronicling events of the bell’s refuge. There is also a plaque commemorating the fact that the church was also used as a hospital for Continental soldiers, not unlike up other places up Hamilton Street.
Most importantly, there is a FREE museum in the basement of the church with a life-sized replica of the Liberty Bell. The IRONPIGPEN has always, always found it most fitting that the Philadelphia Phillies should entrust their AAA ballclub, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, to the city of Allentown. After all, they are only following a precedent set forth back in September of 1777.
ZION’S REFORMED CHURCH — 622 Hamilton St (Liberty Bell Museum)
