WHERE IN AMERICA ARE YOU?
by Randy Karr

You are visiting one of America’s first communal settlements. Founded in 1732, this Protestant monastic community of celibate Brothers and Sisters, joined by a community of married members, settled in a Pennsylvania wilderness seeking solitude and a life of religious contemplation devoted to worshipping God. They led a cloister life, characterized by rigorous discipline and self-denial. Cloister members wore hooded monks’ habits and ate a diet of mostly roots, greens, bread and bits of meat.

They slept on a 15-inch-wide wood slab, without a mattress, and used a block of wood for a pillow. Believing that sleep made them vulnerable to temptation, they only slept six hours a night. At midnight, their sleep was interrupted to attend a nightly two-hour prayer service. The unique European-style building you see, the largest ever built in America at the time, served as a cloister dormitory, while the smaller attached building was a meetinghouse. An enterprising group, the cloister was renowned as a publishing center, complete with a paper mill, printing office and book bindery, as well as for its Germanic calligraphy and a cappella music composed by its founder, Conrad Beissel. After the cloister disbanded, the property was sold to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Today, nine buildings have been restored and are open for visitors. Where in America are you, anyway? Name this National Historic Landmark located in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County.

Click on the photo to reveal the answer.

©2009 Randy Karr