During the heyday of timbering in the woods of north-central Pennsylvania, nearly sixty sawmills operated along the Susquehanna River between Lycoming and Loyalsock creeks. Williamsport’s mills reportedly sawed more than eight billion board feet of white pine between 1868 and 1906.
The eating feats of a man known as "Hungry Sam" Miller (pictured on the left in the photo) were legendary in the early 1900s. Miller won many a wager, and there was a time when the ladies who helped make up the pastor's salary by holding chicken and waffle suppers gave gasps of horror when they heard that "Hungry Sam" was there to get "all you can eat for a quarter.
The summer house or summer kitchen was one of the many buildings found on farmsteads in the Susquehanna Valley. It also served in other capacities related to the farm work.
On the Pennsylvania frontier, small-scale distilling was common. Farmers often turned rye or corn into whiskey and apples or peaches into brandy. This made practical sense. Grain was bulky and harder to transport, but whiskey was easier to move, store, and sell. Distilling also prevented waste when crops were abundant.
Born in the borough of Milton in Northumberland County, Laura Johnson Wylie became one of the most cultured women in America. In 1894, Laura was among the first group of women to receive a PH D at Yale University.
A local hardware store owner in Muncy, Pennsylvania during the Civil War, secretly funded the return of soldiers killed in battle. His efforts quietly helped cover expenses for families who couldn't afford the return of bodies and burial expenses.
A distinctive regional style of Pennsylvania longrifles now called the Upper Susquehanna School, or sometimes the Sunbury–Northumberland School, was made in the Susquehanna Valley. It came after an earlier period when frontier craftsmen often focused on repairing military and civilian arms.
Buckwheat grown in Columbia County and ground at one local mill proved popular at a New York City Hotel. And a Benton man who invented a machine to separate pebbles from the buckwheat during harvesting felt his invention wasn't that important.
A great flood in 1816 wiped out a valuable woolen factory located in what is now Forksville, Sullivan County. The Loyalsock Creek floodwaters destroyed the mill, but months later a large iron kettle used to make dye was found downstream. And it survives today.
The first military telegraph exchange of the Civil War was handled by a Lewistown, Pennsylvania, woman who worked as a telegrapher encompassing a forty-five-year career.
