A Beacon of Liberty for the Enslaved: 250 Years of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society

Posted by on Jun 11, 2025 in | Comments Off on A Beacon of Liberty for the Enslaved: 250 Years of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society   By the early 1700s, French Protestants — largely Calvinists known as Huguenots — suffered in their country from severe religious persecution, among them a boy, Antoine Bénézet (1720–72), and his parents. When their property was seized unless they renounced their faith, they departed their country, making their way to London, where they joined a welcoming group that stood for tolerance,...
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Irish-Townsend House

Posted by on Jun 11, 2025 in | Comments Off on Irish-Townsend House In 2021, members of the New Brighton Historical Society (NBHS) learned that the asking price on the Irish-Townsend House had been slashed by 50 percent. The historic building had been sitting empty and deteriorating for years, and its out-of-state owner wanted to sell. Mike Spratt, president of NBHS, took the walkthrough with the realtor. “The [NBHS] leadership team was amazed how much of the...
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Vigilance: The Life of William Still by Andrew K. Diemer

Posted by on Sep 18, 2023 in | Comments Off on Vigilance: The Life of William Still by Andrew K. Diemer Vigilance The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad by Andrew K. Diemer Alfred A. Knopf, 432 pp., hardcover $30 William Still, the Underground Railroad’s most indefatigable agent, was born in New Jersey to formerly enslaved parents in 1821. He moved to Philadelphia in search of work when he was about 23, having already imbibed from his family a keen sense of responsibility to...
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Lincoln University

Posted by on Nov 29, 2021 in | Comments Off on Lincoln University Pennsylvania has the distinction of hosting the nation’s first two Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs): Cheyney and Lincoln universities. Both schools were established to provide people of African descent with higher education opportunities that were profoundly lacking in the 19th century. Cheyney, founded in 1837, initially provided training in trades and agriculture and the...
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Absalom Hazlett by Spencer Sadler

Posted by on Aug 25, 2021 in | Comments Off on Absalom Hazlett by Spencer Sadler Absalom Hazlett A Loyal Soldier in John Brown’s Army by Spencer Sadler Arcadia, 144 pp., paperback $21.99 Most readers will undoubtedly associate Harpers Ferry (the locale) with John Brown (the man). Brown’s charismatic personality and single-minded focus tend to overpower any narrative. Many of the 22 men who joined this well-intentioned yet ill-fated 1859 arsenal raid are usually collectively...
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A Gathering at the Crossroads: Memorializing African American Trailblazers and a Lost Neighborhood in Harrisburg

Posted by on Mar 25, 2021 in | Comments Off on A Gathering at the Crossroads: Memorializing African American Trailblazers and a Lost Neighborhood in Harrisburg Twice during the second half of 2020, people gathered at Harrisburg’s Capitol Park to witness the dedication of A Gathering at the Crossroads, a monument commemorating four statewide civil rights crusaders and the African American residents of a now-vanished neighborhood in Harrisburg who contributed to the commonwealth’s entrenched legacy of freedom. The monument, sculpted by Becky Ault,...
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“Without Fear and Without Reproach”: Octavius V. Catto and the Early Civil Rights Movement in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Feb 5, 2021 in | Comments Off on “Without Fear and Without Reproach”: Octavius V. Catto and the Early Civil Rights Movement in Pennsylvania On Tuesday, September 26, 2017, the City of Philadelphia unveiled a monument to Octavius V. Catto in a ceremony at the southwestern apron of City Hall. Catto was a cornerstone figure in Philadelphia’s early civil rights struggle — a recruiter of an African American militia during the Civil War, an instrumental figure in the victory to desegregate Philadelphia’s horse-drawn streetcars, a...
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Three Generations on the Underground Railroad: The Gibbons Family of Lancaster County

Posted by on Apr 16, 2020 in | Comments Off on Three Generations on the Underground Railroad: The Gibbons Family of Lancaster County Shortly after sunset, a fugitive slave from Maryland tapped on a window of a modest farmhouse near Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania. Daniel and Hannah Gibbons walked swiftly to the door. The Quaker couple escorted the young man to the barn to sleep and in the morning summoned him back to the house. If the fugitive’s owner was in close pursuit, they would send him to another farm. If there seemed to be...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Apr 15, 2020 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter August 18, 2020, will mark the centennial of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote. In issues of Pennsylvania Heritage leading to this significant anniversary, we will be featuring articles on the early 20th-century movement that led to suffrage as it played out in Pennsylvania, as well as the stories of women’s achievements in the Keystone...
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“I Must Be an Abolitionist”: Pennsylvania Liberty Man Francis Julius LeMoyne

Posted by on Oct 24, 2019 in | Comments Off on “I Must Be an Abolitionist”: Pennsylvania Liberty Man Francis Julius LeMoyne In 1839, when William Lloyd Garrison (1805–79) and his allies lost control of the abolitionist movement in Warsaw, New York, African Americans could only vote in seven states. In the North, free blacks could neither sue nor own weapons, and their wages were disproportionate with those of their white counterparts for the same type of work. The Slave Power seemingly strengthened its influence in...
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