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Using history to build community has always been central to the mission of Winters Heritage House. The year 2005 marks the 15-year anniversary of the first guided school tours of a partially restored Heritage House. Although yet incomplete, restoration was well underway to generate community excitement for the project.

In 1988, a group of Elizabethtown-area preservationists united to save one of the town's original log structures from imminent demolition. As a result, Elizabethtown Preservation Associates, Inc. emerged as a nonprofit membership association governed by a Board of Directors. The dedicated group of local citizens salvaged a one- and one-half-story log house, built circa 1750's in the Scots-Irish tradition. The property became known as Heritage House in 1991, at which time the fully restored historic house opened to the public. The opening followed one year of documentary, archaeological and historical research and another two years of restoration work. Generous community support from individuals, businesses and service organizations moved the project to fruition.

The authentic structural elements offered visitors a doorway into Elizabethtown's past and a natural curiosity about the residential lives of people who had lived over 250 years ago. In 1997, local benefactor Esther Winters added an adjacent property (c. 1847) to the museum complex. The Kauffman-Meyer house contained elements and material culture relevant to the Pennsylvania German tradition.

A series of living history programs and historic walking tours interpreting the period 1750-1850 evolved soon thereafter, as did the nucleus of a genealogy library for researching both family and local history. Today, the living history center houses the Nogging Shop, a museum store, and the Seibert Library and Resource Center, which was dedicated in November 1998.

The two authentically restored log houses provide a rustic setting for year-round educational programs, demonstrations of interpretive folk traditions and special cultural events and seasonal fund-raisers.

MISSION STATEMENT
Winters Heritage House Museum seeks to preserve local
history by engaging community support to identify
buildings of historical significance; developing educational
experiences that recognize contributions of early cultural
groups in the greater Elizabethtown, PA area; and
acquiring artifacts, texts, and documents of historical
value.

The Seibert Library is a small genealogy library with a fairly extensive collection of local history and genealogy resources. The focus of the holdings include Elizabethtown and surrounding towns and counties in the Central PA region. The collection includes books, periodicals, over 50 oral histories on tapes and transcripts, maps, photographs, yearbooks, family histories, and other historical documents and valuable artifacts.

An archive of local and family history was established at the Museum when the Heritage House Genealogy Library Committee formed on September 4, 1990. Several volunteers from the community, some librarians, committed to developing a genealogy library at the then fledgling museum. In 1991 a lifetime resident of Elizabethtown presented the first book of the library's collection. Another prominent resident donated a collection of materials that became the nucleus of the library.

Over the years, the size and scope of the library collection grew. In 1998, with generous contributions from the Seibert family, the Heritage House Genealogy Library moved to a larger remodeled space within the first floor of the museum. As a tribute to the Seibert family benefactors, the Board of Directors renamed the library.

Executive Director Lori Donofrio-Galley and Genealogy Librarian Mary Karnes enjoy jazz at the Museum’s 20-year anniversary.