When the Lynn Heidelberg Historical Society has its annual holiday open house, as it did Dec. 1, visitors are amazed at the collection of memories.

Some individuals have been inside the old New Tripoli Bank building, now home to the historical society, before and wonder what new items they will find.

Others are newcomers, surprised at the depth of the collections.

Willard Snyder, who worked at the bank, said it is amazing how many former bank customers he meets there. He was treasurer of the New Tripoli Fire Company for 30 years and an officer at the bank.

Snyder said the butter worker was there since the beginning of the museum but was behind other items.

He gathered a lot of other butter-related items before he began his explanation.

The collection started with a separator which separated the milk and cream. The cream was churned - there were large wooden churns and smaller glass ones.

The skim milk was removed from the churn and the butter was placed in the butter worker. Two tablespoons of dandelion coloring was added and the worker was moved back and forth incorporating the color into the butter to make it more appetizing in appearance.

In the beginning, a press had a design carved into a piece of wood and pressed against the top of a container of butter.

Later, presses were a box with the design on the bottom the butter tightly filled the box and then it was allowed to cool.

At that point, it would press out of the box. Most presses were for one pound of butter, but the museum also has a two-pound press.

He recalled his wife, Lucille, had to help her mother make butter. She decided it would be easier to put it in a jar and roll it down a hill, that was until it hit a stone and the jar broke.

The dandelion coloring was made from the dandelion flowers making a pure vegetable coloring. Two tablespoonfuls were used for a batch of butter, which contained 25 to 30 percent butterfat. The coloring was also used with ice cream and candy.

Snyder pointed to a picture of the sexton house for Ebenezer Church. A schoolhouse was built on the site. There was a barn what has long since been torn down.

The congregation was founded in 1740 meeting in private homes. A log church was built to be followed by a stone church and then in 1890 the brick church which is found today. In the beginning logs were used for benches

Ebenezer was the first church in the area with an organ.

Snyder then pulled out a newspaper page that was about the Lenni Lenape Indians who lived in the area.

Recently, the site of the original train station was found on a picture. The station built in Ontelaunee Park is a copy of the Wanamaker Station in its measurements.

There is a copy of a painting by local artist Tom Ryan who was known for his western paintings.

To get a picture of some young calves, the late Carl Snyder smacked them on the backside to get them to run out of the barn.

In addition to the plates, the pictures were used on calendars.

Mike Bagenstose and Rebecca and Darnel Fritzinger were talking about some of the pictures.

A glass-fronted counter was purchased when the Ben Salem Church held an auction. Snyder bought it for what he termed a low price.

The counter was so big it was difficult to move it down the cellar steps

Peter Steiger, in 1784, made a chair fastened with pegs. Helen German Natoli donated it to the museum shipping it in from California.

The name of New Tripoli came from the Barbary Wars in North Africa which raged fro in 1801 to 1815.