As I research stories for my Susquehanna Footprints website, I often find short anecdotal stories that include topics that include strange, as well as comical topics. Here are a few that could make you scratch your head, smile, or both. Between 1831 and 1844, on the basis of his study of Bible, William Miller, a rural New York farmer and Baptist lay preacher, predicted and preached the return of Jesus Christ to the earth. Stories appeared in newspapers and books.
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In July of 1860, thirty-one Danville residents, most well-known, respectable citizens, “pulled a fast one”, strung them along, and “pulled the wool over the eyes” of their fellow townsmen. Half a century after the Japanese Embassy Hoax, one of the few remaining participants still surviving described the incident, coinciding with the arrival of real Japanese Embassy officials in the United States.
During the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening (1784–1830), Reverend Asa Dunham was among the many circuit-riding preachers sent out by denominations to minister to early settlers in the Susquehanna Valley. Dunham’s meetings resulted in founding the Hidlay Presbyterian Church in Columbia County.
Uriah J. Jones received his formal education behind a printing press. Born in Union County, he married a Columbia County girl during his travels as a strolling Aator. Jones is regarded as the first newspaperman in the United States to create a distinctively local department in his paper, placing all local stories together and classifying them under the caption of " Local News."
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, in 2023, Pennsylvania farms produced 205,000 gallons of maple syrup worth more than $7.5 million. Native Americans first tapped into the maple tree, and when the first Europeans came to Pennsylvania and the Susquehanna Valley, they introduced them to making maple syrup.
Imagine packing up your family and all your belongings once a year, usually around April 1st. ‘Flitting Day’ as it was called, was once a common occurrence in Pennsylvania and other areas of the country. Local newspapers included stories of both family and business moves in late March and early April.
Born in Axemann, Centre County, Pennsylvania, Christopher Heverly, known as “Jack” or “Kit” when he was young, gained nationwide fame and the title of “King of Minstrel.” “Colonel” Jack Haverly was one of a new wave of theater troupe owners and managers who had not entered the profession as a performer himself. He borrowed the techniques of famous showmen like P. T. Barnum to promote his theater companies.
A 1907 map and accompanying story shows the formation of all sixty-seven Pennsylvania counties. In the mid-Susquehanna Valley, Northumberland County was formed in 1773, and Snyder County was the sixty-fifth county formed in 1855.
Anna Morris Holstein was born in Muncy, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. She joined her husband, visiting field hospitals in the Civil War. Using the pen name Mrs. H., Anna wrote a memoir entitled Three Years in Field Hospitals of the Army of the Potomac. Among her reminisces, "The name of Antietam is ever associated in my mind with scenes of horror. As I passed through the first hospitals of wounded men I ever saw, there flashed the thought this is the work God has given me to do in this war.”
The early settlers of Pennsylvania were faced with various struggles. It’s probably safe to say the hardships were similar for families in various parts of the state. I recently came across several articles in the Bradford Star newspaper in Bradford County, published in the late 1890s, that provide insight and describe some of the setbacks and deprivations experienced by the pioneers.
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