The Historical Society of Montgomery County will be hosting a guided tour of the Historic Montgomery Cemetery followed by a moon watch on Aug. 30 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The tour, led by the historical society’s executive director, Barry Rauhauser, occurs several times a year — some with or without a moon watch. After the tour, attendees can watch the Blue Moon rise at 7:35 p.m. The Blue Moon occurs when there are two full moons in a single month. The Aug. 30-31 supermoon will be the closest, biggest, and brightest full supermoon of 2023, according to a press release.
The Aug. 30 tour will be the third tour in 2023 with a moon watch.
Recently, the historical society has been doing more programs at the cemetery and found that the attendees enjoyed touring the cemetery closer to dusk, said Karen Ploch, curator at the Historical Society of Montgomery County.
“They really enjoyed watching sunsets at the cemetery, so our executive directors said, ‘let's start doing tours on nights when we know there's going to be a full moon’ because you can time it so that the sunset happens towards the end of the tour, and shortly after the sun sets, that's when you see the moon rise,” Ploch said.
Historic Montgomery Cemetery, located at One Hartranft Avenue off West Main Street in Norristown, has almost 6,000 known burials, including at least five Civil War generals, many captains of industry and over 400 veterans from the War of 1812 through the Korean War. It’s the first nonsectarian cemetery in the county.
“It's a beautiful cemetery and there's so much history
there,” Ploch said. “It's a really nice way for community members who maybe
wouldn't have met each other otherwise to kind of bond over a shared community
history that is here at the cemetery.”
Tickets are $10 per person. Attendees can purchase tickets or RSVP by calling
the Historical Society of Montgomery County at 610-272-0297 or email at [email protected]. Parking will be
available within the Cemetery Gates.
