Dave Maher, Author at Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine

Parkside Chapel

Posted by Dave Maher on Aug 13, 2021 in | Comments Off Located near Henryville, in Paradise Township, Monroe County, Parkside Chapel stands as an architectural reminder of the growth of the Pocono Mountains region as a popular destination for affluent outdoorsmen and vacationers in the late 19th century. Following the American Civil War, logging was the leading industry in the region; however, as the forests were quickly being depleted, it became...
read more

Charles Carroll Public School

Posted by Dave Maher on Apr 23, 2020 in | Comments Off By the late 1960s the Philadelphia public school system was faced with a crisis. The urban population, after years of growth and expansion to the city’s outskirts and beyond, was now in decline. At the same time racial tensions became prevalent as the urban population became more integrated. Many Philadelphia public schools, especially those found in integrating or depressed neighborhoods, had...
read more

Shippensburg’s Locust Grove Cemetery

Posted by Dave Maher on Dec 31, 2019 in | Comments Off The town of Shippensburg, in the heart of the Cumberland Valley, was first settled in the 1730s. Some of the Europeans who moved into the area brought African American slaves with them. The exact number of slaves is unknown; it was not until after Pennsylvania’s 1780 Act for the Gradual Emancipation of Slavery that the numbers of slaves and slaveholders were recorded. Nevertheless, Shippensburg,...
read more

Hotel Lykens

Posted by Dave Maher on Oct 29, 2019 in | Comments Off For many years, anthracite coal mining was the main source of livelihood for the residents of Lykens, a borough in northern Dauphin County. By the early 1920s, the industry was in decline, causing the community’s population and economy to waver. Meanwhile across the country, as automobile ownership was increasing, community leaders noticed that hotels and other services associated with travel...
read more

Lackawanna Mills and Scranton Button Historic District

Posted by Dave Maher on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off At the crossing of Cedar Avenue over Stafford Meadow Brook in southern Scranton, Lackawanna County, lies a roughly 5-acre city block of industrial buildings that contains a history just as dense and layered as the location itself. In 1887 Scranton industrialist William Connell (1827-1909) founded two separate businesses at the site: Lackawanna Mills, a major manufacturer of wool and cotton...
read more

Friends Housing Cooperative

Posted by Dave Maher on Sep 9, 2016 in | Comments Off In Philadelphia’s East Poplar neighborhood, at North 8th and North Franklin streets between Brown Street and Fairmount Avenue, sits a rather unassuming block of 19th-century townhouses. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in October 2015, the Friends Housing Cooperative is in fact a truly unique example of historic preservation as a model for urban rehabilitation. The co-op was a...
read more

Rock Ford Plantation

Posted by Dave Maher on Apr 19, 2016 in | Comments Off Nestled in the rolling terrain of Lancaster’s Central Park, near the banks of the Conestoga River, sits historic Rock Ford Plantation, the stately Georgian-style manor of Revolutionary War general Edward Hand (1744-1802). Built in 1793 the nearly 200-acre farm offered respite from the bustle of nearby Lancaster for the Hand family. The property also included two barns, a tenant house, a...
read more

Original Little League Field

Posted by Dave Maher on May 11, 2015 in | Comments Off Like many boys growing up in the 1930s, the nephews of Williamsport resident Carl E. Stotz (1910-92) were baseball fanatics. After playing countless games of “pitch and catch” with the boys, Stotz promised them that he would develop a game of baseball on a size and scale appropriate for younger players. He kept his promise. In the late summer of 1938 he gathered his nephews and other local boys...
read more