As the NPS has struggled to settle upon a development policy, to plot out goals, and to ultimately restore the Hopewell Furnace for public education, preservation, and enjoyment, various private and public groups have contested and coordinated the use of lands and resources within the site and its surrounding lands. In a 1979 review of how historical parks were coping with recreational use, NPS Historian Harry Butowsky maintained that parks needed to make a distinction between compatible and non-compatible use of a historic area.
Any activities or use within the park boundaries, whether recreational, religious, operational or otherwise, should not disrupt the “historic scene” or have an adverse impact on historic
resources.1 Over the years, the demands of the public for park resources have forced a constant re-evaluation of the park’s purpose, goals, and significance.
The rising population and popularity of travel in America following World War II prompted Congress to request an examination of public demands and available resources. In 1962, the Outdoor Recreation and Resource Review Commission issued the report Outdoor Recreation in America. Their findings obviously had an enormous impact on Service-wide management. An agency once engrossed in park promotion was now faced with regulating public use to relieve the demands on limited staff, facilities, and resources.
Zoning
One recommendation for regulating park use entailed managing resources by
classifying parklands according to categories.2 In 1964 Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall sent NPS Director George Hartzog a directive requiring all parks be divided into recreational, historical, and natural categories and requested the NPS develop a set of management
principles for each. Each park’s master plan would reflect this new management system for public use. Hopewell Village NHS sub-divided its lands into four categories: historical, special
1 See Harry Butowsky, “Recreation and the Historical Park,” CRM Bulletin 2, no. 4 (December 1979).
2 Ronald F. Lee, Public Use of the National Park System 1872-2000, January 1, 1968, http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/lee3/lee9a.htm (accessed May 13, 2003).
use, natural, and development.3 A few years later, in her 1976 Statement for Management, Superintendent Disrude re-zoned the park and divided Hopewell Village National Historic Park into three zones of use, dropping the natural zone.4 By 1981 her Statement for
Management again expanded the zoning to four classifications per the request of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and reintroduced the natural zone. While the historic zone was used for “passive recreation through the interpretation of cultural resources,” she
explained, the natural zone opened part of Hopewell Village NHS to recreational activities like hiking and horseback riding in cooperation with the Horseshoe Trail Association (the
Horseshoe Trail connects Hopewell to Valley Forge NHS, Cornwall Furnace, Mount Gretna, and Pennsylvania’s Appalachian Mountains), as well as nature study, photography, and bird- watching.5 The Special Use Zone consisted of 96 acres made up of a utility corridor and of
“open fields” used to assist in the preservation of agricultural lands. In 1997 a completed Cultural Landscape Report re-divided the park into four management zones as well. They included the “Core Village Zone,” the “Park Management Zone,” the “Woodland
Management Zone,” and the “Agricultural Zone,” which included Bethesda Church.6 None of these categories, however, adequately addresses the issue of Special Use Permits.
Special Use Permits
The NPS issues special use permits to members of the public to allow them to use park resources or lands for purposes compatible with the park’s historical significance and purpose for establishment. Throughout much of its history, Hopewell allowed some of the historical structures to serve as private residences, first for existing tenants of the Brooke property and local WPA workers, and then primarily for employees like maintenance personnel Leroy Sanders. The NPS issued a special use permit to the U.S. Navy during World War II to occupy the former CCC camp as a rest camp for British sailors. During the 1970s and 80s, one to three former employees moved into the dwellings. Superintendent Elms summarized the rationale as mutual benefit. “It is felt best to rent these structures to them, as long as permanents are not
3 Master Plan, August 1964, 7,HOFU; See Ronald F. Lee, Public Use, http://www.cr.nps.gov/
history/online_books/lee3/lee9a.htm (accessed May 13, 2003).
4 The problems with Disrude’s initial classification system are discussed in the following chapter. Disrude, “Statement for Management,” 1976.
5 Disrude, “Statement for Management,” 1981.
affected, rather than let the structures stand vacant and unprotected.”7 Other situations proved to be more complicated, as with the case of Bethesda Church.
Bethesda Church: Separation of Church and State?
Bethesda Church has served as an unusual and awkward resource for Hopewell administrators. It is a cultural resource, not an interpretive exhibit, but nonetheless an NPS responsibility. While owned by the federal government, the building continued to serve the needs of an active religious group, the Bethesda Baptist Congregation, until 1990. The congregation performed custodial work and grounds maintenance of the churchyard and cemetery, while the NPS maintained the actual structure.8 This uneasy relationship reflected the tensions between church and state, the rights of a few versus the benefit of the many, and the historic preservation of an actively used facility with a need for maintenance and modern improvements.
