Having adjusted to being a hermit, living in seclusion, Mountain Mary supported herself with the aid of a milk cow or two and the friendship of neighbors who marketed her butter and cheese goods when they went to nearby farm markets. But, having been cheated out of love with the death of her beloved Theodore almost as soon as she arrived in America, she was more than a Christian healer to anyone who sought to have her assist them in healing an affliction. So, as time went along, her powers to heal people of even serious afflictions became famous.
Thus, the power of positive thinking was a healing power that worked on her behalf, besides the powerful personal ability of prayer. But, living in God’s natural habitat with Mother Nature, “Berg Maria” had aged in such a way that the country people thought of her that she should be canonized as a Saint. The Mother Nature ambience that she possessed was, perhaps, the bygone personality she retained from the 18th Century, humility in Christ Jesus that only true believers know. The Legend of Mountain Mary, “Berg Maria” (Mary Young), is an excellent example of the tie between the people of the Oley Valley and the citizens of the port City of Philadelphia during the American Revolution. Maria Young was born in Wurttemberg, Germany and was taken to America by her parents after they sold their farm in 1768 to start a new life in America with a number of other Pennsylvania Dutch/Germans.
Unfortunately though, both her parents died on the 92 day voyage to America and were buried at sea. Poor Maria, left alone on this ship with other Germans, sought freedom in William Penn’s colony of Pennsylvania, but met this young lad named Theodore Benz who had befriended her father when he became gravely ill on the ship. Thereby, Maria and Theodore consoled each other on the way to the port city of Philadelphia. However, unlike Maria, Theodore had not paid for his sea voyage to America, but instead had promised to allow the sea captain to sell himself as an indentured servant for a few years upon landing in Philadelphia.
Maria, upon remembering that her father had given her money before he died on the ship, offered to pay for Theodore’s passage, but the greedy sea captain knew that young Theodore’s indenture contract would be worth more when they docked at Philadelphia. Reverend Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, a passenger on the ship, overheard Maria Young’s dilemma and interceded for her to have the captain accept the price of Theodore’s passage, since she no longer had parents and this young couple were ideal for each other.
Upon docking at the port of Philadelphia and realizing that Maria and young Theodore needed fatherly advice, Rev. Muhlenberg introduced them to a Christian woman named Mrs. Kreuderin, who operated a boarding house known as the “Golden Swan on Sassafras Street” (now Race Street) in Philadelphia. A benevolent woman, who realized Maria and Theodore needed plenty of help adjusting to American life in the New World. Kreuderin was also in need of assistance operating the Golden Swan tavern in which upstate farmers from the Oley Valley stayed on occasion, as well as Lutherans who were administered to by Reverend Muhlenberg.
Eventually, a farmer from Oley Valley, Frederick Leinbach, stayed at the Golden Swan and offered Theodore Benz a job working on his farm in the Oley Valley where Theodore felt at home, since most of the natives spoke a PA German Dialect similar to his. Up in age, Mr. Leinbach was appreciative of Theodore’s hard work and he became the manager of his farm. At the same time, he kept in touch with Maria Young romantically, each time he came in the City of Philadelphia on farming trips, deciding eventually to marry and live their lives in the picturesque Oley Valley. While Maria Young and Theodore were happily living among patriotic PA Germans in southeastern Pennsylvania on their farm, they became discontent with the British crown encroaching on their’s and others’ frontier land and freedom of liberty.
Reverend Muhlenberg, Benjamin Franklin and other intelligent citizens knew that it would not be long before their Sons would be called into defending the liberty, for which many citizens had immigrated to America. Therefore, a volunteer troop under Captain Hiester of Berks County was raised, in which Theodore Benz, Isaac Levan and other Oley Valley natives volunteered. Shortly thereafter, Hiester’s troop left for New England, but not before Theodore and Maria Young were married by Rev. Muhlenberg at Saint Michael’s Church. But, in the Battle of Long Island, Maria’s patriotic husband, Theodore, lost his life with other soldiers fighting for freedom. Prior to this, however, Frederick Leinbach had given his faithful worker, Theodore Benz, a 175 acre tract of land in Pike Township for a farm on which he and Maria might someday live their lives together.
After Theodore lost his life in the American Revolution, no one wanted to tell poor Maria that her faithful husband was dead; Maria Young was eventually somewhat consoled when Frederick Leinbach and friends built a log house and barn on this secluded tract of land near Hill Church for her to live as a hermit high in the Oley mountains, where she fed a few cows and raised food for herself in seclusion and made butter that she took to market. A significant herbalist, living with Mother Nature, she used native herbs to cure sickness and human affliction. She was a person whose folk medicine cures had steadfast belief in Christianity, acquired from Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, and thereby earned for her the reputation of being a Saint, surviving in seclusion.
Richard L.T. Orth is assistant director of the American Folklife Institute in Kutztown.
