“He, on the Whole, Stood First”: Gifford Pinchot

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on “He, on the Whole, Stood First”: Gifford Pinchot President Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946) was a talented and gifted public servant. Of his friend and adviser, Roosevelt wrote, “I believe it is but just to say that among the many, many public officials who, under my administra­tion, rendered literally invaluable service to the people of the United States he, on the whole, stood first.” Among Pennsylvania’s...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 1: Journalist, 1706-1730 By J. A. Leo Lemay University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006 (549 pages, cloth, $39.95.) The first of seven volumes in honor of the three hundredth birthday of the famous founder,The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Volume I: Journals, 1706-1730, is a highly anticipated work by the dean of Franklin scholars that brings together the major...
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Duck Pond, River Ridge Farm

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Duck Pond, River Ridge Farm On May 6, 1925, an individual known only as Murray wrote to Harry Snively of Greensburg, Westmoreland County, on a postcard depicting a duck pond at River Ridge Farm near Franklin, Venango County: “Talk about a beautiful sight, you should see those ducks.” River Ridge Farm, the creation of Joseph Crocker Sibley (1850–1926) in 1911, consisted of four duck ponds, six stone bridges, thirteen miles...
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Black Settlement on Yellow Hill

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Black Settlement on Yellow Hill Anyone who has ever read about the Battle of Gettysburg or visited the historic American Civil War battlefield undoubtedly learned about the generals, the courageous soldiers who fought in the grisly three-day encounter, and the thousands that lost their lives on that hallowed ground in Adams County. The stories of the famous engagements that took place at Little Round Top, Devil’s Den, and the...
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Dispatch from Governor Andrew Curtin

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Dispatch from Governor Andrew Curtin A dispatch issued on June 15, 1863, by Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin (1817–1894) to various post offices in Pennsylvania alerted citizens to the imminent arrival of Confederate troops under General Robert E. Lee in Pennsylvania. It was the first public notice of the South’s advance on the Keystone State which ultimately resulted in the horrific three-day Battle of Gettysburg waged July 1-3. “Lee...
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Pennsylvania’s War Governor

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania’s War Governor On September 14, 1862, Pennsylvania’s Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin invited the governors of the northern and border states to a meeting to be held at Altoona, Blair County, in ten days. The purpose of the meeting that became known as the Loyal War Governors’ Conference — or, simply, the Altoona Conference – was to “take measures for a more active support of the government’s prosecution of...
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A Century of Wine: Viniculture of the Harmony Society

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Century of Wine: Viniculture of the Harmony Society The Harmony Society was a religious communal group that immigrated to the United States in 1805 from Württemberg, Germany. Members established their first home just north of Pittsburgh in the small community of Harmony, Butler County, near Zelienople. After ten years the Harmonists moved to the Indiana Territory and established their second community which they also called Harmony, now known as...
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