Pike County: A Peak of Natural Perfection

“I went through a constant succession of scenery that would have been famous had it existed anywhere in Europe.” – Washington Irving   Shaped roughly like a diamond, Pike County is situated in Pennsylvania’s Northern Tier, bordering the Delaware River on the cast across from the states of New York and New Jersey. The northwestern side of the diamond lies in Lake...
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Lackawanna County: The Last Shall Not Be Least

The history of the Key­stone State’s sixty­-seven counties is often quite similar to family histories. Its portrait is a rich composite of Native American legend and lore, early trans­portation, marine and mari­time heritage, industry and industrialists, pioneers, capitalists and the working classes, religious communes, inventors and the Industrial Revolution …. And the county, whose...
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Executive Director’s Message

The National Park Service (NPS), which observed its seventy-fifth anniversary last year, is a federal agency which has a tremendous impact on the preservation and interpre­tation of historic resources in Pennsylvania. The National Park Service’s traditional function as a resource manage­ment agency is evident throughout the Common­wealth. Mere mention of Valley Forge, Independence Hall,...
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Susquehanna’s Painters

Few Pennsylvanians probably realize that Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Doughty, Frederick Edwin Church and Jasper Francis Cropsey, the leading lights of the Hudson River school, the famous nineteenth century landscape tradition, painted the Susquehanna River or its tributaries. The most important works of Cropsey and Doughty – hailed as the luminar­ies of the Hudson River school...
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Bookshelf

Illustrating an Anthracite Era: The Photographic Legacy of John Horgan Jr. by Gwendoline E. Percival and Chester J. Kulesa Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and Anthracite Heritage Museum and Iron Furnaces Associates, 1995 (73 pages, paper, $9.95) Exemplifying the breadth and depth of more than twenty thousand images made by a single photographer of the anthracite region, the...
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Shorts

Original works of art by Charles Demuth (1883-1935) will be on view at the Demuth Foundation in Lancaster from Sunday, February 1, through Sunday, March 22, 1998. In addition to selections drawn from the foundation’s permanent collection, the exhibit will feature paintings and memorabilia lent by private collectors. For more informa­tion, write: Demuth Foundation, 114 East King St.,...
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Shorts

On Thursday, October 17 [2002], Robert Pow­ell, president of the Historical Society of Carbondale, will present a talk entitled “The Delaware and Hudson Canal Com­pany’s Gravity Railroad” at the National Canal Museum in Easton. His lecture explores the construction, operation, and development of one of the country’s pioneer railroads – a major artery for the...
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Spring Mix

In the last installment of Trailheads, we took a look at how Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum in Lancaster prepares for winter. As a rule, historic sites and museums on the Pennsylvania Trails of History – especially those with outdoor exhibits – are quieter during the winter. Some sites close for a month or two, others are open fewer days during the week. It’s a time to plan...
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