Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation

Before venturing out within the next few weeks to any of the sites on the Trials of History, take a look at the latest new briefing from PHMC......

Father of First Aid On October 25, 1899. Dr. Matthew J. Shields conducted the first training class on First Aid in American History at the Windsor Hotel. In attendance were 25 miners of the Jermyn Coal Colliery, believing that many lives could be spared with quick, efficient medical care until a physician could reach the mine. Once the course was completed, each of the miners was prepared and able to render first aid to those injured miners. Dr. Shields, who would later mov...e his practice to Scranton, took the concepts of first aid nationally with the American Red Cross in 1910. Photo: Taking injured miner into mine hospital ca 1915. Photograph by John Horgan Jr. and shared by Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum Read more about Dr. Shields as reprinted from "The Miner's Lamp", the Newsletter of the PA Anthracite Heritage Museum and Iron Furnaces Associates. https://www.markreuther.com/FAAC/history.html #MarkerMonday #firstaid

Happy National Cat Day! Pennsylvania native Harry Whittier Frees (1879-1953) became famous for his unusual photographs of young cats, dogs, rabbits and chickens wearing all sorts of garments and engaged in a variety of activities. Frees created images for magazines, calendars, books and postcards for more than a half century from 1902 to 1953. He began to pose fancifully garbed animals in 1905; because of their popularity they became his signature work. Frees became a staff ...animal photographer for the Rotograph Company of New York. #Nationalcatday Read an article about Harry Whittier Frees by Mary L. Weigley This article originally appeared in Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine Volume XL, Number 2 - Spring 2014 http://www.phmc.state.pa.us//introducing-harry-whittier-fr Photo Credit: The Cook (1914) by Harry Whittier Frees LIBRARY OF CONGRESS See more

Word of the Day: Puddler Skilled craftsmen who manipulated pig iron to create steel PA Historical Marker: In 1817 ironmaster Isaac Meason and Welshman Thomas Lewis built a puddling furnace and bar rolling mill here using a process from Wales that revolutionized the iron industry. It removed carbon from brittle pig iron creating malleable wrought iron in one step, making iron production much more efficient and less costly. Later, puddlers in Pittsburgh formed the first metal...s union, the Sons of Vulcan, forerunner of United Steelworkers. #MarkerMonday #puddler The process of puddling iron is significantly different from forging pig iron, which was the practice in the 18th and early 19th century. The biggest advantage of a puddling furnace was in keeping carbon in the fuel from coming into contact with the iron by separating them in the hearth and blowing hot air from the burning fuel over the iron. In the process, a two-man crew consisting of a puddler and his helper were armed with long, hooked rods called puddling bars. The furnace was charged by placing pig iron or cast iron in the metal bath area and then heating it until the top began to melt, forming a puddle (Samways, 2016), then an oxide such as mill scale was added. Source: Geology of the Early Iron Industry in Fayette County, Pennsylvania https://pittsburghgeologicalsociety.org//2018_PGS_Fieldtri See more

Looking to explore some History and Fall Foliage? Wellsboro...Gateway to the PA Grand Canyon Wellsboro was founded in 1806 to be the County Seat of Tioga County and was incorporated in 1830. The town was named in honor of Mary Wells, wife of one of the original settlers, Benjamin Wister Morris. Wellsboro stands today a symbol of beauty, exactitude in planning and cultural living. It gives to its visitors evidence that here amid the natural beauty of the surrounding country th...ere may be found people who take pride in maintaining their own town in the traditions they cherish. Click here for the history of Wellsboro https://wellsboropa.com/index/our-area/history-of-wellsboro Here for the Historic Walking Tour https://wellsboropa.com/images/WalkingTour%202020.pdf Or here for the Pine Creek Rail Trail https://wellsboropa.com/images/Pine-Creek.pdf

Most Famous Border in the US Marking the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Mason-Dixon Line, completed in 1765, ended an eighty-year dispute between Pennsylvania and Maryland. The most famous border in the United States, the Mason-Dixon Line then became both a physical and symbolic boundary in the decades before the end of the American Civil War, dividing not only Pennsylvania from Maryland, but the North from the South; America as land of slavery and a land of f...reedom. Set in 1766 by Mason and Dixon, the crownstone (Photo below: Credit Steve Fernie) marks the eastern boundary of the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania. Mason and Dixon marked the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania by placing stones marked with a P and M for the two colonies every mile and crownstones every five miles. Each crownstone included the coats-of-arms of the Calvert and the Penn families. After the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery in 1865, the Mason Dixon Line no longer represented the great divide between the two Americas. It remains, however, a symbol of the struggle for end of slavery in the United States and of the courage of the men and women who fled from slavery and those who assisted them. A U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey resurvey of the Mason-Dixon Line in 1901 and 1903 confirmed the accuracy of Mason and Dixon’s work. The Englishmen had never strayed further than 800 feet from the true line, and remained within an inch of accuracy in others. Today, many of the original marker stones remain visible, preserved by The Mason-Dixon Line Preservation Partnership. #MarkerMonday See more

The Wood Street Steps, located between Vine and Callowhill Street, connect Front Street to Water Street on the line of Wood Street, a narrow street that no longer exists in that area due to I-95. This is the last of a series of between eight and twelve stairwells that William Penn directed landowners along the central Delaware waterfront to build so as to facilitate access to the river for all people. The other steps have been removed through time (for the construction of I-9...5, for example), but this stairwell has survived for more than three hundred years on this block, which is the only remnant of Philadelphia's original waterfront. The steps are stone, but they may have been originally made of wood. (Photograph courtesy of Harry Kyriakodis) Read the story behind the historical marker on the Hidden City Philadelphia blog: https://hiddencityphila.org//honoring-william-penns-step/ #MarkerMonday See more

