The earliest European settlers of what was to become Bird-in-Hand were Quakers and SwissMennonites. James Smith was the first of the Quakers known to have settled in the area, arriving by the year 1715. William and Dorothy McNabb were pioneer landowners and the owners of the original Bird-in-Hand Hotel. The Quakers built a meetinghouse and two-story academy, which stands today, next to the present day Bird-in-Hand fire company.[4]
Lampeter Friends Meetinghouse, built 1749, rebuilt 1889
The community was founded in 1734. The legend of the naming of Bird-in-Hand concerns the time when the Old Philadelphia Pike was surveyed between Lancaster and Philadelphia. According to legend, two road surveyors discussed whether they should stay at their present location or go on to the town of Lancaster. One of them supposedly said, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," which means it is preferable to have a small but certain advantage than the mere potential of a greater one; and so they stayed. By 1734, road surveyors were making McNabb's hotel their headquarters rather than returning to Lancaster every day. The sign in front of the inn is known to have once "portrayed a man with a bird in his hand and a bush nearby, in which two birds were perched," and was known as the Bird-in-Hand Inn. Variations of this sign appear throughout the town today.[4]
In 1836 the village post office was established as the Enterprise Post Office, as the village was then officially called, until the name officially changed to Bird-in-Hand in 1873.[4]
In 1968 the Smucker family opened a small 30-room motel called the Bird-in-Hand Motor Inn, with an adjacent coffee shop, in hopes of capitalizing on the growing tourist trade in the area. Over the years, the small coffee shop grew into the larger Bird-in-Hand Family Restaurant & Smorgasbord.[11]
In 1976 the Bird-in-Hand Farmers Market opened adjacent to the Bird-in-Hand Motor Inn.[4]
Bird-in-Hand is in central Lancaster County, on the eastern edge of East Lampeter Township. Pennsylvania Route 340 (Old Philadelphia Pike) runs through the center of town, leading west 6 miles (10 km) to Lancaster, the county seat, and east 4 miles (6 km) to Intercourse.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bird-in-Hand CDP has a total area of 0.62 square miles (1.6 km2), of which 0.01 square miles (0.02 km2), or 1.11%, are water.[14] The area drains westward to Mill Creek, a west-flowing tributary of the Conestoga River, part of the Susquehanna River watershed.
Tourism is very important and many businesses cater specifically to tourists. Many of these businesses have an Amish theme, such as horse and buggy rides and crafts.
...in such delightfully-named towns in Pennsylvania Dutchland as his native Mount Joy, and neighboring Lititz, Blue Ball, Bareville, Intercourse, Bird in Hand, and Paradise.
"...but anyone who names their towns Mount Joy, Intercourse, and Blue Ball can't be all bad. Obviously they have more on their minds than just religion."
Which brings us to Intercourse. You can imagine my delight when I found out that the Amish call the town of Intercourse, Pennsylvania, their home. There seems to be a lot of explanations from locals trying to pass off the name as a bastardisation of 'Enter Course' and so on, but seeing as there are other local towns called Bird In Hand, and Mount Joy, I suspect that the person responsible had a very juvenile sense of humour. The town sits in upstate Pennsylvania and is a tourist trap for anyone even remotely curious about the Amish way of life.
In the years since then many of these names have been changed to more elegant ones,2 and others have vanished with the ghost towns they adorned, but not a few still hang on. Indeed, there are plenty of lovely specimens to match them in the East, in regions that were also frontier in their days, e.g., the famous cluster in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania: Bird in Hand, Bareville, Blue Ball, Mt. Joy, Intercourse and Paradise.
