Monster Bones: Charles Willson Peale and the Mysterious Nondescript Animal

Posted by on Oct 28, 2019 in | Comments Off on Monster Bones: Charles Willson Peale and the Mysterious Nondescript Animal On October 14, 1800, a New York City newspaper called Mercantile Advertiser published a rather lengthy news/opinion piece on some large and very curious bones that had been unearthed on a farm belonging to John Masten, located about 14 miles from the New York state village of Newburgh. The unidentified author observed that “these huge bones irresistibly force upon us by the power of associating...
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Into the Dark World of Catching Crooks, Culprits and Convicts: An Interview with Robert K. Wittman

Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Into the Dark World of Catching Crooks, Culprits and Convicts: An Interview with Robert K. Wittman by Michael J. O’Malley III Robert King “Bob” Wittman in no way resembles the highly romanticized portrayals of FBI agents made famous over the decades by movie studios and television series. He is not the heavy-hitting, gang-busting, chain-smoking G-man, replete with fedora rakishly angled atop his head. Instead, he embodies the old-school preppy style – looking as though...
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The Parker Sisters by Lucy Maddox

Posted by on Jun 6, 2016 in | Comments Off on The Parker Sisters by Lucy Maddox The Parker Sisters: A Border Kidnapping by Lucy Maddox Temple University Press, 256 pp., cloth $28.50 The border where Chester County, Pennsylvania, adjoined Cecil County, Maryland, was contested territory in the conflict between “free” and “slave” states in the decades before the Civil War. Lucy Maddox provides a thoroughly researched account of one notable incident in this history, the...
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Daisy Lampkin: A Life of Love and Service

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Daisy Lampkin: A Life of Love and Service The March 11, 1965 front-page, banner headline of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, oldest newspaper in the United States west of the Allegheny Mountains, de­clared: “Alabama Race Tensions Mount … Marchers Defy Ban by Wallace.” The editorial page posed the ques­tion: “What Peace in Selma?” Just one day earlier, March 10, Pittsburgh’s Daisy Lampkin, whose life of...
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Adams County: Tranquility Regained

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Adams County: Tranquility Regained One of Pennsylvania’s smaller counties, both in size and population, Adams County developed much the same as similar settlements along the Atlantic Seaboard. Its growth during the past two and a half centu­ries has been governed by its own particular circumstances, including location, terrain, soil, climate, vegetation, min­eral resources and the accom­plishments of the immigrants and...
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Franklin County

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Franklin County Our forefathers never could have envisioned the Franklin County we live in today. The hardships and struggles to merely survive while trying to establish new homes in a new land on a new frontier created memories that will live as long as man cares to remember. Modern major highways, a wide diversification of industry, fertile farm lands and persons who still care help make Franklin County, the...
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Transportation in Pennsylvania in 1776

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Transportation in Pennsylvania in 1776 During the Revolution, Pennsylvania was a central stage from the standpoint of geography, leadership, manpower, and supplies. Therefore, its transportation facilities were of special significance. The southeastern part of the State produced large quantities of the very materials needed by the Continental Army. A modest network of roads made possible the transporting of those materials to Valley...
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Lost and Found

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost Following World War II, the United States Steel Corporation’s massive Homestead Works in Allegheny County employed nearly fifteen thousand work­ers. The sprawling works, site of the infamous Homestead Steel Strike of 1892, closed in July 1986 and demolition began soon after. But all is not lost. While much of the plant is gone, there are plans to pre­serve the Pinkerton Landing, site...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts Nearly one hundred watercolors and drawings of fruits, flowers, ani­mals, and saints by artists working in the cities of Jaipur and Bikaner, India, will remain on view at the Carnegie Mellon University’s Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation through Friday, February 24, 1995. The exhibition of natural history works of art features pieces created in Rajasthan, the desert state of...
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Currents

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Currents Hello, History! The former Chautauqua Lake Ice Company warehouse in Pittsburgh’s historic Strip District will come to life on Sunday, April 28 [1996], when it officially opens to the public as the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center. Renovated by the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, which has been protecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of the...
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