Visionary Road to the Capital by David Biser

Posted by on Aug 9, 2024 in | Comments Off on Visionary Road to the Capital by David Biser Visionary Road to the Capital The Little Known Story of John Harris Jr. by David Biser Orison Publishers, 108 pages, paperback $19.95 This slender volume is a must for anyone interested in early Harrisburg and Pennsylvania’s frontier history. It is the first and only book-length biography of John Harris II (1726–91, sometimes called John Harris Jr.), the founder of Harrisburg, and has been a...
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The New Pennsylvania State Archives Building: A Design to Preserve the Commonwealth’s Significant Documents and an Engangered American Hardwood

Posted by on Aug 9, 2024 in | Comments Off on The New Pennsylvania State Archives Building: A Design to Preserve the Commonwealth’s Significant Documents and an Engangered American Hardwood In my 42-year career as an architect, it’s been rare to get the opportunity to manage the design of a major civic building such as the Pennsylvania State Archives. The former State Archives building, completed as part of a complex with The State Museum of Pennsylvania in December 1964, was designed by the central Pennsylvania firm of Lawrie & Green and served its purpose for nearly 60 years....
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Carved in Stone, Revealed in New Light: Early Gravestone Carvers and Funerary Folk Culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch

Posted by on Aug 9, 2024 in | Comments Off on Carved in Stone, Revealed in New Light: Early Gravestone Carvers and Funerary Folk Culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch In the winter of 1747, tragedy struck in the Tulpehocken Valley. Leonard Rieth (1691–1747) — among the first German-speaking settlers to journey into the valley from Schoharie, New York, in 1723 — was crushed by two cogs in his gristmill along the Mill Creek. Rieth’s untimely death also coincided with a schism that divided the Lutheran congregation that bore his family name: Rieth’s (later...
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Outstanding Perseverance and Courage: Pennsylvania’s Thomas Mosley and the Montford Point Marines in World War II

Posted by on Aug 9, 2024 in | Comments Off on Outstanding Perseverance and Courage: Pennsylvania’s Thomas Mosley and the Montford Point Marines in World War II In November 1943, a young Black man sat in a military recruiting office in Philadelphia. At first, joining the Marines seemed like a good idea, but with the paperwork completed, he thought of a relative who had been in the Navy and decided he might like that service better. “Sir, I would like to be exchanged into the Navy instead of the Marines.” It was a simple statement, said in a respectful...
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Hershey Rose Garden

Posted by on Aug 25, 2021 in | Comments Off on Hershey Rose Garden Created at the bequest of Milton S. Hershey (1857–1945), the Hershey Rose Garden (now Hershey Gardens) began as a 3½-acre floral park for public enjoyment featuring 175 varieties of roses. Hershey had a long-standing interest in gardening and had built several glass conservatories to grow and display plants year-round near his mansion home, High Point, recognized as a National Historic Landmark...
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Sure to Attract Much Attention: The Advertising Genius of Milton S. Hershey

Posted by on Dec 29, 2020 in | Comments Off on Sure to Attract Much Attention: The Advertising Genius of Milton S. Hershey Milton S. Hershey, the man behind the chocolate bar, was an innovative and resourceful manufacturer who used a variety of traditional as well as unconventional strategies to both advertise and attract attention to his products. He was born in Derry Township, Dauphin County, on September 13, 1857. After spending the first eight years of his life in Dauphin County, he lived 10 years in Lancaster...
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Remembering TMI 40 Years Later

Posted by on Feb 3, 2020 in | Comments Off on Remembering TMI 40 Years Later In late March 1979, south-central Pennsylvanians were startled to learn of an accident that had occurred at Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant in the Susquehanna River near Middletown, Dauphin County. In my own experience, the initial news came to me at Dallastown Elementary School in York County after a teacher shouted out to my fifth-grade class to come back inside the school building...
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Lost Revolutionary War-Era Legislative Minutes Returned / Scholars in Residence

Posted by on Jan 14, 2020 in | Comments Off on Lost Revolutionary War-Era Legislative Minutes Returned / Scholars in Residence Lost Revolutionary War-Era Legislative Minutes Returned A lost original volume of the minutes of Pennsylvania’s unicameral Revolutionary War–era General Assembly was recently returned to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for safekeeping at the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg, Dauphin County. The book, with entries dated from March 16 through September 27, 1779, and pages numbered 1...
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Sydney Ware, Eastern State Penitentiary Artist

Posted by on Dec 17, 2019 in | Comments Off on Sydney Ware, Eastern State Penitentiary Artist Built in the 1820s as part of a new type of prison system, Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia was founded on the belief that prisoners could be rehabilitated during incarceration through separate confinement and industrious labor. During the penitentiary’s span of operation, 1829–1971, numerous records were compiled about the inmates and maintained at the prison, including statistics on...
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A British Lord in the Pennsylvania State Archives / Art of the State 2018

Posted by on Dec 1, 2019 in | Comments Off on A British Lord in the Pennsylvania State Archives / Art of the State 2018 A British Lord in the Pennsylvania State Archives In April 2018 a member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom visited the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, to study documents related to Pennsylvania’s founder and first proprietor William Penn in hopes of learning more about issues of tolerance. Nathanael Ming-Yan “Nat” Wei of Shoreditch was introduced in the House...
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