This postcard was not mailed; there is no personal story attached to it.
The face of the postcard is a hand-colored photograph of “Crossing the Manatawny in Beautiful Berks”
Here, we see a covered bridge over the Manatawny Creek which is a tributary of the Schuylkill River.
The Manatawny arises from two smaller streams that meet near Lobachsville in Pike Township of Berks County.
At 18.2 miles in length, the Manatawny Creek flows through Berks County and joins the Schuylkill River at Pottstown in Montgomery County.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manatawny_Creek
(The interpretation of “Manatawny” as an indigenous reference to “where we drink liquor” is rejected by most historians and linguists.)
The very long title of the photograph (which is carried from the top to the bottom of the face) also notes the “Oley Valley” – the name given to the valley of the Manatawny which is taken from the beautiful and historic village of Oley.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oley,_Pennsylvania
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The postcard does not name this bridge, and there were several covered bridges that once crossed the Manatawny Creek.
In a Berks County History group on Facebook, most readers concluded that this photograph portrays a now-vanished bridge at Earlville.
Readers of the history group shared vintage photographs of the abutments and environs to support this hypothesis.
Today, Berks County has five remaining covered bridges.
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The photograph was made by prolific (and proficient) Berks County photographer, H. Winslow Fegley.
Fegley was based in the city of Reading, but his photographs include subjects throughout Berks County and in neighboring counties.
Here is a link to a collection of his work at Penn State University.
https://journals.psu.edu/phj/article/view/62378
On this site, we gave seen other examples of Fegley’s work: “The Daniel Boone Homestead”, “The Mounce Jones House”, “Birthplace of Governor Schulze”, and “The Schwankfelder Church at Palm”.
H, Winslow Fegley was also a good businessman who copyrighted and published his own work.

 
															


