Hamburg, Pennsylvania
Near Reading, Pennsylvania
The town of Hamburg, tucked against the Blue Mountains in Berks County, traces its roots to a German immigrant named Martin Kaercher, who arrived from the German state of Hesse in seventeen thirty-eight and acquired this land in seventeen seventy-two. His son Martin Junior laid out the town lots in seventeen seventy-nine, and for years people called it Kearchertown. The name Hamburg stuck by seventeen eighty-seven, but the origin of the name is debated.
Some say it honors the northern German seaport, while others suggest it echoes Bad Homburg, whose Taunus hills resemble the Blue Mountains here. The borough was formally incorporated in eighteen thirty-seven, and today about four thousand people live there beneath those same forested mountains.