Located on park lands, but out of sight of the village nucleus, Bethesda Church and cemetery played an integral role in the Hopewell iron community by serving its diverse
spiritual needs through regular worship and burial services. During the Revolutionary War, the army converted many of the other local churches into area hospitals and locals searched for alternative places in which they could properly worship. Thomas Lloyd III, a Hopewell employee, founded the “Lloyd Meeting House” as a non-denominational center of worship soon after the American Revolution (ca.1782).9 Lloyd’s family worked at the furnace and on nearby farms for several generations. While the Hopewell Furnace ironmasters were primarily Episcopalian, many of the workers tended to worship as Baptists or Lutherans. An absence of documents indicates that Lloyd may have suspended regular religious services until around 1810, although the earliest recorded burial was one of the furnace’s woodcutters named Thomas Kirby in 1807. In 1827 or 1828 the thirty-one remaining members of the congregation joined the Philadelphia Baptist Association and soon changed its name to the Bethesda Baptist
6 CLR.
7 Wallace Elms, 1972 Annual Report, January 17, 1973, 1973 Annual Report, January 25, 1974, 1974 Annual Report, January 17, 1975, Annual Reports, Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, Harpers Ferry Center (HFC).
8 Ibid.
Church.10 Throughout Hopewell Furnace’s peak years of operation, the group’s Temperance Society discouraged “those giant social evils caused by the improper use of rum and tobacco.”11
The congregation, which held regular monthly meetings, had some trouble finding a pastor, but finally secured Brother Caleb Davidson in 1842. Religious revivalism tripled the congregation’s size between 1843 and 1845 and Hopewell workers actively supported it through individual contributions. In 1848 Ironmaster Clement Brooke supported the church by
donating five dollars toward a twenty dollar fund to build a protective wall around the building and adjacent cemetery. Membership continued to rise to 118 in 1852. A few years later in 1858, fifty-three congregants left to join the Lawrenceville Church. The few remaining worshipers practiced only every other Sunday over the next twenty years. After the furnace’s last blast in 1883, only twelve people continued to attend and the church fell into disrepair. The
congregation replaced the wood shingle roof, floor, pulpit, chimney, and pews.12
In July of 1888, the congregation submitted a petition to incorporate in stating their purpose of “proclaiming the Gospel and maintaining spiritual and moral control of its
members.” 13 Available documentation does not reveal much about the congregants’ activities over the next few years, but members continued to maintain the building, installing an iron gate to close off the stone wall in 1905 and installing new windows.14
In 1919 the Brooke family consolidated their land holdings and took title of the church from the Lloyd family, but the church congregation continued to exercise “all property rights and sold lots in the graveyard.”15 When the government advertised the Brooke land for
condemnation in order to establish the French Creek Recreational Demonstration Area, none of the church’s trustees submitted a claim for the church and cemetery land. “Consequently,”
9 Luanne Feik, “Historic Chapel in Hopewell Park,” Chester County Daily Local, March 30, 1997,
“Bethesda,” Vertical Files, HOFU.
10 June 9, 1956, HOFU 34134 Archives found during renovation, Box 1, Bally Building, HOFU;
Superintendent Lemuel Garrison to Coordinating Superintendent, September 1, 1941, L3 Bethesda Baptist Church Special Permits, Central Files, HOFU.
11 As quoted in Karen Guenther, “Religion in an Iron-Making Community: Bethesda Baptist Church and Hopewell Village,” Paper, University of Connecticut, 1984, Vertical File, HOFU.
12 Guenther, “Religion,” 8.
13 Bethesda Church Petition to Incorporate, July 12, 1888, Documents 1884-1934, Box 32, Bally Building, HOFU; Guenther, “Religion,” 8; Feik, “Historic Chapel,” HOFU.
14 Guenther, “Religion,” 8.
15 Guenther, “Religion,” 8-9; Earl Heydinger, “Historic Structures Report, Historical Data, Part I:
Bethesda Baptist Church, Hopewell Village National Historic Site,” 3, Prentice to Mrs. Earl Lloyd, June 12, 1958; Lloyd to Department of Parks, June 3, 1958.
explained Hopewell’s first superintendent, Lon Garrison, “in spite of the continuous use of this church by its congregation, title passed to the United States government.”16 Bethesda Church remained within the jurisdiction of the RDA, not the NPS, after the Secretary of the Interior established the initial Hopewell Village National Historic Site in 1938.
Garrison negotiated the first arrangement with the congregation through the church clerk, Ernest S. Lloyd. Although he later contended only four surviving members made up the congregation, Garrison considered the group’s resentment over the government’s ownership of the building as one of many important community relations issues he needed to resolve.17 As a token of good faith, he sent over three dollars to aid the congregation in a new paint job and assured Lloyd of the NPS’s commitment to the Bethesda Church and the congregation’s
“continuous and free use of the building for worship” as long as they needed it. After that time, Garrison assured Lloyd that the NPS would provide “continuous and perpetual care.”
