The Hunt for Pennsylvania’s Timber Rattlesnakes

Posted by on Jan 14, 2020 in | Comments Off on The Hunt for Pennsylvania’s Timber Rattlesnakes In the early 19th century, pioneer adventurer Philip Tome recalled that it was common to see 30 or 40 timber rattlesnakes at a time near his home along the Susquehanna River. “The snakes were so numerous that we used to clear the yard and build fires to keep them away,” he recalled in his 1854 memoir, Pioneer Life; or, Thirty Years a Hunter. “On leaving the house we always put on a pair of...
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“Keeping with the Dignity of the Commonwealth”: 50 Years of the Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence

Posted by on Dec 1, 2019 in | Comments Off on “Keeping with the Dignity of the Commonwealth”: 50 Years of the Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence The stately Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence overlooking the Susquehanna River at 2035 North Front Street in the Uptown neighborhood of Harrisburg, Dauphin County, reaches its half-century mark in 2018, a milestone that is being observed with a variety of events and programs throughout the year. The Georgian Revival mansion was completed in 1968, during the term of Gov. Raymond P. Shafer, its...
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Celebrities Discover Who They Are at the Pennsylvania State Archives

Posted by on Oct 30, 2019 in | Comments Off on Celebrities Discover Who They Are at the Pennsylvania State Archives Archivist Aaron McWilliams smiles and shifts his gaze toward the floor when asked about his brush with TV stardom. Every so often, a patron visiting the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, where he works, will ask him what it was like to appear alongside veteran Hollywood actor Steve Buscemi on a 2011 episode of Who Do You Think You Are? a reality series in which...
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Wyalusing Rocks and the Federal Writers’ Project

Posted by on Oct 25, 2019 in | Comments Off on Wyalusing Rocks and the Federal Writers’ Project Peering northwest at the Lehigh Valley Railroad and surrounding farmland from Wyalusing Rocks, several hundred feet above the Susquehanna River in Bradford County, these four observers are likely Federal Writers’ Project field workers. A spectacular lookout first revered by the region’s native inhabitants, Wyalusing Rocks is an outcropping of red sandstone located along the Warrior’s Path, a...
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“Restless Progress in America”: Drawing the Mason-Dixon Line

Posted by on Aug 22, 2017 in | 0 comments “When I found I had crossed that line,” recalled Harriet Tubman, “I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything . . . I felt like I was in Heaven.” Such was the power of the Mason-Dixon Line. Within 75 years of its completion to resolve an eight-decade-long dispute between two colonial proprietors, a boundary line drawn in the 1760s by two English...
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Tough and Determined: Pioneering Newspaper Editor Rebecca F. Gross

Posted by on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Tough and Determined: Pioneering Newspaper Editor Rebecca F. Gross On a night in the winter of 1947-48, Rebecca F. Gross, 42 years old and the editor of a 10,000-circulation daily newspaper in the small town of Lock Haven, Clinton County, was scheduled to have dinner with two luminaries of the time: Robert Capa, the internationally famous war photographer, and John Steinbeck, the novelist and future Nobel laureate. The dinner was an event set up for members of...
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From the Executive Director

Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on From the Executive Director As a trained historian who has devoted his life to the preservation and teaching of American history, I am embarrassed to admit how little I knew about my own family’s history—only a few bits and pieces passed down from my parents. I was told that our family settled in the old Northwest Territory before Ohio became a state in 1803 and that some of my ancestors came from Pennsylvania. I...
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Digging Deep: 50 Years of Preservation Archaeology in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Sep 9, 2016 in | Comments Off on Digging Deep: 50 Years of Preservation Archaeology in Pennsylvania On a lovely morning in early autumn, I arrive at an old farm along the Susquehanna River to find Dr. Frank Vento in his natural element. That is to say, he is squatting down at the bottom of a backhoe trench some 8 feet deep, carefully examining the many layers of flood-deposited sediment left behind by the great river. Frank, recently retired from the faculty at Clarion University, is a...
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Calver Island

Posted by on Jun 6, 2016 in | Comments Off on Calver Island With the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act 50 years ago, the federal government asserted that “the historical and cultural foundations of the nation should be preserved as a living part of our community life and development in order to give a sense of orientation to the American people.” These foundations exist not only aboveground but also belowground – the realm of...
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Holtwood Dam

Posted by on Apr 19, 2016 in | Comments Off on Holtwood Dam   In October 1905 McCall’s Ferry Power Co. began construction in Martic Township, Lancaster County, on what would be the second of four hydroelectric dams built to harness the power of the Susquehanna River below Harrisburg, Dauphin County. Twenty miles from the tidewater of the Chesapeake Bay, it was then the third longest dam in the world, built of solid concrete, 55 feet high. The...
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