United States Supreme Court Archives - Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine

WWII Target: Altoona

Posted by Dan Cupper on Jun 8, 2020 in | Comments Off The tale of the bold but fizzled 1942 Nazi plot to sabotage the Horseshoe Curve railroad landmark near Altoona, Pennsylvania, has been told in books and articles almost since the day the spy-thriller story began to unfold. First came a juvenile-fiction account in 1944 titled The Long Trains Roll by Stephen W. Meader. It recounts the story of Operation Pastorius, a wry allusion to the theme of...
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Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off Topics in the Summer 2017 Newsletter: Third Annual Giving Circle Dinner The Giving Circle PHF-Held Endowment Funds Whiskey Still for Fort Pitt Museum Collection PHF Welcomes New Board Member PHF Receives Grant in Partnership with Eckley Miners’ Village Join the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation ...
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From Wilkes-Barre to the Wild West: George Catlin, Indian Painter

Posted by David McCormick on Dec 2, 2013 in | Comments Off His early exposure to American Indians indelibly impressed northeastern Pennsylvania native George Catlin (1796–1872). His mother Mary “Polly” Sutton Catlin (1770–1844), married in 1789 to Putnam Catlin (1764–1842), formed his earliest impressions of Native Americans. With her mother Sarah Smith Sutton (1747–1834) she was captured and held captive at the age of seven by Iroquois. The day was...
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Free-Thinking, 19th-Century Style

Posted by Wayne Trotta on Dec 2, 2013 in | Comments Off Francis Ellingwood Abbot (1836–1903) was nothing if not determined. In 1872, as editor of The Index, the nation’s leading free-thought magazine, he began to muster the full force of his small army of subscribers against what was being called “the God-in-the-Constitution amendment.” A philosopher and theologian, he sought to reconstruct theology in accordance with scientific methodology. From the...
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Warren County: Gem of the Alleghenies

Posted by Chase Putnam on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off “To the south … an expanse of arable land upon the gentle slope from the volley to the distant heights, dotted with green fields, waving grain, fruitful orchards and farm buildings with ever and anon an oasis of growing timber, remnants of the dense growth of stately pine and hemlock that formerly forested the region, present an alluring scene of beauty and grandeur, excelling...
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Daisy Lampkin: A Life of Love and Service

Posted by Edna McKenzie on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off The March 11, 1965 front-page, banner headline of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, oldest newspaper in the United States west of the Allegheny Mountains, declared: “Alabama Race Tensions Mount … Marchers Defy Ban by Wallace.” The editorial page posed the question: “What Peace in Selma?” Just one day earlier, March 10, Pittsburgh’s Daisy Lampkin, whose life of...
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Bedford County: From Indian Trails to Tourist Resorts

Posted by William Clark on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off In the summer of 1728, thirteen brave pioneers made their way north through the wilderness from Virginia. The trail brought these Virginians into the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, where they settled, only returning to Virginia to bring their families north. The area was rich with game and several trapped along the streams. One built a gristmill and another a trading post. These members...
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Courting the Constitution

Posted by Robert Woodside on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off If the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were to awaken this summer in Independence Hall from two centuries of sleep, they would undoubtedly enjoy an exciting session. George Washington as president of the convention, after persuading Ben Franklin to stop tinkering with his electric table light, would call the Convention to order. Upon learning that the government devised by them had...
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Courageous Cumberland County

Posted by Louis Waddell on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off Anxious to persuade a Scottish cleric, the Rev. Charles Nisbet, to become the first president of Dickinson College, its founding trustee Dr. Benjamin Rush wrote the Presbyterian worthy in 1784, describing central Cumberland County. The town of Carlisle lies 120 miles to the westward of Philadelphia and about 18 miles from the river Susquehannah. It consists of about 300 houses, most of which...
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The Political Ascent of James Buchanan

Posted by Kurt Zwikl on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off As the nation enters the third century of the American presidency, only one Pennsylvanian has had the distinction of serving as its chief executive. In 1857, at the age of sixty-five, James Buchanan of Lancaster County became the fifteenth president of the United States. He was well prepared for the office, having spent more than thirty years in public service in various elected and appointed...
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