Some peddlers followed regular routes in the region and thus established relationships with families along the way, said Joel Alderfer, librarian and curator of the Mennonite Heritage Center in Harleysville. The peddlers were also a source of information in isolated areas. Sometimes, Alderfer said, if the peddler was a recent immigrant, he might also bring news of what was going on in the old country. The peddlers who came into the region represented a number of ethnic groups, but many were Jewish. Evidence of this closeness between immigrant Jews and German-speaking Christians is to be found on Gerloff Road in Neiffer, near Limerick, on land once owned by farmer Samuel Neiffer.
Today there is a single stone marker there, surrounded by an iron fence.
The conjecture is that the wife of a Jewish peddler died far from home while traveling with her husband, and that Neiffer allowed her to be buried on his property. Within the peddler community, there were always a few con artists who sold faulty goods or items that had no real value. But in rural areas, such peddlers were long remembered and they were onetime callers. Yet around the turn of the century, the state legislature passed a law to restrict the activities of peddlers. This law had little impact on the trade of the rural peddler.