Update: This adventure is over, as a majority of this property has recently been posted as no trespassing (April 2023).
Uncharted Lancaster: Safe Harbor Adventure
Difficulty: 🤠🤠
Distance: 1.25 miles round trip.
What to bring: Appropriate footwear and an internet-connected device.
If you want to learn more about the three Safe Harbors—Safe Harbor Hydroelectric Dam, 1930s Village at Safe Harbor, and the mid-1800s Safe Harbor Iron Works—before starting the adventure, click here.
If you are looking to round out this adventure with a side quest, check out this walking tour of Safe Harbor.
Finding Safe Harbor Park and Arboretum
You can park near the tennis courts and pavilion at 5365 River Road. Click here for directions. The parking area is highlighted in red on the map below.
Safe Harbor Trail
The tennis courts mark the footprint of what was once the Safe Harbor Iron Works rolling mill.
Nearby there is a stone monument with a faded picture of the historic village at Safe Harbor and iron works. This is where the trail begins. The plaque reads:
On this site in 1846, 70 houses were built on streets named Water, Mill, Hall, Walnut, and Race for the employees of the Safe Harbor Iron Works. Many villagers worshipped at nearby St. Mary’s Immaculate Conception Catholic Church and are buried it its cemetery.
Erected by the Safe Harbor Water Power Corp.
May 1993
Begin walking uphill on what was once Cedar Street. There’s nothing there now but grass and giant trees, many of which were planted around the homes. The trail is marked by blue and white markers.
Soon, a sign instructs you to make a sharp left.
There on the facing hill is a large stone mansion that once belonged to the “ironmaster.” The home actually predates the historic village being built in 1725 by Benjamin Eshelman, an early Mennonite settler.
Once you reach the hill that the home sits on, the trail turns right. You are now walking along a stone wall that once fronted Spring Street, the village’s main thoroughfare. If you look carefully, you can see the paver stones marking the curbs of the street.
Before entering the woods, on your left, you will see the Odd Fellows Hall built in 1848. Meetings were held every Saturday. It was said that the meeting room on the third floor was finely furnished and could accommodate 200 people. Later the Masons met there too from 1871 until 1899. The building even housed classes for the Safe Harbor Independent School District in 1882 until it’s closure.
Can you imagine the clamor of a payday night in buildings like this? Safe Harbor was known as one of the “booziest” towns anywhere in the county with its five taverns, three liquor stores, and six beer halls.
As you enter the woods, depressions off to each side of the trail mark the sites of former homes. There are scores of them through the forest in neat rows. Reeves Abbot & Company, owners of the Safe Harbor Iron Works, built 70 homes to house the 250 workers and their families in this company town. The buildings were duplexes with a shared central chimney that was used for heating and cooking by families on both sides of the house.
While almost all the homes are gone today (a few remain on Main Street, formerly known as Willow Street). If you are willing to leave the main trail, you can explore the depressions looking for foundation stones and chimney debris.
Further up, the trail is the site of the Safe Harbor Independent School built in 1850. Originally, Safe Harbor had two one-room schoolhouses. One was the Safe Harbor School on the Manor Township side of the Conestoga River. The other was here. However, the Safe Harbor school was destroyed in a storm before 1883, leaving only the Independent School.
A sign marks along the blue and white trail marks the location of the Safe Harbor Independent School.
All that remains today of the Safe Harbor Independent School are a few foundation stones amid some moss and weeds and a sign with a faded photo of the school.
Continue East on the trail. Eventually, the woods open to a clearing. It was here that St. Mary’s Immaculate Conception Catholic Church once stood. Atop a pedestal of stones salvaged from the walls of the church is a circa 1955 picture of the already abandoned church. It is the only existing photo of the building.
The church was built by the Irish puddlers of Safe Harbor. It served the workers and their families from 1853 to 1883.
The clearing also has several tombstones; a few are Civil War veterans, while others are victims of shootings and stabbings. Another section of the cemetery contains the unmarked graves of at least 50 Italian immigrants who helped build the Enola Low-Grade Line. There is a plaque to mark the area. (Click here for more information about the Enola Low-Grade Adventure).
Finding the Treasure Cache
It is here at the site of St. Mary’s Church you will begin your search for the treasure cache. To start, find this tombstone.
Traveling in the direction of the headstone’s writing, walk 32 paces towards the tree, the arrow is pointing.
As you approach the tree, look for a pile of rocks and sticks.
X marks the spot!
If you want to learn more about the three Safe Harbors—Safe Harbor Hydroelectric Dam, 1930s Village at Safe Harbor, and the mid-1800s Safe Harbor Iron Works—before starting the adventure, click here.
Thanks for playing!
References:
- Hand of the King pin
- Left behind in Lancaster County: Rust and Ruins
- The Village at Safe Harbor
- Safe Harbor ravines you’ve probably never visited
- Safe Harbor’s trail of history
- History of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men
- History of Charles M. Howell Lodge No. 496
- The ice flood that swallowed up a Lancaster County town along the Susquehanna [photos]
- Phoenix Iron Company records
- Modest renovations refresh charming Safe Harbor Village
- Pew doors a link to former Safe Harbor Catholic church (article)
- Dahlgren gun
- Pew doors a link to former Safe Harbor Catholic church (photo)
- Safe Harbor Dam
- History, construction, and operation of Safe Harbor Power Development
- Susquehanna River