A second tour of historic Ledgedale will feature new sites, including Lacawac Sanctuary, Goose Pond Scout Reservation and St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church. The first stop on the tour will be Lacawac Sanctuary, a 500-acre nature preserve and environmental education center founded in 1966. Its 52-acre glacial lake, Lake Lacawac, is a National Natural Landmark.
The second stop will be the Goose Pond Scout Reservation in Paupack Township, also located on a glacial lake. Participants will hear about the history of the Boy Scout Camp, established in 1920 and one of the oldest Scout camps in America, followed by a guided tour of the historic log cabin built by Dan Beard, founder of the Boy Scouts of America. The cabin was built of chestnut logs on nearby Lake Teedyuskung in the early 1900s and served as the headquarters of Beard’s Outdoor School for Boys, a precursor of the Boy Scouts. It was dismantled and brought to Goose Pond several years ago where its careful and authentic reconstruction is well underway.
The third and final stop on the tour will be St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, built in 1877 to serve the Irish immigrant families who worked at the tannery and mill in Ledgedale.
Participants will meet at Peggy Bancroft Hall in South Sterling at 9:00 a.m. where they will hear a brief overview of the history of Ledgedale, first known as Tannerytown, and receive a schedule, directions, and a handout describing each of the featured sites. Participants will provide their own transportation to each site where they will meet their docent at the scheduled time for a guided tour. Please follow the current CDC protocols while onsite. The tour will end around 1:00 pm.
Reservations for the Ledgedale Tour are requested by calling Ruth Altemier at 570-335-7389 or 570-676-4354. Please check our website and Facebook pages for updates on the tour schedule.
Business Partner Edwards Sand & Stone is the sponsor of this event.
