Two brothers from Sunbury, Pennsylvania, having read General George Washington's report to Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, of the rich lands and valleys that were unoccupied in what is now called Venango and Crawford Counties, determined to explore that region for themselves. They were the first to blaze a trail through what is now Jefferson County.
The Chef Boyardee Foods that many of us grew up with played an integral part in feeding American troops during World War Two. The Milton Pennsylvania plant was instrumental in the war effort.
Former schoolteacher Dr. Margaret Young Coleman of Williamsport is identified as the first woman physician to practice in north-central Pennsylvania. She remained in practice for more than forty years.
Droughts, floods, and a year without summer were just a few of the hardships faced by pioneer farmers in the Susquehanna Valley. But it helped deepen certain virtues and ideals.
Civil War Regimental Bands were partly military ceremony and morale, and partly practical wartime service. Civil War bands played for recruiting, marches, dress parades, inspections, funerals, patriotic occasions, religious services, and camp entertainment.
Folklore or Fact? Residents of the West Branch tell the story of a Susquehanna River monster in the 1800's near Kettle Creek in Clinton County.
The Williamsport and North Branch Railroad, usually abbreviated W&NB, was a north-central Pennsylvania short line that served Lycoming and Sullivan Counties from the early 1870s until abandonment in the late 1930s. It was among many short lines serving smaller counties in the Susquehanna Valley.
Camp meeting groves were a common occurrence in Pennsylvania in the 1800’s. Very few remain. The first Methodist camp meeting of record in Central Pennsylvania was held in the summer of 1805 about two miles below Milton along the Chillisquaque Creek.
Squatters in the West Branch of the Susquehanna Valley reportedly signed their own Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776, not knowing the Continental Congress had signed its declaration that same day in Philadelphia.
Imagine the stories a two-hundred-and-fifty-seven-year-old white oak tree in Union County has witnessed. It was blazed or marked by William Maclay, first a lawyer and then a surveyor who was employed by the Penn Family.
