230-Acre Montgomery County Park Along Pennypack Creek
183 Moredon Road, Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public access during posted park hours (typically dawn to dusk). The park is closed overnight; do not attempt after-hours entry.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Mix of paved parking and access roads, gravel paths, and forested foot trails along Pennypack Creek. Some trails require sturdy footwear.
Equipment
Photos OK
Lorimer Park's 230 acres along the Pennypack Creek were assembled in the early twentieth century as the private country estate of George Horace Lorimer, who served as editor of the Saturday Evening Post from 1899 to 1936. Lorimer's editorship transformed the Post into the largest-circulation magazine in the United States during the interwar period and made him one of the most influential print-media figures of his generation. He used the Pennypack Creek property as a personal retreat from his Curtis Publishing Company office in central Philadelphia.
Following Lorimer's death in 1937, his estate transferred the property to Montgomery County in 1940 for use as a public park. The park's central feature is Council Rock, a sandstone outcropping above the creek that local and regional tradition identifies as a Lenape council site. The Lenape were the indigenous people of the lower Delaware Valley, and the Pennypack Creek corridor was an important Lenape transit and settlement route prior to European displacement during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Lorimer Park has operated continuously since 1940 as a Montgomery County public park, with hiking trails along the creek, equestrian access, and seasonal nature programming. The Mausoleum-like stone pyramid that local folklore associates with the property is a private burial monument located on adjacent or formerly-adjacent land rather than within the public park itself.
Sources
Folklore around Lorimer Park has accumulated across decades of public-park use. The most commonly cited reports describe apparitions observed on winter evenings along the wooded trails north of the main parking area; an isolated stone pyramid set deep in the woods said to glow red on certain nights; and the suggestion of a mansion fire on the property in the late nineteenth century, with associated reports of screams and smoke smell.
These accounts do not align cleanly with the documented property history. George Horace Lorimer assembled the estate in the early twentieth century rather than the nineteenth; no major mansion fire is recorded on the property in primary archival sources. The stone pyramid is likely the private burial monument located on adjacent land, which appears red under certain lighting conditions due to the iron content of the stone rather than under unusual circumstances.
The park's most archivally substantive feature — Council Rock — is associated with documented Lenape council use rather than with paranormal folklore, and is most appropriately understood as a cultural-heritage site to be approached with respect. Visitors interested in Lenape history of the Pennypack Creek corridor should consult the cultural resources of the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania directly.
Walk Lorimer Park's network of trails along the Pennypack Creek, including the path past Council Rock — a sandstone outcropping with documented Lenape historical association. The 230-acre Montgomery County park preserves an unusually intact stretch of Pennypack creek bottom within the Philadelphia metropolitan area.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Dillon, MT
Bannack State Park preserves Montana's first territorial capital and one of the West's most intact ghost towns. Founded after the July 28, 1862 gold strike at Grasshopper Creek, Bannack grew to a peak population of approximately 10,000 before declining through the late 19th and 20th centuries. More than 50 historic structures survive along the original main street.
Horsham, PA
The Keith House was built between 1721 and 1722 as the country residence of Sir William Keith, the colonial governor of Pennsylvania. It is the only surviving home of a Pennsylvania colonial governor and is preserved by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as the Graeme Park state historic site. The house and grounds are a National Historic Landmark.
Watertown, CT
Leatherman's Cave is a rock shelter on the Mattatuck Trail near Black Rock State Park in Watertown, Connecticut. It is one of dozens of rock overhangs used between approximately 1858 and 1889 by the man known to nineteenth-century Connecticut and lower Hudson Valley residents as the Leather Man, who walked a roughly 365-mile circular route every 34 days for nearly three decades.