Wyalusing Rocks and the Federal Writers’ Project

Posted by on Oct 25, 2019 in | Comments Off on Wyalusing Rocks and the Federal Writers’ Project Peering northwest at the Lehigh Valley Railroad and surrounding farmland from Wyalusing Rocks, several hundred feet above the Susquehanna River in Bradford County, these four observers are likely Federal Writers’ Project field workers. A spectacular lookout first revered by the region’s native inhabitants, Wyalusing Rocks is an outcropping of red sandstone located along the Warrior’s Path, a...
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John Nicholson and Land as a Lure in the Infant Nation, 1790-1800

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on John Nicholson and Land as a Lure in the Infant Nation, 1790-1800 John Nicholson was an early Pennsylvania land speculator, financier and entrepreneur. He was born in 1757, emigrated from Wales at an early age and died in 1800. While serving as comptroller-general of the state (1782-1794), he was a major factor in helping Pennsylvania achieve financial solvency after the revolutionary war. In this capac­ity, Nicholson created political alliances with those who...
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Bradford County: Sanctuary in the Meadows

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bradford County: Sanctuary in the Meadows It seemed as implausible as it was urgent: that French aristo­crats, the select inner circle closest to King Louis XVI, and perhaps even Marie Antionette herself, would flee the conti­nent and take refuge in the immense and isolated wilderness of what is now Bradford County. Implausible or not, a band of brave French exiles – the crown’s endangered courtiers and office­holders,...
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Daniel Boone: The Formative Years

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Daniel Boone: The Formative Years Baumstown’s most famous resident lived in the rural village two and a half cen­turies ago, but he hasn’t been forgotten by generations of Berks countians – or by the rest of the nation for that matter. Nineteen Eighty-Four may best be remembered for its apocalyptic tidings, cour­tesy of writer George Orwell, but it also marked, in November, the 250th anniver­sary of the birth...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor Profile: Nellie Bly The biography of Nellie Bly appearing in Profiles in the Winter 2003 edition states that Elizabeth Jane Cochran adopted the pseudonym from a song written by Stephen Foster in 1870. Just to set the record straight, Foster died in 1864. According to Ken Emerson, author of Doo-Dah: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture, Foster wrote Nellie Bly in 1850. One of...
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Camptown

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Camptown Stephen Collins Foster, son of Ger­man immigrants William Barclay and Eliza Tomlinson Foster, was born in Lawrenceville, near Pittsburgh, on July 4, 1826. As a child, he seemed to have more interest in music than in school. As a teen he was composing music, including “Oh! Susanna.” His first published song, “Open Thy Lattice Love,” was published in Philadelphia in 1844....
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“In Immortal Splendor”: Wilkes-Barre’s Fugitive Slave Case of 1853

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on “In Immortal Splendor”: Wilkes-Barre’s Fugitive Slave Case of 1853 On Saturday morning, September 3, 1853, U.S. Federal Marshal George Wynkoop of Philadelphia and two deputies, John Jenkins and James Crossen, sat down to breakfast in the dining room of the Phoenix Hotel on River Street in the Luzerne County seat of Wilkes-Barre. At the far end of the room was a handsome, powerfully built mulatto named Bill (or, according to various newspaper accounts, known as...
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Lloyd Mifflin: Artist of the Susquehanna

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lloyd Mifflin: Artist of the Susquehanna While many artists have painted the majestic Susquehanna River, none were as devoted to studying, rhapsodizing about its beauty and, ultimately, painting it in its many moods as was Pennsylvania native Lloyd Mifflin (1846–1921). In many ways, Mifflin typified the romantic, if often improbable, late nineteenth-century image of the artist as an attractive, highly sensitive, elitist dandy who...
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