Hex Signs and Covered Bridges

While passing through Pennsylvania on our drive to Pawtucket a couple of weeks ago, I happened to pick up a brochure on Pennsylvania’s Americana highlighting barn stars and hex signs. I was an avid Nancy Drew mystery reader when I was an adolescent and remembered reading The Witch Tree Symbol in which a hex sign leads Nancy to Pennsylvania Dutch country. High drama for a 10-year old. We’d driven through this area in the past, but never spent much time specifically looking for hex signs and they’ve always intrigued me. We hadn’t had time to explore on our way to Pawtucket, but on our way to Richmond, we did have some time to spare and decided to take a short detour to see what we could see.

I downloaded a tour map and we headed to Kutztown, PA, the official start point of the tour. It’s beautiful farm country… hilly and wooded and verdant. Settled originally by Pennsylvania Germans (aka Pennsylvania Dutch), the hex signs are considered a uniquely American folk art form. I originally thought they were associated with the Amish or Mennonites in the area, but the brochure pointed out that these religions spurn ‘fancy’ ornamentation and wouldn’t indulge in such practice. The brochure further explained that the ‘hex sign’ misnomer was a result of a 1924 book by Wallace Nutting ‘Pennsylvania the Beautiful’ in which Nutting ‘inaccurately dubbed [the stars as] superstitious hexafoos’. Though the term ‘hex sign’ stuck, the artwork is more properly referred to as a barn star.

A lovely old barn with two different star designs. 8-pointed star designs are the most popular barn stars in this area and symbolize the Compass rose as well as sun and fertility. .

Enough history… back to the tour. We followed the prescribed route and lo and behold, barns with colorful and varied stars appeared. Evidently, there’s more to the art form than just the geometric design. There’s lots of symbology (is this a Dan Brown novel?) in the stars. Here’s an example.

One thing led to another as is often the case with our detours. At a visitor center, I had picked up another brochure describing Pennsylvania’s 200 covered bridges, all that remains of the original 1,500 or so public and private covered bridges that were once in use . Unfortunately, we had passed the area with the highest concentration of bridges and there were none close by. Sigh! As we continued our travels and crossed into Maryland, however, I saw a road sign.. What’s a few more minutes (hours?) delay? 

Maryland, I learned, has six remaining authentic covered bridges and we took a slight detour to see a couple of them. There’s a certain allure to covered bridges beyond the architectural designs. We’d checked out covered bridges in Vermont several years ago as well as the Bridges of Madison County Iowa back in 2010. Perhaps the appeal stems from the historic nature of the bridges or their novelty in today’s world of 10-lane super highways and interstates. Rumbling across the wooden planks in the car or walking across them evokes a pleasant nostalgia… not to mention the traditional kiss that accompanies the walk. And, of course, they’re very photogenic. Take a look.

In truth, part of our lingering was waiting for the results of a Covid PCR test. We’d been with unvaccinated folks and wanted to make sure we were safe for our upcoming visit. Additionally, Brennan had a delayed return from a business trip, so we had a couple more days to explore. Join us in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia next time… history and the Appalachian Trail.