Valley Forge by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin

Posted by on Apr 9, 2020 in | Comments Off on Valley Forge by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin Valley Forge by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin Simon & Schuster, 432 pp., hardcover $30 In Valley Forge, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin explore the harsh realities of Gen. George Washington’s most trying winter in impressive and vivid detail. Utilizing the writings of an impressive who’s who of the American Revolution, the authors weave a narrative that accurately and dramatically recreates the...
read more

Battle of Germantown

Posted by on Jun 6, 2016 in | Comments Off on Battle of Germantown During the American Revolution, the fight for independence reached its most dire moment in 1777 when the British embarked on a campaign to capture the seat of American government in Philadelphia. After defeating the Continental forces of Gen. George Washington (1732–99) at the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, Gen. William Howe (1729–1814) and his British army outmaneuvered Washington and...
read more

Iconographic Treasures at the Library Company of Philadelphia

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Iconographic Treasures at the Library Company of Philadelphia In the summer of 1731, Benjamin Franklin later re­counted in his autobiography, “I set on foot my first Proj­ect of a public Nature, that for a Subscription Library.” He encouraged fifty subscribers to contribute forty shillings each for the purchase of books that were considered indispen­sable to colonial Americans, but were generally too expensive for any one individual alone to...
read more

In Celebration of Covered Bridges

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on In Celebration of Covered Bridges We crossed the Susquehanna river by a wooden bridge, roofed and covered in on all sides, and nearly a mile in length. It was profoundly dark, perplexed with great beams, crossing and recrossing at every possible angle, and through the broad chinks and crevices in the floor the rapid river gleamed far down below like a legion of eyes. We had no lamps, and as the horses stumbled and floundered...
read more

Historic Sites of the Revolution

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Historic Sites of the Revolution Pennsylvania is unusually rich in historic sites associated with the American Struggle for nationhood two centuries ago. The Bicentennial observance under­scores the importance of this treasury of the state’s historic heritage. The deep involvement of Pennsylvania people and land in the Revolutionary War is reflected by these historic sites maintained by government as well as organizations...
read more

The Revolutionary War in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Revolutionary War in Pennsylvania With some conspicuous exceptions, Pennsylvania was largely on the outskirts of the scenes of Revolutionary War military operations. True, in December, 1776, Gen. George Washington brought the remnants of his retreating army from New Jersey into Pennsylvania, using the area in the vicinity of McKonkey’s Ferry as the jumping-off point for the Christmas-night crossing of the Delaware and the...
read more

Chester County Welcomes Thee

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Chester County Welcomes Thee The history of Chester County constitutes a significant part of the history of Pennsylvania, both province and commonwealth, and of the history of the United States of America. At the beginning of our nation’s Bicentennial and on the threshold of our state’s and our county’s tricentennial celebrations, Chester County looks proudly upon its past accomplishments and with...
read more

They Left with the British: Black Women in the Evacuation of Philadelphia, 1778

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on They Left with the British: Black Women in the Evacuation of Philadelphia, 1778 Black women were a small but important segment of the eighteenth-century Pennsylvania laboring classes. As slaves, as indentured servants, or as free persons of color, their options were extremely limited, but they could and did make decisions that affected their lives. The evacuation of Philadelphia by the British in 1778 during the Revolutionary War reveals the kinds of limited choices which...
read more

Remember the Ladies: Women and the American Revolution

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Remember the Ladies: Women and the American Revolution Today, American women are barred by law from most combat roles, but they have played a part in battle since the American Revolu­tion, a tradition that continued through the Civil War, the World Wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam Conflict, the invasion of Panama in 1989 and, most recently, the Persian Gulf War. During the Civil War, at least four hundred women – those actually caught and...
read more

A Step Back In Time: Graeme Park, Colonial Country Estate

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on 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....
read more