Letitia’s Grave Secret

Posted by Lorett Treese on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letitia’s Grave Secret The tombstone of Wil­liam Penn’s daughter bears the name Letitia Penn – not her mar­ried name, Letitia Aubrey. One historian, given to conjecture, wondered, “Had she wished it so, remembering her hus­band’s bitter quarrels with her father, and the many other unhappinesses her husband had brought her?” What this woman “wished” on her tombstone no one...
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A Walk of Injustice

Posted by Peggy Robbins on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Walk of Injustice Just before sunrise on Monday, September 19, 1737, a strange gathering of Indians, white settlers and professional woodsmen assembled beneath a mam­moth chestnut tree along the Durham Road in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The Indians were Minsi and Shaw­nee of the Delaware Nation, along with two of their chiefs, Tisheekunk and Nutimus; the white settlers were men anx­ious for Pennsylvania to...
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What Love Can Do: William Penn’s Holy Experiment in Education

Posted by William Kashatus on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on What Love Can Do: William Penn’s Holy Experiment in Education The founder of Pennsyl­vania stands atop Philadelphia’s City Hall, seemingly sur­veying a “Holy Experiment” he nurtured out of the ideals of his Quaker faith. William Penn, the political theorist, is still remembered for his daring experiment in establishing a colony dedicated to pacifism, civil liberty and religious free­dom in a seventeenth century world conditioned by...
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“Prepare Thyself … to Meet the Lord Thy God!”: Religion in Pennsylvania During the Revolution

Posted by John Frantz on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on “Prepare Thyself … to Meet the Lord Thy God!”: Religion in Pennsylvania During the Revolution Religion in the colony of Pennsylvania was distinctive. In contrast to most areas of the western world, this province practiced freedom of religion. It never had an established church. Friends who controlled the first legislative assembly, meeting in Upland, now Chester, in 1682, specified that no one was “at any time [to] be com­pelled to frequent or Maintain anie religious worship, place...
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Gardens Change with Times

Posted by Irwin Richman on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Gardens Change with Times   William Penn’s wish that Philadelphia, the capital of his colony, should be a “Greene Country Towne” never was to come to fruition. The town’s settlers really preferred a re-creation of London in miniature. However, gardens and gardening have been an important aspect of the Pennsyl­vania heritage. Gardening has been practiced as a fine art and as a necessity based...
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Finding a Light in the Forest: Conrad Weiser Homestead

Posted by Philip Pendleton on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Finding a Light in the Forest: Conrad Weiser Homestead More than any other, Conrad Weiser (1696-1760) captured the imagination of the Pennsylvania German community during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a time when its leaders asserted its right to be considered a major participant in the building of America. The veneration he was accorded led to the creation in 1923 of the historic park bearing his name and interpreting his...
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Sowing a Wealth Uncommon

Posted by Myra Jacobsohn on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Sowing a Wealth Uncommon When Pennsylvania’s thirty-seven-year-old founder William Penn (1644-1718) drew plans for Philadelphia, he specified a central park of ten acres and four symmetrically placed squares of eight acres each “for the comfort and recreation of all forever.” In his September 30, 1681, instructions to his commissioners, he also mandated private space. “Let every House be placed,...
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Hannah Penn, Pennsylvania’s First Woman Governor

Posted by William Kashatus on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Hannah Penn, Pennsylvania’s First Woman Governor On October 1, 1712, William Penn (1644-1718) and his second wife Hannah Callowhill Penn (1671-1726) left their large country house at Ruscombe, near Reading, England, and made their way to Bristol, located along the south­west coast. Theirs was a bittersweet journey. Just four months earlier, Penn had convinced the Crown to purchase the proprietary rights to Pennsylvania, his beloved – and...
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A City of Fountains

Posted by Jim McClelland on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on A City of Fountains Rome, with its plethora of fountains, including the famous 1735 Fontana di Trevi, which occupies center stage in the 1954 motion picture, Three Coins in the Fountain, starring Clifton Webb, is known to the world as “The City of Fountains.” Rome’s sister city could be Philadelphia, also a city of fountains, although few visitors, or residents, see these wonderful works of water....
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If Looms Could Speak: The Story of Pennsylvania’s Silk Industry

Posted by Elizabeth Hall on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on If Looms Could Speak: The Story of Pennsylvania’s Silk Industry On Friday March 3, 1989, the Catoir Silk Company Inc. in the Lehigh County seat of Allentown, ceased operation for the final time. The silence of the looms signaled the end of an industry the once dominated eastern Pennsylvania’s industrial landscape and economy. The closing captured a front-page story in Allentown’s daily newspaper, The Morning Call, which duly recorded the demise...
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