Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Bryn Athyn, PA

Bryn Athyn is a home rule borough in Montgomery County that exists because of religion: it was incorporated on February 8, 1916, after splitting from Moreland Township so that a Swedenborgian congregation could govern itself.

Bryn Athyn had just 400 residents living in 62 homes when it was incorporated, and its population was 1,272 at the 2020 census.

The name Bryn Athyn was intended to mean 'Hill of Unity' — 'bryn' is Welsh for hill — and it was approved on September 25, 1899.

The community was founded in the 1890s by followers of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, a Swedenborgian Christian church, and financed by industrialist John Pitcairn, a co-founder of Pittsburgh Plate Glass.

Roughly 90 percent of Bryn Athyn's residents are members of the Swedenborgian church, making the borough one of the most religiously uniform communities in the country.

Bryn Athyn Cathedral, built between 1913 and 1919 under the direction of Raymond Pitcairn, serves as the episcopal seat of the General Church of the New Jerusalem.

The Bryn Athyn Historic District, designated a National Historic Landmark District in 2008, includes Cairnwood Estate, Glencairn — now the Glencairn Museum — and Cairncrest, once the home of autogyro pioneer Harold Pitcairn.

Bryn Athyn is home to Bryn Athyn College, the Academy of the New Church Secondary Schools, a theological school, and the Swedenborg Library.

Unusually, the Bryn Athyn Borough School District operates no public schools at all, and about 90 percent of the borough's school-age children attend private schools.

On December 5, 1921, a head-on collision between two trains in Bryn Athyn killed 27 people, a disaster that helped lead to the ban on wooden passenger rail cars.