Hanover Township

This township lies east of the Lehigh River, and is bounded onthe north and east by Northampton county, south and west by the Lehigh river. The population was at the last census of 1900, 3,324. The Lehighriver and Monocacy creek are the principal streams that water the township. The soil is fertile and of limestone formation. The land is level and the principal occupations of the people are farming, stock raising, dairy, trucking, and there are also iron works, flour mills, silk mills, tanneries, brick works, fire brick works, lime kilns, limestone quarries, etc.

VILLAGES-Rittersvllle, a town midway between Allentown and Bethlehem on the Allentown and Bethlehem turnpike and the Lehigh Valley Traction railway ; it has a fine park and is a nice Summer resort for the city people, has numerous stores, hotels, churches, schoolhouse and cemetery, It was founded in 1808 by Michael Ritter. The population in 1900 was 525. Schoenersville, situated on the boundary line between Hanover township, Lehigh county and Hanover township, Northampton county, the population in 1900 estimated about 200. It contains a store, hotel, post office, and was founded in 1784 by Adam Schoener. East Allentown was founded in 1828 is a suburb of Allentown, it contains several stores, hotels, mills, tannery, fire brick works, lumber yards and limestone quarries, The Lehigh canal, Lehigh and Susquehanna R.R. and the L. V, Traction railway pass through the place, It is connected with Allentown by a fine large bridge. Population 1200. Post office-Allentown. The earliest schools in the township were at Schoenersville, Rittersville and West Bethlehem. . The free school system was accepted in 1834, while the other townships in the County rejected it in that year. It contains excellent schools both graded and ungraded. The first road in the township was the one leading from Bethlehem to Gnadenhutten, (now Lehighton), and was laid out by order of the court of Bucks county in 1747, it was used as a military road from 1755 to 1761. The next road was the one leading from the Philadelphia road in Salisbury township crossing the Lehigh river by a ford near the old house on the Geissinger's farm, passing through what is now Rittersville and Schoenersville.