The Albany Township Historical Society recently published a 224-page book with more than 300 restored black-and-white photographs.

The book honors the land and its people in the title, "Good Land, Good People."

Bus tours were arranged Sept. 27 to take visitors to see the land and, possibly some people, living there today.

The tour began at the village of Trexler, which is on the National Register. It has a 1700s log house and the Trexler mill which is now home to the Society.

John Robertson, township historian, and Jon Bond, society president, were announcers for the tour.

Robertson said the tour would cover four centuries: the 21st century, the 20th through the eyes of friends and neighbors and the memories of Bond and himself, the 19th century through the pictures in the book, and the 18th century depicted by items surviving the 400 years.

The second point of interest after Trexler was Fetteroffsville.

Phillip Jacob Brobst and his son, Martin, operated a mill. One-room schools - nine of the 12 in the township were on the tour, and mills were everywhere in various stages of decay and restoration.

Bond said Jerusalem "Red" Church had 100 members of the Kistler family in the pews. They gave the Kistler Valley its name.

There was an earlier barn near the site of the Kempton Barn Museum. A forebay was added to the newer barn after the Civil War.

In Kempton, there was the Stump Blacksmith Shop and the Kempton Hotel. The hotel was once reached by a ramp allowing dinner guests to get there faster, said Bond, with a smile.

In 1874, the railroad came to Kempton and with it there was an influx of Victorian homes. The small, white building with black shutters on the Albrights Mill property was one of the two fire companies in the village.

The other company was across the street from the mill. The present-day scale was the site of the train depot.

Robertson said people came to Kempton for one of three reasons: the hotel or post office, feed for animals or to go to the store on the upper floor of the mill.

The Kempton State Bank only operated for two years. Its vault doors are in use at Neffs National Bank.

Bond said horses and mules were the chief forms of transportation until after World War II and they were able to work in the fields in places where today's tractors cannot go.

Robertson said he was in the first class at the Albany Elementary School and four of his six teachers had been teaching in a one-room school.

Bond pointed to the site of an Indian encampment and as the tour continued there were other such sites. The museum has many Indian artifacts and is especially proud of a recent one that had been handed down through generations.

Arland Schrader donated his collection of artifacts to the museum, Robertson said.

Few first generation log cabins remain, but several second generation ones were pointed out. They tended to have more than one story.

Bond said the name Allemaengel, a section including Albany and parts of Greenwich townships, came from "all wants."

When the German settlers arrived the land was not as good as it had been in Oley.

Robertson pointed out that his Indian beads in red and white stood for war and peace.

Wanamakers was a train stop. Logs to be used as supports in the mines were shipped out, as well as, at a later time, taking the children to school in Slatington.

At one time there were 10 homes and five of the wives were named Marian, including Bond's mother who was on the tour.

Robertson said the general store had everything needed to go to the mountain to trap hawks.

The Steinsville Hotel is now used as a religious retreat, Bond said.

Robertson said 80 percent of the farms had a family cemetery on the outskirts so it would not be in the way for farming, but it was still in a good location with a view.

Quaker City was named for the Quaker City Slate Company.

Conrad Weiser built a series of forts a blockhouse in between for protection from the Indians. In 1755 Frantz Bailey felt bullets whiz by him. When neighbors came to help they found indentations in an alder grove where the Indians had been laying in wait.

Bond pointed out a horse and a nude, as depicted in the rocks with a little imagination.

Rosalie Edge began Hawk Mountain in the 1930s to stop the fall shooting of migrating hawks. Maurice Broun became manager in 1970.

To buy the book, readers are invited to attend a historical society meeting at the Trexler Mill at 7 p.m. on the third Monday of each month.