In this column, I am speaking to Terry Reppert, who is sharing his family history, which dates to 1737.

His father, Howard, joined the U.S. Navy and served on the Light Cruiser USS Brooklyn. The ship participated in the World War II Battle of Anzio, Italy.

He returned and married Katherine Herger at Zion’s Lutheran Church, Northampton.

They resided along Cherryville Road with his parents and later rented a home on his grandparents farm for $15.

You read it correctly: $15 a month in 1955. They decided to go house hunting and purchased a single home priced at $9,500 in Laurys Station.

Terry would now adjust to life in the cozy village.

The origin of the village, Laurys Station, dates back to the Laury family whose lineage started in Scotland.

The family immigrated to the Colonies in 1756, some 20 years prior to the American Revolution.

They settled in Lehigh County.

Laurys Station is named in honor of David Laury, born in 1805, in North Whitehall Township.

His education was in a German school where he learned to read and write in German.

David, with a limited education, was both a farmer and blacksmith. The name of the village at the time was Slate Dam because of the slate mined in the area.

A man of vision and boundless energy, he built a grist mill, hotel and summer resort.

A general store and post office were adjacent to the hotel. The buildings are still there and are well maintained by Tim Beil. Unfortunately, the hotel burned down in 1930.

Laury was also associated with the slate quarrying business in Washington Township.

A community was organized familiar to all of us – the name Slatington.

The grist mill was welcomed by local farmers, constructed on banks of the Lehigh River along with a dam that provided water power to propel the mill.

Later, the mill was owned by the Mauser family, a prominent family in the area.

Old-timers I spoke to in the past recalled a day when lighting struck the grain tanks destroying the mill.

While walking along the Lehigh, some old remains help one recall the mill.

The Mauser family was determined to rebuild, and they did construct a mill in Treichlers, which continues to operate today, owned by ConAgra Corp. The well-known mill has since closed.

Laury was also an advocate for the building of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, even paying for a land survey.

He and his wife donated the land for a railroad depot in Laurys, and the name Laurys Station became permanent. The station had an interesting sign: 102.7 miles from New York and 344.8 miles from Buffalo.

In 1855, he was appointed express, freight, ticket and station agent at Laurys by the Lehigh Valley Railroad, a position he held until his death. Laury also served as the village postmaster.

The friendly store, later Young’s, and the post office continued to serve the village into the 1960s. The Lehigh Valley Railroad delivered mail there until the late 1950s.

Mr. Laury also served in the state legislature, was a major general in the Pennsylvania Militia, a Justice of Peace, an associate judge in Lehigh County and was active in St. John’s Lutheran Church where he served on the committee that built the church.

David “Judge” Laury died in 1883 in the village he loved – Laurys Station.