Editor’s Letter

One hundred years ago, Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum — now a site on PHMC’s Pennsylvania Trails of History — opened to the public. It was founded by two free-spirited brothers, Henry and George Landis, who essentially devoted their lives to building a massive collection of artifacts related to Pennsylvania German rural life and culture. Conestoga wagons, farm implements and machinery, furniture, firearms, textiles, tinware, tools for various trades, millstones, redware pottery, fraktur documents, books, and countless other items are all part of the brothers’ amazing collection. To underscore the museum’s centennial celebration, Landis Valley curator Jennifer Royer has submitted this edition’s opening feature, “The Hobby That Became a Museum,” recounting the story of the Landis brothers and their collecting impulse and describing the evolution of their museum that continues to collect, exhibit and preserve artifacts of the past for the edification of present and future generations.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, on July 26, 1775, only three months after the Revolutionary War commenced with the Battles at Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia established an American postal service and appointed Benjamin Franklin as postmaster general. The fact that this was among Congress’ earliest official acts — which included the formation of the Continental Army and the appointment of George Washington as its commander — attests to the level of importance the governing body placed on the need for a centralized postal service for the safe conveyance of communication as the conflict mounted. In “An Office I Had Some Kind of Right to,” historian Lorett Treese looks at the origins of the U.S. postal service, focusing on Franklin’s role in shaping and enlarging the previous colonial post office in Philadelphia and the forces that led to the formation of a separate postal service for revolutionary America.

Commemoration is at the core of another of this edition’s features, “Monument Man,” in which author Spencer Larson takes us to Birmingham Lafayette Cemetery near West Chester, where an impassioned individual named John Gheen Taylor worked feverishly to install, at his own expense, several prodigious monuments between the years 1893 and 1913. Some of the monuments were created to memorialize lost family members and others were dedicated to military figures who fought nearby in the Battle of Brandywine during the Revolutionary War, including a towering 45-foot-tall pillar honoring the Marquis de Lafayette and other foreign officers who served with the Continentals. The article examines Taylor’s motivations within the context of his own personal experiences with loss and the Gilded Age era of commemoration in which he lived.

The Pittsburgh Crawfords, formed by African American businessman Gus Greenlee in 1931, is considered one of the greatest teams in Negro League baseball history. Two of the team’s star players, pitcher Satchel Paige and catcher Josh Gibson, would be later inducted as the first Negro League Electees in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1971 and 1972 respectively. In “Teammates & Rivals,” historian William C. Kashatus tells of the competitive dynamic between these two legendary players, focusing on their celebrated seasons with the Crawfords and later competitions when they played for opposing teams.

Kyle R. Weaver
Editor