Talk:Emmaus, Pennsylvania

Untitled
I changed "Emmaus was formally founded in 1759" to "dates its founding to 1759" The reason for this choice of words is that Emmaus was not formally founded in 1759. Since Emmaus was not incorporated for about a century after it was founded, there is no clear point in history you can cite as the founding date.

Since at least as early as 1909, the date of founding was taken as 1859, when the town was incorporated. This is why the fifty year anniversary was held in 1909, and the Centenniel in 1959. This was always unsatisfactory, as it made the town seem 100 years younger than it really is. There is a now monument at Ridge and Main which dates the founding to 1759. If you study the history, you can see that this date is not keyed to any founding event, but simply dates the founding so that the quarter milleniel (250 years) of the founding falls in 2009, matching up with the sesqi-centenniel (150 years) of incorporation.

I see somebody changed the wording back to "formally founded in 1759". You should not have done this unless you can find documentation of some event in 1759 that can be categorized as being formally founded, such as issueance of a charter. Such a founding event in 1759 does not appear in any of the sources I have ever seen.

Spelling of Emmaus
I see the page has been updated the characterize the spelling of Emaus as "the Penna Dutch" spelling. Is there any evidence for this? The high German spelling for Emmaus is Emmaus. Since it is a biblical word, there should not be a different Penna Dutch spelling from the German spelling, because the bibles used by the Penna Dutch were written in the high German of the time.

My understanding is that a sign painter mis-spelled Emmaus when he made the sign for the train station at fifth st. He spelled it Emaus, and because that is what the train stop was called, people began using it. This is pretty hard to believe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.163.240.115 (talk) 02:54, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

In writing German, it was formerly customary not to write out double letters, like double "M" in Emmaus, instead they would write one "m" and put a line over it to indicate that the latter was doubled. This is the origin of the spelling of Emaus. "E-mouse" they said much later in PA German, but everyone knew it was from the biblical Emmaus, "Emma-us" in German. 108.73.44.193 (talk) 20:42, 24 May 2013 (UTC)Pastor Roy

ZIP code zone
The Emmaus ZIP code zone includes not only the borough but surrounding areas of Lower Macungie, Lower Milford, Salisbury, Upper Milford, and Upper Saucon Townships. Heff01 (talk) 05:29, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Here are the demographics for the 18049 Emmmaus zip: