Wyalusing Rocks and the Federal Writers’ Project

Posted by on Oct 25, 2019 in | Comments Off on Wyalusing Rocks and the Federal Writers’ Project Peering northwest at the Lehigh Valley Railroad and surrounding farmland from Wyalusing Rocks, several hundred feet above the Susquehanna River in Bradford County, these four observers are likely Federal Writers’ Project field workers. A spectacular lookout first revered by the region’s native inhabitants, Wyalusing Rocks is an outcropping of red sandstone located along the Warrior’s Path, a...
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From Wilkes-Barre to the Wild West: George Catlin, Indian Painter

Posted by on Dec 2, 2013 in | Comments Off on From Wilkes-Barre to the Wild West: George Catlin, Indian Painter His early exposure to American Indians indelibly impressed northeastern Pennsylvania native George Catlin (1796–1872). His mother Mary “Polly” Sutton Catlin (1770–1844), married in 1789 to Putnam Catlin (1764–1842), formed his earliest impressions of Native Americans. With her mother Sarah Smith Sutton (1747–1834) she was captured and held captive at the age of seven by Iroquois. The day was...
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Old State Line

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Old State Line The modern-day map of Pennsylvania reveals an anomaly most puzzling – a triangular appendage of land extending to the City of Erie and providing the Commonwealth with access to Lake Erie. Early maps show that the original border of Pennsylvania ran south of its present boundary of Lake Erie. Originally, Pennsylvania was fundamentally rectangular, with an undulating eastern border defined...
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Current and Coming

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Current and Coming Anniversary Activities The French and Indian War was £ought in south western Pennsylvania between 1754 and 1760 as France, Great Britain, and Native America battled for control of one of the most important pieces of real estate in North America. This highly coveted and hotly contested point of land, at the time called the Forks of the Ohio, is now the City of Pittsburgh. In the eighteenth...
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Minutes of the Provincial Council, 1727

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Minutes of the Provincial Council, 1727 The name of Madame Montour first appears in the Minutes of the Provincial Council on July 3, 1727, when she served as the interpreter for Deputy Governor Patrick Gordon, in office from 1726 to 1736, who met with various chiefs of the Cayuga, Conestoga, and Conoy tribes assembled at Philadelphia. The Cayuga had requested the meeting with Gordon on behalf of the Five Nations of the Iroquois...
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Susquehannocks, Catholics in Seventeenth-Century Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Susquehannocks, Catholics in Seventeenth-Century Pennsylvania With its seemingly endless vistas of shopping malls, housing developments, technology parks, truck terminals, and warehouses, it’s hard to imagine Pennsylvania’s lower Susquehanna River valley a vast, undisturbed wilderness. Yet, little more than two centuries ago, the region was home to a group of Native Americans generally called the Susquehannocks, but also known as the Minqua, the Andaste,...
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PHMC Highlights

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on PHMC Highlights Delegation of Tuscarora Indians In June 1710, a delegation of Tuscarora Indians was dispatched from present-day North Carolina to meet with the government of Pennsylvania. Hoping to avoid a war with North Carolina colonists, they sought permission to relocate their people to Pennsylvania. A meeting was convened on June 8, 1710, at Conestoga, Lancaster County, with the Indians and representatives...
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Seneca Religious Ceremony Transcript

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Seneca Religious Ceremony Transcript From the period of early contact of Native Americans with European settlers through the first half of the nineteenth century, little effort was made by most Americans of European descent to understand the religious beliefs and practices of the Native peoples. This began to change in 1855 when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem “Song of Hiawatha” captured the American imagination with a...
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