A button issued for the 1989 Simon Gratz Days, the 6th Annual Show, held in Gratz, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, July 1-2, 1989. The button features an image of an antique tractor.
Format of the event was described in an article that appeared in the Harrisburg Patriot, June 29, 1988. Blog readers are urged to use caution when using names, dates and events mentioned in the article, as there are several errors.
GRATZ PLANS TRIBUTE TO FOUNDING FATHER
By Les Powell, Patriot-News
GRATZ – Simon Gratz Days, to be staged Saturday and Sunday at the Gratz Fair Ground, honor a man who it is believed never to have lived in the town that bears his name.
“I doubt seriously that he ever lived here,” Gratz Historical Society President Lois Schoffstall said of the town’s founding father, a Philadelphia merchant. “This was just one of his interests.”
“His son, Theodore Gratz, lived her from about 1837 to 1854,” she said. “He was our first mayor, in 1852-1853. Another son, David Gratz, is credited with being the founder of Lykens.”
Schoffstall said the Gratz family “was in this country before the revolution. His father, Michael Gratz, came from Germany in 1759, at the age of 18. He had traveled around the world and studied in a London accounting house.”
A short time after arriving in America, Michael Gratz went into business in Philadelphia with his brother, Bernard Gratz, Schoffstall said.
“They traded with the Indians, exported furs,” she said. “They supplied goods to the Revolutionary Army.”
Simon Gratz founded this town after inheriting the shipping business. “He got a land grant in 1811, laid out the town and sold off lots,” Schoffstall said. Simon Gratz died in Philadelphia in 1839, when he was in his 60s.
Simon Gratz Days will feature vintage tractors from as early as 1918 and antique farm machinery with about 100 hit-and-miss, gasoline-driven engines performing a variety of tasks.
A new exhibit will be antique cars. There will also be a working blacksmith and a still generating a brew, a spokesperson said.
The theme of the event is “Early Merchants and Craftsmen of the Area.” One building on the fairgrounds will house a street of vendors and shop exhibits of period items from early Gratz. There will also be vintage movies (from 1903-1916) shown at intervals, and a flea market.
At 6:30 p. m., Saturday, an old-fashioned square dance will feature music by John Lenker. A concert of sacred and patriotic music will be presented at 2:30 p. m. Sunday.
Members and friends of the Gratz Historical Society have designed and sewn an heirloom quilt picturing 20 merchants and craftsmen who lived in Gratz or Lykens Township before 1840. It will be displayed a the fairgrounds and used as a fund raiser in a raffle later this year. Raffle tickets will be available during Simon Gratz Days.
The fairgrounds will open at 9 a. m. Saturday and 11 a. m. Sunday.
Correspondent Linda Easter contributed to this report.
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Article from on-line resources of the Free Library of Philadelphia.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.