On This Day in History President Theodore Roosevelt joined Gov. Samuel W. Pennypacker on Oct. 4, 1906 to dedicate the new Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg. President Theodore Roosevelt, called the new capitol the "handsomest building I ever saw". Its predecessor had been destroyed by fire on February 2, 1897. In the interval, the Grace Methodist Church on State Street served as a temporary capitol. Photograph by William H. Rau Studios. Read the archived article here: http://www.phmc.state.pa.us//18/pennsylvania-capitol.html

Happy Birthday to America’s First Superhighway! The Pennsylvania Turnpike was opened to traffic on October 1, 1940. Groundbreaking took place near Newville, Cumberland County, on October 27, 1938, and the road was completed almost two years later, on October 1, 1940. With seven tunnels and 160 miles of limited-access four-lane roadway, the Pennsylvania Turnpike was America's first superhighway. Now, it was possible to drive from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh in a little over three hours instead of the five or six hours typical on the old Lincoln Highway, U.S. 30, or the William Penn Highway, U.S. 22. Nearly 27,000 autos crowded the road on its first weekend. The toll of one cent per mile didn't discourage traffic, and neither did the speed limit: initially, the Turnpike had no posted limit.

This week’s Marker Monday has a personal twist. I often travel through Perry County and have always been interested in the Historical Marker for John Bannister Gibson that is near an old building. This weekend, I was determined to stop, take a picture, read the marker and learn what the building was. As luck would have it, someone was there. I met one of the owners, Karen, who allowed me to take a few pictures, shared what she knew of the history and showed me initials that w...ere carved in the building. W.B. Could that have been William Bigler, the 12th Governor of Pennsylvania who was born nearby? His father, Jacob Bigler, once leased the mill. The building is Gibson’s or Westover’s Mill. Built in 1778 by Ann West Gibson. She was the mother of John Bannister Gibson who became Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Superior Court serving from 1827 to 1851. It is his historical marker that stands nearby. John Bannister Gibson's boyhood home, which occupied a site near the mill, was located almost on the banks of Sherman's Creek, with the towering peak of Mt. Pisgah immediately facing it, and below a mighty boulder jutting to the very edge of the waters of the creek, and known to this day as Gibson's Rock. The first mill on this site was of log construction on a stone foundation and the log mill was operated up to 1850 by the Gibson family, then was idle for a time. The mill was rebuilt into a spoke & wheel factory in 1871 by George's grandson, Frank Gibson, and the frame addition on the rear followed. A paint business was added to the spoke & wheel factory in 1878, when the wooden wheel that powered the mill was used to turn the mechanism for the grinding of yellow stone for pigment of yellow paint & iron oxide for red paint pigment. Does anyone have more information on this beautiful old mill? Please share! #MarkerMonday See more

As September marks the close of commemorating the 75th Anniversary of World War II, we at the Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation would like to recognize and thank all the men and women who gave so selflessly.

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." ~ Ben Franklin in reference to fighting fires. Franklin, in his Gazette, gave suggestions on fire safety: In the first Place, as an Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure, I would advise 'em to take care how they suffer living Coals in a full Shovel, to be carried out of one Room into another, or up or down Stairs, unless in a Warmingpan shut; for Scraps of Fire may fall into Chinks and make no Appearance until Midnigh...t; when your Stairs being in Flames, you may be forced, (as I once was) to leap out of your Windows, and hazard your Necks to avoid being oven-roasted. Franklin suggested a "Club or Society of active Men belonging to each Fire Engine; whose Business is to attend all Fires with it whenever they happen." Franklin's recommendations ultimately led in 1736 to the forming of Philadelphia's first volunteer fire brigade, the Union Fire Company. Their equipment included "leather buckets, with strong bags and baskets (for packing and transporting goods), which were to be brought to every fire. The blaze battlers met monthly to talk about fire prevention and fire-fighting methods. Homeowners were mandated to have leather fire-fighting buckets in their houses. #MarkerMonday

America's First Bank Robbery Carpenters' Hall is a treasure in historic Philadelphia. It hosted the First Continental Congress in 1774 and was home to Franklin's Library Company, The American Philosophical Society, and the First and Second Banks of the United States. It was also the site of America's first bank robbery. An enormous sum of $162,821 had been taken from vaults of the Bank of Pennsylvania at Carpenters' Hall during the night of Saturday, August 31 or the morning ...hours of Sunday, September 1, 1798. Pat Lyon was enormously interested in newspaper accounts of the robbery. The last job he completed a rush job before fleeing the city to avoid the yellow fever, was to change fittings and locks on two iron vault doors for the Bank of Pennsylvania. In the end, the affair would take on the flavor of a farce. The bank would get its money back and innocent victim Pat Lyon would regain his good name, and eventually profit handsomely from his imprisonment. Read Ron Avery's accounting followed by a recording of a lecture about Pat Lyon and The Bank of Pennsylvania by Carpenters’ Hall Docent- Dan Barto on Carpenters' Hall website. https://www.carpentershall.org/americas-first-bank-robbery

On This Day in History: The newly named Veterans of Foreign Wars met September 14-17, 1914 to chart a new course for America’s overseas veterans. They met at the site of the former Schenley Hotel, now the William Pitt Union at the University of Pittsburgh. A historical marker commemorating the 1914 Pittsburgh veterans’ convention now stand on the block marking its historical significance to VFW. #markermonday