
For years, a hame was displayed on a sign in Leon Saubel's front yard in the Shrewsbury Township (Pa.) village of Hametown. The display has been taken down. Background posts: Codorus collector exhibits collection of conveyances - wheels and sleighs and 'I didn't know a peach tree from an apple tree, but we learned quickly.' and Trees commemorate World War I I vets.
In putting up the recent post on a Hametown one-room school and its upcoming reunion, it occurred to me that viewers might not know how the school's host village received its name.
Hametown between Shrewsbury and Loganville on the Susquehanna Trail was a major center for the making of hames.
Hames, along with collars and traces, form the pulling part of a horse's harness. (Other parts of a harness - a bridle, for example - relate to guiding the horse.)
J. Emory Seitz, whose great grandfather founded the village's hame-making factory circa 1850 defined a hame in a 1970 letter: ...




