Lewistown Narrows

Posted by on Jun 19, 2015 in | Comments Off on Lewistown Narrows   The contrasting relief of Shade and Blue mountains with the Juniata River Valley creates a magnificent landscape near the border of Juniata and Mifflin counties. That splendor belies the obstacles that the topography has presented for engineers throughout the centuries. Archaeological excavations of the Lewistown Narrows within Juniata County have revealed artifacts dating back nearly...
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J.C. Blair Memorial Hospital

Posted by on May 8, 2015 in | Comments Off on J.C. Blair Memorial Hospital   “Son arrived this eve 730.” I. John Schipper, born in 1878 in Pekin, Illinois, wrote to a Mrs. F.L. Velde, also of Pekin, on July 5 in the early 1920s – the year is unreadable in the postmark. “Edith is doing fine,” he continued. “In this hospital Room marked X. Tell all my friends please.” Schipper, a resident of Six Mile Run, Huntingdon County, at the time, was manager of mines for the...
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Juniata’s Hills: “Rolling Over Crags to Woodlands”

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Juniata’s Hills: “Rolling Over Crags to Woodlands” Oh, the hills of Juniata, Oh, her stony wooded hills, and her flower-scented valleys and her crystal streams and rills, Rolling over crags to woodlands, ‘Tis a sight worth far to go, Sun-kissed hills of Juniata, Oh, they thrill and still me so. The above lines are taken from the county poem (officially accepted as such during the 1981 Tercentenary celebration), written by the late Dr....
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Photographic View Companies: The Camera Leaves the Studio

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Photographic View Companies: The Camera Leaves the Studio Photography’s first half-century of development was ex­citing and eventful. The daguerreotype, an image printed directly on a polished metal surface, was per­fected in 1839. A decade later, millions of Americans posed for ambrotypes, tintypes, albumen plates – often re­plete with military uniforms, favored family pets or bagged game. To satisfy the nation’s craving for...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf The Venango County Historical Society is republishing in its original size the 700-page History of Venango County. The book was originally published by Caldwell in 1879. If ordered prior to December 31 [1975], the price is $32.50. The after-publication price will be $37.50. Checks or money orders can be sent to Venango County Historical Society, Box 101, Franklin 16323.   The George Dallas...
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Central Pennsylvania’s Very Own Painted Ladies

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Central Pennsylvania’s Very Own Painted Ladies The painted plank bottom chair, a sturdy survivor of Pennsyl­vania’s golden age of chairmaking, is at long last garnering the recognition it has long deserved – thanks to the nation’s seemingly insatiable appetite for what many call The Country Look. This hand-decorated chair, admired by many for its graceful stenciling and skilled workmanship, has weathered a century of heavy...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Canoeing on the Juniata, 1888 by Henry K. Landis Pennsylvania Histori­cal and Museum Commission and Landis Valley Associates, 1993 (68 pages, cloth, $15.95) Elizabeth F. Johnson, who wrote the introduction to Canoeing on the Juniata, 1888, describes Henry K. Landis (1865-1955) as “a collector, recorder, keeper, and lover of history.” Throughout his long life, he sustained a keen...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Guide to Pennsylvania Troops at Gettysburg By Richard Rollins and David Shultz Rank and File Publications, 1998 (106 pages, paper, $17.95) The Battle of Gettysburg was the nation’s most fierce military engagement. Pennsylvania alone dispatched well more than twenty-four thousand men to the epic onslaught, waged the first three days of July 1863, that resulted in more than fifty-one...
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This Is a Beautiful, Bountiful Earth: Joseph Trimble Rothrock and the Preservation of Penn’s Woods

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on This Is a Beautiful, Bountiful Earth: Joseph Trimble Rothrock and the Preservation of Penn’s Woods The lush, verdant woodlands characteristic of Pennsylvania’s landscape are almost entirely second-growth forests, in existence roughly for less than a century. Had it not been for the groundbreaking work of many conservationists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Keystone State’s present terrain would be dramatically different. One of the most important of those...
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