Ephrata Cloister
Ephrata, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Surviving buildings of the famous Ephrata community of Seventh Day Baptists, founded by Conrad Beissel, 1732. Turn to the right here to see this State historic shrine.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1732 the mystic Conrad Beissel founded a community of Seventh Day Baptists at Ephrata, a cloister of celibate brothers and sisters alongside married householders who observed a Saturday Sabbath. Their stark medieval-style buildings, original a cappella hymns, and pioneering printing and Fraktur work made the settlement one of colonial America's most distinctive religious communities.
Why it matters
Preserved as a state historic site, Ephrata Cloister endures as a window into early American communal faith and the religious liberty that flourished in colonial Pennsylvania.
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Related people
- · Conrad Beissel
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Ephrata Cloister
Ephrata, PA · est. 1947
In 1732 the mystic Conrad Beissel founded a community of Seventh Day Baptists at Ephrata, a cloister of celibate brothers and sisters and married householders who kept the Sabbath on Saturday. They became famous for their austere medieval-style buildings, their haunting original hymns, and their printing and Fraktur calligraphy — one of colonial America's most remarkable experiments in communal religious life.
Moravian Gemeinhaus
Lititz, PA · est. 1953
In 1746 the Moravians—a close-knit German Protestant community—built a Gemeinhaus at Lititz that served at once as church, parsonage, and school. Standing on the rise above Carter's Run, it was the heart of a planned religious settlement where faith, work, and daily life were tightly woven together. The Moravians were among the most disciplined and musically gifted of Pennsylvania's colonial communities.
Oley Moravians
Oley Township, PA · est. 1948
Around 1748 the Moravians — German-speaking Protestants known for their zeal for education — erected a building in the Oley Valley to serve as both church and school. Here they ran a boarding school from 1745 to 1751, part of a wider Moravian network of learning that spread across colonial Pennsylvania, and later built a schoolhouse in 1776 that has since vanished. Their commitment to teaching set them apart on a frontier where formal schooling was scarce.
Ephrata Cloister
Ephrata, PA · est. 1948
In the 1730s the mystic Conrad Beissel drew German-speaking followers into a Pietist community of celibate ascetics and married householders on the banks of the Cocalico. Between 1735 and 1749 they raised the steep-roofed medieval-style buildings that still survive, living a spare, disciplined life of worship, manual labor, and remarkable creative output — original a cappella hymns, illuminated Fraktur calligraphy, and one of colonial America's busiest printing presses. Kept as the Seventh Day Baptist ('Solitary') brethren, the settlement was among the earliest and most unusual communal societies in the colonies.