The Source: Native American Quarries in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Aug 23, 2021 in | Comments Off on The Source: Native American Quarries in Pennsylvania Sitting in a folding chair in front of an informational table at the annual Danville Heritage Festival, PennDOT archaeologist Susanne Haney considers an inch-and-a-half-thick, dinner-platesized fragment of metarhyolite. Susanne is one of the most accomplished flintknappers I know. Flintknapping is the prehistoric art of producing stone tools by shaping various kinds of suitable rock with stone...
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Women Go to Work!

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Women Go to Work! The illusion of the Victorian woman – a creature accustomed to leisure and com­fort- was alive and well in Indiana County at the turn of the century. Newspaper columns reported a variety of social activities in which women participated, including temperance and missionary societies, social and reading clubs. Advertisements for medicines appealed to women who considered themselves delicate,...
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A Historical Sketch of Indiana County

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Historical Sketch of Indiana County Indiana County was named for the native Indians. During historic times the two principal tribes were the Delawares and Shawnees. Being reluctant to give up their lands, the Indians struggled desperately to keep out the tide of European settlers. Perhaps the first white settler to enter Indiana County was James LeTort, an Indian trader, about 1726-27. A place called “Letart’s...
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Ernest: Life in a Mining Town

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Ernest: Life in a Mining Town In 1904, the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company began deep mining in Ernest, Pennsylvania. In 1965, the industry there came to an end. Between these two dates, people lived out their lives in this small community northwest of Indiana, where for over sixty years every facet of existence revolved around the digging of coal from the hillsides surrounding the town. But what was life like in a...
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A Challenge to Restore

Posted by on Nov 28, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Challenge to Restore One of the most exciting challenges facing historic preservationists today is the rehabilitation and adaptive restoration of buildings significant to our cultural and historic past. Rehabilitation projects are being partially supported by federal funds in an attempt to re­vitalize urban areas, for example in Lancaster and Phila­delphia and on Pittsburgh’s north side. But not all...
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Edward Abbey

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Edward Abbey No Comment. In 1989, this pithy epitaph was chiseled in stone somewhere in Arizona’s vast Cabeza Prieta wilderness. It marks the end of a life full of “comment” – the life of environmental advocate and Pennsylvania native Edward Abbey (1927-1989). Edward Abbey was born in Indiana, Indiana County, but claimed the village of Home, ten miles to the north, as his birth­place,...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor A Doc in the House Every Pennsylvania resident and visitor is indebted to “Doc” Goddard for his foresight and determination [see “Maurice K. Goddard, The Commonwealth’s Conservation Czar” by Ernest Morrison, Fall 2002]. No matter where you travel in this beautiful state, what you don’t see – polluted streams and rivers, desecrated scenic areas, and...
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Nellie Bly (1864-1922)

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Nellie Bly (1864-1922) When Nellie Bly died January 27, 1922, at the age of fifty-eight, New York’s Evening Journal eulogized her as “the best reporter in America.” A rebellious child of Michael Cochran and his second wife, widow Mary Jane Kennedy Cummings, she channeled her noncon­formjty and fire into becoming one of the most notable journalists of all time. At a time when most female reporters...
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Attending a One-Room School in the 1930s

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Attending a One-Room School in the 1930s In the midst of the economic depression of the 1930s, my father, Hal Cornell, was a “furloughed” railroad locomo­tive foreman living with his wife and five school-aged children in a ten-dollar-a-month rented house in Burrell Town­ship, adjacent to Blairsville, in Indiana County. During two school years, my three brothers, a sister, and I attended the one­-room...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor Green Thumbs Up! “Green Thumbs Up!” to Pennsylvania Heritage for the story on Pennsylvania gardens [“Old World Influences of Pennsylvania Gardens” by Myra K. Jacobsohn, Spring 2005]. ram most impressed by the gardens that the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission manages, particularly those at the Weiser Homestead. I drive by the property several times a year but...
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