Editor’s Letter

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the United States, we continue our series of articles on Pennsylvania in the American Revolution. Three features in this edition focus on individuals of the era and their contributions to the new nation.

British emigrant Thomas Paine arrived in Philadelphia in November 1774 and soon began working as the editor of Pennsylvania Magazine. In January 1776, he published what would become the most influential pamphlet of the American Revolution, Common Sense. Written in persuasive, accessible language, it argued against government by monarchs, distant rule, and taxation without representation, galvanizing Colonial Americans to the cause for independence rather than reconciliation with Great Britain. Paine continued to write inspiring materials throughout the war but then moved on to join another revolution. In “Forgotten Founder,” historian William C. Kashatus examines Paine’s significant role in the foundation of the United States and his later controversial writings that alienated him from his American Revolutionary associates.

Common Sense was also published in a German translation to reach the large German-speaking population of Pennsylvania. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America, read the pamphlet, and although, as a pastor, he felt he should remain neutral in public, he wrote to a friend that it was “right” for “the young people” to fight for their “native liberty.” Muhlenberg’s clergymen sons, Peter and Frederick, however, left their ministries to support independence by enlisting in the military and entering politics, respectively. In “German Founders,” executive director of Historic Trappe Lisa Minardi tells the story of the Pennsylvania German Muhlenberg family and their vital role in the Revolution and offers a preview of special initiatives that Historic Trappe will be launching to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States.

At the dawn of the American Revolution, another revolution was brewing in Wright’s Ferry (today Columbia, Lancaster County). English Quaker Susanna Wright purchased her own land along the Susquehanna River and became a community leader, acting as an arbiter in legal matters in the area. She also produced herbal remedies for her neighbors, harvested silk, corresponded with Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush, and wrote poetry that reflected an early voice for women’s equality. Lancaster County author and journalist Jack Brubaker tells the story of this remarkable woman in “Susanna Wright: Poet and Polymath on the Susquehanna,” with a focus on her poetry and her place as the “Susquehanna muse” among a circle of literary women in the Mid-Atlantic.

Also in this edition, wildlife conservation specialist Joe Kosack chronicles more than 250 years of bird conservation in Pennsylvania. The article begins with the early naturalists, such as Alexander Wilson, John James Audubon and Spencer Fullerton Baird, who were compelled to document the wide variety of birds in Pennsylvania (and beyond) in both pictures and words. It then continues through the 19th and 20th centuries with progressive efforts to protect endangered bird species, several of which faced extinction from market and raptor bounty hunting, culminating in the conservation work of the Pennsylvania Game Commission, Rosalie Edge and Richard Pough at Hawk Mountain, and Rachel Carson through her publication of Silent Spring.

As you read the Semiquincentennial-related articles in this issue, be sure to also take some time to visit The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg to experience Revolutionary Things, an exhibition running through August 2, 2026, featuring more than 140 artifacts from the museum’s collection related to Pennsylvania’s vital role in the American Revolution — from authentic relics of the era to objects created in subsequent years to commemorate the founding of the nation.

Kyle R. Weaver
Editor