The Great Escape: Camping in the 19th Century

Posted by Gail Getz on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Great Escape: Camping in the 19th Century During the turbulent nineteenth century, Americans were as mobile as wheels, waterways and ambition could make them. The population was preoccupied with carving out a new nation, emigrating, pioneering, surveying, sod busting, prospecting for gold and, fundamentally, attempt­ing to preserve body and soul. With the surge westward and the consuming desire to push on to the frontiers, there was a...
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Pennsylvania’s Gift: The Decorated Tree

Posted by Nada Gray on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania’s Gift: The Decorated Tree Tall, nearly touching the ceiling, its branches pungently spicing the room, the stately tree awaits its final array­ – twinkling lights, shiny ornaments, sparkling tinsel, as well as a few precious treasures from years gone by. The Christmas tree is Pennsyl­vania’s gift to the nation, and the story of its arrival, the struggle for its acceptance and the development of its decorations...
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Bitumen: All Gone with the Wind

Posted by Leonard Parucha on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bitumen: All Gone with the Wind Maps of Pennsylvania­ – and Clinton County, for that matter – no longer carry the name of Bitumen. In fact, Bitumen has not appeared on maps for the last half-century. It’s not because the village is insignificant or unimportant. Simply put, the village is no longer there. With the excep­tion of a small wooden church and cemetery, Bitumen has disappeared. The history of Bitumen...
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Currents

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Xanthus Smith It is Sunday, March 9, 1862. Smoke hangs thick in the air. The water is littered with debris. The air even tastes bitter. Cannon roar. Cries of men pierce the din. Ironclad titans, the vessels Monitor and the Merrimac, clash in one of the fiercest confrontations of the Civil War. This is the Battle of Hampton Roads. Today, museum-goers are able to revis­it the Battle of Hampton...
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Picture Window Paradise – Welcome to Levittown

Posted by Curtis Miner on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Picture Window Paradise – Welcome to Levittown “To the outsider, Levittown, Pennsylvania, seems like a vast mirage, a city of 4,000 spanking new ranch homes where a short year ago were acres of corn and wheat … ” Ladies Home Journal, March 1953   On Monday, June 23, 1952, John and Philomena Dougherty packed up their belongings, and with their two daughters in tow, drove from a government housing project in northeast...
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#1 Extra Large Black

Posted by Marion Deppen on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on #1 Extra Large Black By the first light of dawn I could see my fencerow set held by a big skunk! It was Wednesday, November 17, 1943, the day after my sixteenth birth­day. I walked a four-mile trap line for skunk and possum from our farm near Millersburg in the Lykens Valley. Trapping was very important to me, as I had no other income; also, it was exciting, adventuresome, and challenging. I slowly walked up to the...
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The Big Engines That Could

Posted by John Wall on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Big Engines That Could On a blustery, chilly day in autumn of 1939, a dapper-looking man in his mid-forties climbed onto a railway station platform in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to watch the approach of a train. Amid billowing steam, shrouds of smoke, and rumbling loud enough to unnerve him, he watched an enormous locomotive scream past his vantage point. The sleek, sculpted machine, effortlessly pulling a passenger train,...
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The Mills Brothers Trace Roots to Bellefonte

Posted by Daniel Clemson on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Mills Brothers Trace Roots to Bellefonte Most musicologists agree: The internationally renowned Mills Brothers was the greatest vocal group of the twentieth century, a conclusion supported by mounds of evidence and unprecedented “firsts” in the world of entertainment. These family singers were the pacesetters, style blazers, and patternmakers in their field, and the first African American performing artists to attract a...
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