Styled For Worship: The Country Churches of Northwestern Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Styled For Worship: The Country Churches of Northwestern Pennsylvania In Edinboro and Cam­bridge Springs they have disappeared, but at Harmonsburg, Polk, and Watsons Run they stand yet, as they do in Sugar Grove, Pleasantville, Utica, and elsewhere – country churches built by the Presbyterian congregations of northwestern Pennsylvania. Although neither found on registers of historic properties, nor listed in guidebooks of regional attractions, these houses...
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Mount Pleasant at Fairmount Park

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Mount Pleasant at Fairmount Park Each year the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission names an outstanding example of Pennsylvania’s history as a Commonwealth Treasure. For 2001 the Commission has designated Fairmount Park. The forty-four hundred acre park is being recognized for its wealth of manmade and natural sites, which create a rich legacy of architecture, history, culture, and ecology. Founded in 1855, with...
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Old World Influences on Pennsylvania Gardens

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Old World Influences on Pennsylvania Gardens Quaker merchants who followed founder William Penn (1644-1718) to his beloved colony planted formal, English-style gardens amidst the native forest landscape. An ornamental garden suitable for a family of means in Great Britain in the seventeenth century consisted of a residence with a series of three terraces descending from the rear elevation. The upper terrace, often used as an extension of...
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Two Gentlemen of the China Trade

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on Two Gentlemen of the China Trade The American Revolution ended with the surrender of the British at the Virginia tobacco port of Yorktown on October 19,1781. For merchant traders eager to engage in commerce with China, the war would not be over until a treaty with Great Britain recognizing American independence was signed. The British Acts of Trade had forbidden the import of any goods into the colonies that had not passed...
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An Address for the Afterlife at Laurel Hill Cemetery

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on An Address for the Afterlife at Laurel Hill Cemetery It all began in 1836, when architect John Notman (1810–1865) laid out a series of meandering walkways and terraces on the east bank of the Schuylkill River above Fairmount Park. With his design for Laurel Hill Cemetery, the twenty-six-year-old native of Scotland created the first architecturally designed cemetery in the country. He also established the nation’s second garden-type cemetery,...
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