Pennsylvania Governors Residences Open to the Public

Pennypacker Mills Pennypacker Mills possesses a lengthy history dating to about 1720 when Hans Jost Hite built the fieldstone house and a gristmill near the Perkiomen Creek, Schwenksville, Montgomery County. Purchased in 1747 by Peter Pennypacker (1710-1770), the house was enlarged and a saw mill and a fulling mill were constructed. The property acquired its name for the three mills. Peter...
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Shorts

On Saturday, May 14, 1994, guides at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site will demonstrate traditional sheep­-shearing methods with both period and modern hand-held tools. They will also discuss the importance of farms and farming practices to an 1830s industrial community. To obtain additional details, write: Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, 2 Mark Bird Ln., Elverson, PA 19520; or...
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Through a Looking Glass: Colonial and Colonial Revival Hope Lodge

An avenue of overarching trees leads from the road to the house which stands on a slight rise. A little to the west is St. Thomas’s Hill, thrice held by soldiers during the Revolutionary struggle. In front, to the north across the pike, the Wissahickon winds through peaceful meadows and beyond rises the long slope of wood-crowned Militia Hill – every rood of land full of historic...
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Currents

Officers and Gentlemen Brevet Major General John Frederick Hartranft and General Winfield Scott Hancock, of Montgomery County, and Brevet Brigadier-General Galusha Pennypacker and Private Samuel W. Pennypacker, of Chester County, were among the many local servicemen and heroes who served during the Civil War. Galusha Pennypacker (1842-1916), hero of Fort Fisher, off Cape Fear, North Carolina,...
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A Step Back In Time: Graeme Park, Colonial Country Estate

Some call it a time capsule from the eighteenth century, others, a place hallmarked by beauty and tranquility, ambition and greed, deceit and scan­dal, joy and happiness, sadness and sorrow – all of which have left an indelible spiritual imprint. But mostly, Graeme Park, a country estate less than twenty miles north of Philadelphia in Horsham, Montgomery County, is a place of pure paradox....
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Shorts

“A Portrait of an American City: 200 Years of New Castle History,” chronicling the founding and settlement of the first community laid out in present-day Lawrence County, is on exhibit at the Lawrence County Historical Society through May 1999. Laid out by John Carlysle Stewart in 1798, New Castle was incorporated as a borough in 1825 and recognized as a city in 1869. “A...
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Shorts

An intensive eight-day study tour examining the England of Pennsylvania founder William Penn (1644-1718) will be conducted under the auspices of the Pennsylvania Heritage Society in Octo­ber 2000. Participants, led by historian Larry E. Tise, will visit the Church of Ail Hallows Barking, where Penn was bap­tized and where, in 1999, Governor Tom Ridge and PHMC Chairman Janet S. Klein presented a...
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Shorts

“Elocution, Orthography, and Mental Arithmetic: Victorian School Days,” an exhibit examining the nineteenth-century educational experience from the one-room rural schoolhouse to the sprawling urban university, is on view at Penny­packer Mills through Saturday, June 30, 2001. The exhibit interprets these experiences through objects and artifacts originally belonging to members of the...
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Shorts

“Forging Freedom: The Influence of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society on Civil Rights Movements” is on view at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania through Friday, August 31 [2001]. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society was founded in Philadelphia in the late eighteenth century to combat prejudice, eliminate slavery, and create opportunities for blacks. For more information, write:...
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Shorts

A major exhibition of stylish cre­ations reflecting the changing fashions of designer hats through the years will open at the James A. Michener Art Museum on Saturday, January 19, 2002. Beginning with a rare circa 1780 calash (a folding bonnet) of silk and taffeta, Stylish Hats: 200 Years of Sartorial Splendor pro­vides a colorful tour through the history of hat making during two centuries....
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