Weisenberg Township, Pennsylvania

Episode 132 / 15 August 2019 / 133 min / full

Why Let One Live? in Weisenberg, Pennsylvania

"James says 'It's Weisenberg, Pennsylvania', a township outside Allentown in Lehigh County, about an hour from Philadelphia" about 0:05:46

The case: Flood family murders (January 6, 1991). Read the case file.

The figures, as told in 2019

Population

5,099 in 27 square miles

Median age

45.7

Median household income

$94,000

Median home value

$333,700

Two-bedroom rent

about $1,130

Cost of living

127

Religious

51%

Property crime

▼ about half the average

Violent crime

▼ less than half the average

History, in brief

• Weisenberg Township was formed in 1753 and is named after a city of the same name in Europe, from where most of the townspeople came. about 0:10:17
• First settlements took place in 1734 on and around where the Ziegel Church is. about 0:10:56
• The township is part of territory purchased by Thomas Penn; in 1737 he bought it from the Lenape tribe in what was called the walking purchase. about 0:11:25
• Home sites were chosen close to pure spring water, often at the entrance of valleys, on plots of 50 to 100 acres, with log cabins built first. about 0:12:26
• In 1789 there were 99 dwellings: 91 log houses, three of stone and log and five of pure stone. By 1998 there were 1,400 dwellings. about 0:13:37
• The Weisenberg Associators, who became the Weisenberg Militia, were organised by the proprietor of the Bopst Manor House. The regiment joined Washington's army in New York and fought under General Sterling at the Battle of Long Island. about 0:14:18
• An encampment at the Bopst Manor House recruited and drilled soldiers for Washington's army, and after the British evacuated Philadelphia the militia pursued them through New Jersey. about 0:15:46
• For the first 200 years a German dialect, Pennsylvania German, was spoken; before 1837 all business was conducted in it, with deeds recorded in English at the courthouses. about 0:16:40
• Pennsylvania German was still spoken in most households in the early 1900s; church services were in German until the 1920s and township meetings were conducted in it up to the 1970s. about 0:17:17
• Students were taught in English after the free school system arrived, and many one-room schoolhouses were built; they were not closed until 1951. about 0:18:31
• Early businesses included a chocolate factory, carriage works, dairies, general stores, blacksmiths and gunsmiths. Farming was the main industry for the first 200 years. about 0:19:01
• Allentown, nearby, hosted WWF wrestling television tapings in the 1970s and 1980s, and James calls it the first notch of the rust belt going west. about 0:08:50

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