The Last Days of William Penn

Posted by on Nov 11, 2019 in | Comments Off on The Last Days of William Penn “My poor Dearests last breath was fetchd this morning between 2 & 3 a Clock.” So wrote a distraught Hannah Penn to longtime friend and advisor Thomas Story on July 30, 1718. The remains of her husband were taken to Jordans Meeting House in Buckinghamshire and buried there on August 5 beside his first wife Gulielma. Quakers and non-Quakers alike attended the funeral. Jordans is a quiet place,...
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Setting Boundaries: The Penn-Baltimore Agreement

Posted by on Aug 22, 2017 in | 0 comments By 1730 violence had broken out between Pennsylvania and Maryland colonists over conflicting border claims. On May 10, 1732, Charles Calvert (1699–1751), Fifth Lord Baltimore and proprietary governor of Maryland, established a provisional agreement with William Penn’s sons, John (1700–46), Thomas (1702–75) and Richard Sr. (1706–71), proprietors of Pennsylvania, to survey their mutual border. At...
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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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Coatesville Veterans Hospital

Posted by on Dec 13, 2016 in | Comments Off on Coatesville Veterans Hospital More than 4.5 million men and women served in the various branches of the United States military during World War I. It was the first fully mechanized war, with soldiers exposed to mustard gas and other chemicals. The large number of veterans and the hazards of service resulted in a need for the U.S. government to provide specialized medical care on a scale not seen since the Civil War. Within...
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Mailbox

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Mailbox For its fall conference, the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society (CHBTS) of the Hagley Museum and Library is issuing a call for papers. The theme of this year’s conference is “Significant Locales: Business, Labor, and Industry in the Mid-Atlantic Region.” Proposals are being sought for papers dealing with aspects of business, labor, and industrial...
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Introducing… Team Heritage

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Introducing… Team Heritage Behind every successful maga­zine, there’s a hard-working, dedicated staff – a team, really. All good publications demand teamwork, and Pennsylvania Heritage is no exception. There’s a deadline on every horizon, editorial calendars that seem to project endlessly into the future, and production schedules that resemble a multi-dimensional Rube Goldberg device. The individuals who...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf J. Horace McFarland: A Thorn for Beauty by Ernest Morrison Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1995 (393 pages, cloth, $19.95) Three-quarters of a century ago, his was a name known throughout the na­tion. To some, he was ordained the “High Priest of the Rose.” To others, he was christened the “Father of the National Park Service.” And to even more, he was...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf The Pennsylvania Game Commission, 1895-1995 by Joe Kosack Pennsylvania Game Commission, 1995 (233 pages, cloth, $12.95) Subtitled 100 Years of Wildlife Conservation, this book opens by placing the reader on Commonwealth soil with the arrival, about 1610, of the first white settlers – long before the Pennsylvania Game Commission existed. As the earliest settlers scrabbled to make a life in...
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Captain Smollet Defies the Mutineers (1911) by N. C. Wyeth

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Captain Smollet Defies the Mutineers (1911) by N. C. Wyeth Newel Convers Wyeth (1882-1945) – known worldwide simply as N. C. Wyeth – was one of the best loved illustrators of this century. Patriarch of one of the nation’s most famous artistic dynasties, his name is synonymous with the Brandywine Valley of southeastern Pennsylvania and America’s golden age of illustration. Wyeth studied under master illustrator Howard Pyle...
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Pewter Communion Service

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pewter Communion Service When the Heritage Center of Lancaster County , was established in 1974, a “wish list” of objects and artifacts for its permanent collection was devel­oped. The first item on this list was a communion service containing signifi­cant wares by noted Lancaster County pewterer Johann Christoph Heyne (1715-1781). In February 1997, the Heritage Center’s dream came true when it...
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