Dunker's Town Analysis

A stranger traveling the roads near Ephrata on Saturday, July 8, 1768 must have wondered where all the people were going, some on horseback, others in carriages, and many walking. Their destination was the small plot of ground along the Paxtang Road subsequent generations would label Gottes Acker (God’s Acre) at the place locals called “Dunker’s Town.” Two days before, on July 6, the founder of the community, Conrad Beissel had died. Now, more than seven-hundred people had come with grief, respect, or curiosity to bid farewell to the man. They also witnessed the dimming of a light, not yet fully extinguished, but quickly fading into darkness.
Much had changed at the location since Conrad Beissel first arrived in 1732. Large buildings

Slowly over time, dietary rules relaxed, soft mattresses and pillows replaced benches and wood blocks, and midnight worship ceased. The buildings also began to show the signs of their advancing age and lack of constant attention. Members of the married congregation assumed a larger role in caring for people and property of the community. About two years after Beissel’s death, likely the Householders add a new kitchen to the rear of the Sisters’ Saal. The room reflected the English influence of the current architecture with a higher ceiling, large double-hung windows, and floor-level hearth surmounted by an ornate mantel. Older Germanic traditions remained in a stone sink by the door and a soup-hearth. By the early 1790s, a young woman, Barbara Keiper, came to live at Ephrata and care for the aging

Official records for the hospitals are minimal, but surviving materials suggest these hospitals held the men with contagious diseases including “camp fever,” now recognized as typhus. A report filed with George Washington in April 1778 accounts for 259 soldiers at the Ephrata hospital between the previous December 18 and April, 26, 1778, including 57 men who “died or deserted” during the same period. The report also contains the note about Ephrata, “an inconvenient place for a hospital.” No record of names survives identifying the men who were at Ephrata, if ever such a list existed, as there was great confusion in moving patients to winter hospitals and some men were under care in private