A boa constrictor spending the cold Bradford County winter in woolen blankets, wagons to paint, acts to rehearse, and horses to train. One performer in the entourage was a cartwheeling youngster who later rose to national acclaim. All of them were part of Charles Lee's Great London Shows, which wintered in Canton. During the traveling season, the wagon train of performers wheeled into such places as Troy, Towanda, LeRaysville and Montrose before continuing into New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
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Saturday Evening Post readers are no doubt familiar with Norman Rockwell's iconic illustrations. But many may not realize that another illustrator with a similar style, Frances Tipton Hunter, was born in Centre County and raised in Williamsport.
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For nearly twenty-five years, from 1839 until shortly before she died in 1863, Eliza John recorded the happenings of her family, her neighbors, and the communities surrounding her home in Shamokin Township. Eliza left us a detailed record of the people, places, customs, joys, and sorrows that formed the everyday fabric of life in the Susquehanna Valley.
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The music of the mountain people represented a mixture of traditions brought into Pennsylvania by successive generations of settlers, along with music developed locally. Henry W. Shoemaker was a Pennsylvania historian, conservationist, and collector of folklore. He traveled throughout the mountains, gathering songs, legends, and recollections from residents of Keystone State.
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