A Country Seat on the Susquehanna: Wright’s Ferry Mansion

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Country Seat on the Susquehanna: Wright’s Ferry Mansion On the eastern bank of the Susquehanna River in southeastern Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Lancaster, Wright’s Ferry Man­sion was built in 1738 for a remarkable English Quaker, Susanna Wright. In 1726, when Susanna was twenty-nine, she purchased one hundred acres in this region on the fringes of Pennsylvania wilderness, then inhabited by a small tribe of Indians and known as...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Pennsylvania Trail of History Cookbook By the Editors of Stackpole Books and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Stackpole Books and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2004 (127 pages, paper, $19.95) With recipes provided by the more than two dozen historic sites and museums administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), the Pennsylvania...
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Letter from President Lyndon Johnson

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letter from President Lyndon Johnson Act 167, signed by Governor David L. Lawrence on June 13, 1961, authorized counties, cities, boroughs, in­corporated towns, and townships in Pennsylvania to create historic districts and provided for the appointment of local Boards of Historical Architectural Review. Following the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, on March 1, 1967, President Lyndon Baines Johnson...
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Harmony Society Silk Letter Book, 1842-1852

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on Harmony Society Silk Letter Book, 1842-1852 According to a letter penned by Charles Norris dated April 19, 1759 a pair of silk stockings made by Su­sanna Wright of Lancaster from the first eggs hatched and silk processed in the Province of Pennsylvania were pre­sented to General Jeffrey Amherst, commander of Britain’s forces in North America. In 1771, Susanna Wright won a £10 prize from the Philadelphia Silk Society for the largest...
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If Looms Could Speak: The Story of Pennsylvania’s Silk Industry

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on If Looms Could Speak: The Story of Pennsylvania’s Silk Industry On Friday March 3, 1989, the Catoir Silk Company Inc. in the Lehigh County seat of Allentown, ceased operation for the final time. The silence of the looms signaled the end of an industry the once dominated eastern Pennsylvania’s industrial landscape and economy. The closing captured a front-page story in Allentown’s daily newspaper, The Morning Call, which duly recorded the demise...
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Susquehannocks, Catholics in Seventeenth-Century Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Susquehannocks, Catholics in Seventeenth-Century Pennsylvania With its seemingly endless vistas of shopping malls, housing developments, technology parks, truck terminals, and warehouses, it’s hard to imagine Pennsylvania’s lower Susquehanna River valley a vast, undisturbed wilderness. Yet, little more than two centuries ago, the region was home to a group of Native Americans generally called the Susquehannocks, but also known as the Minqua, the Andaste,...
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