“I Would Have a Brew House”

Posted by on May 6, 2024 in | Comments Off on “I Would Have a Brew House” Virtually from its founding, settlers and visitors to the Philadelphia area perceived possibilities for a thriving brewing industry there. Thomas Budd, in 1685, wrote, “I do not question but that we might make good strong sound Beer, Ale and Rum, that would keep well to Barbadoes . . . I question not but if it be well brewed in a seasonable time of the Year, and put up in good Casks, but...
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Shall Liberty Dwell? James Forten and the Struggle for Black Rights in Early Pennsylvania

Posted by on Dec 1, 2023 in | Comments Off on Shall Liberty Dwell? James Forten and the Struggle for Black Rights in Early Pennsylvania James Forten “is not the most well-known of Revolutionary War–era patriots,” Stephan Salisbury observed in The Philadelphia Inquirer of November 14, 2021. The qualification enabled Salisbury to emphasize the importance of Forten’s contribution to the construction of the United States: “But his story is an essential American story.” It is appropriate to proclaim Forten’s life “essential” to the...
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From the Executive Director

Posted by on Nov 29, 2021 in | Comments Off on From the Executive Director Last weekend at The State Museum of Pennsylvania, I met a member of the Delaware Tribe (the Lenape). He grew up in Oklahoma, where his tribe is located today, and this was his first visit to Pennsylvania. Prior to coming to Harrisburg, he had visited the Delaware Water Gap. I was captivated as he talked about seeing the Delaware River for the first time. The river looms large in Lenape history,...
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2017 Trails

Posted by on Oct 25, 2019 in | Comments Off on 2017 Trails Another year has passed on the Pennsylvania Trails of History. Exhibits, special events, thousands of visiting schoolchildren, more than a few beer and wine festivals, and several battle reenactments are now recorded in the books. As a way of wrapping up the year, we look back at a few milestones along the way. But before we turn our attention to the World War I centennial and an overview of...
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“Restless Progress in America”: Drawing the Mason-Dixon Line

Posted by on Aug 22, 2017 in | 0 comments “When I found I had crossed that line,” recalled Harriet Tubman, “I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything . . . I felt like I was in Heaven.” Such was the power of the Mason-Dixon Line. Within 75 years of its completion to resolve an eight-decade-long dispute between two colonial proprietors, a boundary line drawn in the 1760s by two English...
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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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Philadelphia Naval Shipyard

Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Philadelphia Naval Shipyard The Philadelphia Navy Yard was established in 1801 on Federal Street in the Southwark District of Philadelphia, an area along the Delaware River roughly 2 miles southeast of City Hall (part of this area was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as the Southwark Historic District in 1972). In 1868 the Navy Yard, later renamed the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, was moved to League...
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Seeing the Light at Glen Foerd on the Delaware

Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Seeing the Light at Glen Foerd on the Delaware Visitors to Glen Foerd on the Delaware marvel at the decorative plasterwork that surrounds the domed, stained-glass laylight crowning the mansion’s central staircase. On tours they see, from their vantage point on the third-floor landing, beams of light pouring in through the 15-foot interior skylight, bringing into sharp relief the buttery yellow plaster with inlays. But until last...
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Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Spring 2017

Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Spring 2017 Topics in the Spring 2017 Newsletter: PHF Board Meets at Pennsbury Manor The Giving Circle PHF Welcomes Three New Board Members Historical Marker Scavenger Hunt at Pennsylvania Farm Show Join the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation   pennsylvania-heritage-foundation-newsletter-spring-2017...
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William Penn’s Side Chair

Posted by on Dec 13, 2016 in | Comments Off on William Penn’s Side Chair Pennsylvania founder and first proprietor William Penn lived in his colony for a total of only four years during two trips of two years each, 1682-84 and 1699-1701. Even before his first visit he had engaged his agent to purchase from the Lenapes land along the Delaware River that would become Pennsbury Manor, intended to be his permanent summer home in America. As fate would have it, however,...
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