As we relax and enjoy the results of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proclamation of the Labor Day holiday, see if you can spot vestiges of the labor that built this area. Some businesses are nearly unchanged from the way they looked a few hundred years ago. Others have morphed drastically, showing only a few signs of the old buildings or grounds they occupied. Still others have completely obliterated any remainder of the old ways. But it’s not hard to let your eyes unfocus and imagine you hear the clop-clop of horseshoes hitting unpaved roads, the clang of hammers on black iron, and the banging together of tin milk cans.

In my own village of Ferndale, even the town’s original name—Rum Corner, until 1880—is gone, but it was honestly gotten. Our little hamlet was home to the headquarters of a spirits rectifier and distiller. At the time the post office opened here and the name changed to its present incarnation, the town had its own hotel, wheelwright and blacksmith shops, two general stores, several factories that made shoes for the coal miners working the strips up near Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe), and two creameries. Today it is primarily residential, but there are still signs of labors past.

The former Ferndale Hotel, owned at one time by Josiah Rufe, remains at town center. It is now the Ferndale Inn, a restaurant where owner Karen Baron lives and serves her guests sumptuous lunches and dinners. It also once housed the Nockamixon post office.

The wheelwright shop, which also included a blacksmithy and was originally run by J.H. Nickel, is now a newly renovated and occupied residence next to Gallows Run (then on the map as Kintnersville Creek). The other blacksmith shop, originally run by Rufe’s son John, is now a residence just behind the Inn, occupied by Alex Berenson and Toni Hartzell. Award-winning painter Pat McCutcheon lives next door in what was Frank Beans’ Dry Goods & Grocery store. One J. Strouse owned a second store, which was along 611 toward Revere.

One of the shoe shops, also owned by Beans, is now the residence of antique dealer Lorrie Martin, at the corner of Rt. 611 and Center Hill Road. A small family shoemaking shop, owned by William Shick, used to exist on the southeast corner of the intersection, in what is now our front yard. When Rt. 611 was widened and slightly re-routed, that part of the property was paved over. After Shick had learned the trade from his father, he helped organize and manage the Ferndale Boot & Shoe Manufacturing Company. That firm occupied the building further down 611 that now houses Ferndale Antiques.

The earlier creamery was up Center Hill Road on the north side, next to where an old marble works used to be. Coincidentally, the later Theodore Moyer Creamery was also located next to a marble works, owned by Samuel Mann. It is now occupied by the Ferndale post office and Swamp’s Auto Body shop on Rt. 611.