From pressing cider apples to nibbling lebkuchen cookies, visitors can savor a full taste of fall at Old Economy Village, a National Historic Landmark District in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.
Old Economy, 14 miles north of Pittsburgh, has 17 restored structures furnished with collections of the Harmony Society, a German communal group known for its prosperity from textiles, manufacturing, railroad investments and winemaking. The village was active from 1824 until the society’s dissolution in 1905.
Each fall, the Harmonists would celebrate their Erntefest Harvest Festival, which will be recreated September 27 with apple drying and cider making, meat smoking, beer brewing and wine making. Sample traditional German foods, such as gingerbread, bratwurst and sauerkraut, prepared by members of St. John’s Lutheran Church, the Harmonists’ original house of worship.
Visitors can practice the classic methods of making cheese, sausage, butter and ginger beer, while children can help with the chores — including pumping water and washing clothes — and play old-fashioned games. To herald the harvest, The Old Economy 1830s Orchestra and Singers will perform Harmonist music on period instruments.
On December 6, Old Economy sparkles 19th-century style during Christmas at the Village. The Weihnachtsmarkt Christmas Market is a shopper’s paradise with German handmade Christmas ornaments, paper stars, local beeswax ornaments, Scherenschnitte silhouette paper-cuttings and pastel renderings of current scenes and historic recreations of the village.
After a German dinner at St. John’s Lutheran, tour the church, enjoy the live nativity scene and join in a carol service. Then, relax as the Old Economy Orchestra and Singers perform festive songs composed by physician Johann Christoph Müller, innkeeper Friedrich Eckensperger and other Harmonists — lovely echoes of Christmas that recall the “Oekonomie” of long ago.