Mount Gretna’s Spirit Lives On

Posted by on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Mount Gretna’s Spirit Lives On Mount Gretna in Lebanon County is an enduring gem of a historic village that offers visitors a rare opportunity to experience an unembellished, Victorian-era lifestyle that shuffles on in similar fashion today. Cloistered within a 16-mile slice of forested rocky hills surrounded by a patchwork expanse of farmland between Lancaster and Hershey, Mount Gretna came to life in 1892 as a village (now...
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Lebanon County: Small in Size – Rich in Heritage

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lebanon County: Small in Size – Rich in Heritage Lebanon County is located in the southeastern portion of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the center of the beautiful Lebanon Valley, which is formed by the Blue Ridge of the Kittatinny range of mountains to the north and the South Mountains, or Furnace Hills, to the south. Covering an area of 363 square miles, the county is inhabited by ap­proximately 100,000 people. Between the shale...
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Colonel Fred: The Handsomest Man in the Pennsylvania National Guard

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Colonel Fred: The Handsomest Man in the Pennsylvania National Guard A surprising number of the residents of Warren, Pa., remember Fred E. Windsor (1859-1936), though his name as well as his exploits have been long – if not deservedly – forgotten beyond the corporate limits. In the memory of Warrenites, he is the man on the borrowed white horse who led the Memorial Day parades in their youth, a relic and a reminder of the exhibitionistic optimism of...
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A Dynasty Tumbles

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Dynasty Tumbles The saga begins and ends with two com­monplace scenes: a teenaged immigrant alighting a ship in colonial Philadelphia with but two letters of introduction and three guineas to his name, and a gravesite ringed by a half­-dozen black-clothed mourn­ers. But during the century and a half that encapsulates these vignettes, a Pennsylva­nia dynasty rose and fell- and rose and fell again. From Robert...
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In the Public’s Best Interest

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on In the Public’s Best Interest Edward Martin distin­guished himself as soldier, governor, senator and, above all, as honored citizen of the Ten Mile area in Pennsylvania, the small rural community in which he was born. His full and varied life had led him from the front lines of battle to the diplomatic circles of the nation’s capitol. The people whose lives he touched knew him as a dignified, loyal and honest...
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Setting the Standard for Others

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Setting the Standard for Others With a rich heritage rooted in colonial military formations – such as the forces furnished in 1740 for a disastrous English expe­dition against Cartagena, Spain’s principal seaport in South America, and Benjamin Franklin’s ten thousand mem­ber military Association, estab­lished in 1747 – the 28th Infantry (Keystone) Division, Pennsylvania Army National Guard, is the...
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The Magic of Mount Gretna: An Interview with Jack Bitner

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Magic of Mount Gretna: An Interview with Jack Bitner Set in the picturesque Conewago Hills of central Pennsyl­vania, the village of Mount Gretna is a treasure of natu­ral beauty and quaint architecture. In 1882-1883, millionaire Robert H. Coleman built the Cornwall and Lebanon Railroad through these rolling hills to connect his vast ironmaking enterprises in Colebrook and Corn­wall to the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Lebanon. At the...
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Letters to the Editor

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letters to the Editor Against All Odds I am very much interested in the article entitled “Against All Odds: Chevalier Jackson, Physician and Painter” by Louis M. Waddell in the summer 1992 edition. We live in walking distance of Sunrise Mill, which we have visited many times. We also knew Dr. Jackson and found him to be a very fine gentleman. We are very much surprised that nothing was written about the...
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Lost and Found

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost Strained by the weight of nearly a half-million pounds of snow during what has become known as the Winter of 1994, the century-old Mount Gretna Playhouse collapsed in February. The historic open-air theater was built in the Lebanon County summer resort in 1892 by carpenter John Cilley, a self­-taught engineer. Measuring one hundred feet in diameter and shaped like an umbrella, the...
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A Blast from the Past: Cornwall Iron Furnace

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Blast from the Past: Cornwall Iron Furnace Driving on narrow sinuous back roads through lush, verdant forests – just a half dozen miles north of the busy Pennsylvania Turnpike – unsuspecting travelers can’t help being struck by an odd-looking complex of Gothic Revival-style buildings and structures. This place, this curious collection of buildings, both large and small, appears to have been literally plucked from a far...
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