Today I went for a bike ride along the Lincoln Drive Trail in the Wissahickon Creek. I enjoyed the trail, discovered new things, and sang a song!
“The name of the neighborhood comes from the Lenni Lenape word wisameckham, for “catfish creek“, a reference to the fish that were once plentiful in the Wissahickon Creek. Wissahickon. Neighborhood of Philadelphia.”
I was really impressed by this E-bikes uphill and off-road performance! I was able to climb steep hills, ultimately leading me to discover the Hermits of the Wissahickon.
Kelpius, a 17th century German Pietist and mystic, based his belief on the teachings of his mentor, Johann Jacob Zimmermann, who through astrology foretold the Second Coming of Christ, and was convinced the coming apocalypse would happen at the “edge of the wilderness.” This prophecy he attributed to a passage in the Book of Revelations about a woman who fled into the wilderness, where God had readied for her a place to await the impending rapture.
Zimmermann began negotiations with William Penn to obtain a land settlement in the Province of Pennsylvania so that he and his followers, “The Society of the Woman in the Wilderness,” could prepare for the day of reckoning. The 40 followers – 40 being a significant number for the society – were mystics who belonged to a Pietist sect in Lutheranism, and they chose Pennsylvania because of its reputation for religious tolerance.
In 1693, before the sect could journey from Germany to Philadelphia, Zimmermann died suddenly, leaving his disciple, Kelpius, a 26-year-old, as the society’s leader.