Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Winter 2026

Posted by on Jan 14, 2026 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Winter 2026 Topics in the Winter 2026 Newsletter: Winter Events of the Trails of History Forthcoming U.S. 250th Events on the Trails of History Winter-2026-newsletter...
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Back to the Cloister Fund

Posted by on Jan 14, 2026 in | Comments Off on Back to the Cloister Fund In 1925, Rev. Samuel Zerfass faced a quandary. He needed a new suit, but he lacked the funds for such a substantial purchase. Zerfass was a minister with the Society of German Seventh Day Baptists, a last vestige of the Ephrata Cloister religious community. With a dwindling membership and an entire campus of historic structures in disrepair, financial resources were limited. Undaunted, Zerfass...
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Bark Peelers’ Festival 50

Posted by on Sep 8, 2025 in | Comments Off on Bark Peelers’ Festival 50 The Pennsylvania Lumber Museum’s Bark Peelers’ Festival event celebrates its 50th occurrence in July 2025. Referred to as the “Bark Peelers’ Convention” from its inception in 1974 through the 2014 iteration, the festival is the museum’s largest and most well-known yearly special event. Attendance has fluctuated over the years, from a high of approximately 4,000 to 5,000 people during the 1980s...
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The Hobby That Became a Museum: Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum, 1925–2025

Posted by on Aug 29, 2025 in | Comments Off on The Hobby That Became a Museum: Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum, 1925–2025 Brothers Henry Landis (1865–1955) and George Landis (1867–1954), the founders of Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum, were descendants of Germanic Mennonite families who moved to the area that would become Lancaster County in 1717. As young boys, Henry and George were encouraged by their forward-thinking parents and several teachers to pursue their personal interests and begin collecting....
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Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania 50

Posted by on Jun 11, 2025 in | Comments Off on Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania 50 Rising from the rolling hills and lush farmlands of Lancaster County is a sprawling complex of exhibit buildings, train tracks, and historic railroad equipment. Together, they tell the story of how railroads changed the lives of people for more than two centuries. For 50 years now, the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania has preserved and interpreted the commonwealth’s rich railroad history. It has...
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Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Winter 2025

Posted by on Feb 24, 2025 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Winter 2025 Topics in the Winter 2025 Newsletter: Winter Events on the Pennsylvania Trails of History PHF Welcomes Art of the State Winter-2025-PHF-Newsletter...
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Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Fall 2024

Posted by on Nov 18, 2024 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Fall 2024 Topics in the Fall 2024 Newsletter: Essay Winners Announced for PHF’s New Scholarship Fund Be a Part of History – Volunteer PHF Announces New Board Member pah-fall-2024-PHFnewsletter...
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Preserving Washington’s Headquarters

Posted by on Nov 18, 2024 in | Comments Off on Preserving Washington’s Headquarters On the morning of September 9, 1777, Gen. George Washington and units of his Continental Army arrived in the village of Chads (later Chadds) Ford. Its strategic location on the Great Nottingham Road (today U.S. Route 1) and along the banks of the Brandywine Creek made it a likely place for an attack as the British army crept closer to the rebel capital of Philadelphia. As his anxious troops took...
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Commemorating Joseph Priestley’s Discovery of Oxygen

Posted by on Mar 29, 2024 in | Comments Off on Commemorating Joseph Priestley’s Discovery of Oxygen A theologian, educator, political theorist and scientist, Dr. Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) was a man of the Enlightenment. “By the age of 61,” Steven Johnson wrote in The Invention of Air, “Priestley had won the Copley Medal (the Nobel Prize of its day) for his experiments on various gases in his late thirties . . . published close to 500 books and pamphlets on science,...
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Looking Back at 2023

Posted by on Dec 1, 2023 in | Comments Off on Looking Back at 2023 As we do every year in these pages (for the last dozen years or so, anyway), it’s time to take a look at highlights of the year that was.   Art of the State 2023 The State Museum of Pennsylvania’s annual juried art exhibition, Art of the State, opened on September 10. This year 559 artists submitted 1,915 entries. Selection jurors Deborah Pinter (Cleveland Institute of Art), Kyle Hackett...
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