Although it was not technically within the boundaries of the national historic site, “… in our minds the Bethesda Church is an integral part of the complete Hopewell picture, and … we sincerely desire to maintain this church in its present location and to protect it as well as we do our other Hopewell buildings.” He suggested guaranteeing these responsibilities and promises through a Special Use Permit.18 Thrilled with the new painting and other improvements to the roof and floor, Lloyd felt the congregation “should be in pretty good shape for a number of years without requiring any additional expense.”19 Regarding the Special Use Permit, Lloyd informed Garrison that, “the more I think of this the better I like the idea.” However, the clerk emphatically requested the inclusion of two conditions: 1) the NPS must promise that Christian services continue to be the building’s only use, and 2) present lot holders retain their burial privileges (he added that claimants would probably be few).
Garrison left Hopewell before solidifying the deal. When Ralston Lattimore arrived, Coordinating Superintendent Francis Ronalds advised him to either hold off on pursuing the issue of the Special Use Permit or make the arrangement temporary. In case the RDA
eventually joined the historic site (which it did in 1942), the NPS could negotiate a cooperative
16 Garrison to Coordinating Superintendent, September 1, 1941, Ronalds to Director, October 2, 1941, L3 Bethesda Baptist Church Special Permits, Central Files, HOFU.
17 Ibid.
18 Garrison to Ernest S. Lloyd, August 5, 1941, File L3 Bethesda Baptist Church Special Permits, Central Files, HOFU.
19 Lloyd to Garrison, August 6, 1941, Central Files, HOFU.
agreement (per the 1935 Historic Sites Act), and a more appropriate arrangement for a mutually beneficial relationship. The congregation could worship and the park could maintain the building as well as good community relationships. But before they could raise the issue, Lloyd agreed to sign the special use permit.20
On March 2, 1942, the park issued a Special Use Permit stipulating, “Permittee is authorized to use entire property for religious, memorial and burial purposes during the time of this permit. All members of the church, relatives of such members, and all relatives having members interred in the cemetery shall have the privilege of being interred therein at such place within the cemetery…”21 The initial permit did not require the congregation to pay a fee, but subsequently the NPS charged an annual renewal fee of one dollar. However, the fact that the one-year permit would only be renewable for five years continued to upset the other congregation members. They found a friend in Lattimore. “If there is any possible way to allay the fears of these people,” the new superintendent wrote Director Newton Drury, “we should do so.” If and when Hopewell NHS took over the property, the NPS needed to assure
descendants of Thomas Lloyd, present members of church and lot holders that they would retain a perpetual privilege of burial. In order to do so, the church and cemetery should be included in the historic site, “not for its inherent value to posterity, but for the protection of the small group of citizens to whom, through our acquisition of the church property, we have unwittingly done an injustice.”22
After French Creek RDA did, in fact, become part of the Hopewell Village National Historic Site, Coordinating Superintendent Ronalds again raised the issue of entering a
20 Acting Director to Ronalds, December 27, 1941, Ronalds to Lattimore, February 13, 1942, L3 Bethesda Baptist Church Special Permits, Central Files, HOFU.
21 Riddle to Sandiford, August 10, 1965, Bethesda Congregation, Central Files, HOFU.
22 The conditions requested certainly did not seem beyond the scope of the National Park Service policy on cemeteries within its parks, as established by Horace Albright. “On behalf of the Park Service that we will do everything within our power to keep the cemeteries intact and that the parties who have bodies buried there may come and go to and from the cemeteries with all freedom of action and have the right to keep the brush and briers cleaned off. In addition, they will also not only have the right of internment of any bodies now living within the park area and who have been interested in the cemetery and wish to be buried there, but we feel there may be some who have moved out whose family burial plots are in these cemeteries and who therefore may wish to be buried in the same cemetery with their kinfolk. These we will also accord the privilege of burial in the old family burial ground.
Furthermore, we will assume it is an obligation of the National Park Service to assist in keeping these cemeteries as cleaned up as possible after we have taken them over as part of the park.” Lattimore to Director, March 2, 1942, L3 Bethesda Baptist Church Special Permits, Central Files, HOFU; Acting Assistant Director Henry Langley to Senator Richard Neuberger, July 6, 1956, Bethesda Congregation, Central Files, HOFU.
cooperative agreement with the congregation to replace the Special Use Permit. This time, however, the issue would wait until after the war.23 Acting Superintendent Emil Heinrich continued to issue Special Use Permits, but during the war, he neglectfully omitted the
conditions Lloyd had insisted upon, particularly the one that restricted church use to religious services. When he noticed his error, the superintendent reinserted the condition when he re- issued the permit through 1947.24
Perhaps Heinrich did not pursue a cooperative agreement with the congregation because in the years during and after World War II, the Bethesda Baptist congregation seemed fairly inactive. There exists no record of protest following the site’s inclusion in the new, expanded 1947 boundary of the historic site. Superintendent James Cass had trouble finding someone to collect the one-dollar fee from in order to allow the permit’s renewal in 1951. Cass eventually arranged to exchange keys with the congregation members in order that both parties would be able to lock up the facilities and protect the property from vandalism.25
By the time of Superintendent Prentice’s tenure, local residents had again become vocal about the government’s right of ownership to the church. Maintenance issues aggravated tensions further. Prentice observed, “This is a rather ticklish spot in which to be placed since lot owners possess certain perpetual rights to individual lots and Board of Trustees claims general authority over the graveyard as a whole.”26 The church’s Pastor, Principal J. W.
