A second garden terrace was installed in recent weeks with the help of Brandon, before he heads off to Shippensburg University. The new bed is now planted with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and zucchinis. Both terraces are doing well, getting sunshine for more than half of the day.
Up on the hill, the fruit trees are filling with fruit. It looks to be a good year, if we can keep the beetles away. Even the cherry tree is doing well, unlike last year.
We replaced the old Betsy Ross flag with a Union flag this time around. After seeing the Grant miniseries, we were reminded of the sacrifices of the Civil War. Back in 1863, before Gettysburg, our farm was one of many passed by Confederate troops as they advanced towards Mechanicsburg and then Camp Hill after capturing Carlisle. Of course, a few days later, these men headed south to Gettysburg where the were thankfully defeated. We do not know much of the Civil War history of the farm — worth exploring at some point.
Meanwhile, longtime readers will note the change in the header of this blog. We were called the “Christian Baker Farm” because Christian Baker resided here for most of the 1800s. However, we recently discovered that Johannes Knorr/Kenower, a great-great-great-+++ uncle who immigrated with our ancestor settled on this land soon after arriving. We believe the house we live in was started by him, as there is an old log cabin under the bricks, as shown in previous posts. We now date that log cabin to before the American Revolution. This land was originally surveyed in 1750. Knorr/Kenower arrived in 1751 and “went to Allen” per the history books. This is Allen, also known as Churchtown. Allen also refers to the township which later became Upper and Lower Allen as well as Monroe in Cumberland County. Johannes’s son Jacob Kenower’s name appears in a lot of land records in the area, including the subdivision of our property, which went to a Weaver. Jacob is buried at the old church in Churchtown. It is not known where Johannes is buried — possibly on this farm somewhere!
For the record, our Union flag is of the 34-star variety, from before the Battle of Gettysburg, which occurred less than 30 miles south. It is said the cannons could be heard from here. A 35th star was added to the flag in June of 1863 for West Virginia, which broke away from Virginia. It is unlikely the Northern forces had many 35-star flags in late June when the Confederates were in our neighborhood, so we went with the 34-star.
Life on the Johannes Kenower / Christian Baker Farm 