Sandiford from Craig Ridgway Elementary in Coatesville, and several congregants raised questions about the legality of the claim, leading even Prentice to admit that he could find no proof of title to the 3/4 acre in the files of the NPS office in Washington, DC, nor in the files of the Pennsylvania Title and Insurance Company.27
Due to the awkward situation, Hopewell’s superintendents agreed to only do work after a written request from the Church’s Board of Trustees. Likewise, the Board of Trustees
23 Ronalds to Heinrich, March 30, 1943, L3 Bethesda Baptist Church Special Permits, Central Files, HOFU.
24 Tolson to Francis Ronalds, March 14, 1946, Ronalds to Heinrich, March 26, 1946, Heinrich to Ronalds, March 28, 1946, L3 Bethesda Baptist Church Special Permits, Central Files, HOFU.
25 Cass to Coordinating Superintendent, February 16, 1951, Cass to Coordinating Superintendent, February 26, 1951, Cass to Anna Krepps, February 20, 1953, L3 Bethesda Baptist Church Special Permits, Central Files, HOFU.
26 Prentice to Mrs. Earl Lloyd, June 12, 1958; Mrs. Earl Lloyd to Department of Parks, June 3, 1958, Bethesda Congregation, Central Files, HOFU.
27 Prentice to Regional Director Daniel Tobin, July 23, 1956; Sandiford to Prentice, July 23, 1957, Bethesda Congregation, Central Files, HOFU.
requested approval from the NPS for any repairs its congregation performed.28 In 1955 the NPS restored the Carriage Shed, which early church members used to shelter their carriages,
wagons, and horses. Unfortunately, the relationship between the park and the church seemed to run hot and cold. The two institutions held opposing goals for the building’s use and preservation and often disagreed about their priorities. While the congregation complained about the church’s falling plaster in 1957, the NPS looked to not just repair, but to await funding and restore the walls and ceiling with white water-proofing paint that would both protect and mimic the structure’s original whitewash. During the same time period, Sandiford gave an invocation at the Visitor Center dedication.29
In 1963 the Park Service repainted the church's interior and cleaned off fall saplings.
The next year, the NPS removed five trees from the front of the church in order to mimic the historic view more closely as well as to prevent the roots from damaging the wall. However, the loss of the greenery distressed Sandiford and the congregation who requested that the government replace the trees with shrubbery. At the same time, Sandiford asked the NPS to tend to the cemetery headstones, and insisted upon the repair of the floor where joists had rotted and collapsed under the weight of the piano-organ. While workers had the floor up, he asked that they install a copper line for heat.30
Superintendent Riddle, who worshipped with his family at the Bethesda Church, seemed more responsive to the congregation’s complaints, although it took several years before the NPS mended the church floor in 1972 after it collapsed again at the end of a Palm Sunday service.31 With Riddle’s departure later that year, tensions again built up. With funding low, Acting Superintendent and Ranger Larry Points directed public monies to other areas of the park where it would “do the most people the most good.” The park valued the Bethesda Church, but the congregation was a small one, and the NPS preferred to conduct a complete and accurate restoration along with other bicentennial development, rather than continue to
28 Prentice to Mrs. Earl Lloyd, June 12, 1958; Mrs. Earl Lloyd to Department of Parks, June 3, 1958, HOFU.
29 Prentice to Sandiford, June 29, 1957; Memorandum for the Files, July 9, 1959, File A8215, Central Files, HOFU.
30 Sandiford to Zerbey, March 11, 1963, Zerbey to Sandiford, June 10, 1964, May 20, 1964, Zerbey to Mrs. Earl Lloyd, June 10, 1964, Sandiford to Zerbey, June 17, 1964, Sandiford to Zerbey, October 5, 1964, Zerbey to Sandiford, October 13, 1964, Bethesda Congregation, Central Files, HOFU.
31 Sandiford to Riddle, September 28, 1967, Assistant Director Nathan Golub, Operations, to Sandiford, May 12, 1972, Riddle, April 20, 1972, Sandiford to Elms, March 9, 1973, Bethesda
Congregation, Visitor Center, HOFU.