If trees could talk, imagine the stories a two-hundred and fifty-six-year-old white oak tree in Union County could tell. It was blazed or marked by William Maclay, first a lawyer, and then a surveyor who was employed by the Penn Family. It was marked in 1769 as part of a 320-acre tract for the proprietary governors.
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For those of us who love reading about Pennsylvania's past and sharing those stories with others, we owe a debt of gratitude to the many men and women who have come before us, including those who documented the adventures, hardships, and folklore. And of course, the pioneers and settlers who were willing to sit down, reminiscing, and even spinning a few tales, true or false, stirring the imagination of others. Henry Wharton Shoemaker played an important part in recording and preserving stories of the Keystone State.
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Abraham Lincoln said, “And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.” John Hall Chatham of Clinton County, Pennsylvania, was a man who experienced a lot of adventure in his seventy-six years. A poet, a conservationist, the playmate to the daughter of a Seneca Indian Warrior, and for many years a raftsman on rivers and streams in Pennsylvania, he left a legacy among his friends, family, and admirers.
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American hymnwriter, composer, and Sunday School Teacher James Milton Black was born in New York, but spent most of his life in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He wrote nearly 1500 hymns, but his most famous is "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder." A little girl in his Sunday school class who did not respond to his roll call one morning led him to write the song, which has been written in at least fourteen languages and sung in churches, revival meetings, and on street corners all over the world.
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The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines folklore as: traditional customs, tales, sayings, dances, or art forms preserved among a people. Pennsylvania certainly has both a unique and diverse cultural heritage. Ghost stories, real or mythical creatures from the lumber regions in northern Pennsylvania, the proud cultures from the coal regions, and the Pennsylvania Dutch heritage from southeastern Pennsylvania all have provided entertaining examples handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, folk songs, or in art form. The story shared below was published in the Keystone Folklore quarterly magazine, which was in existence for some 35 years. This tale takes place in the area of the Penns Creek Massacre in the north central part of the Susquehanna Valley.
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Stories and illustrations of Pennsylvania provide a person's insight into the wonders of the Keystone State. An 1883 book by J. David Williams, "America Illustrated," includes several sketches from different regions of Pennsylvania. One of those is the Juniata Valley, a neighbor to the west of the Susquehanna.
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Whipping posts, stocks, and pillories were used in the sentences imposed by the early courts of Pennsylvania around the time of the American Revolution. In the Susquehanna Valley, the first courts in Northumberland County were located in Sunbury. Northumberland County covered a large area in Pennsylvania when it was formed from five others in 1772. Accused criminals from throughout the Susquehanna Valley were tried in Sunbury, and if found guilty, punishment was meted out. Custom and also custom law permitted each passerby to throw one stone at the culprit's head. In the stocks, the offender sat upon a platform with his hands and feet protruding through the framework. But for career criminal Joe Disberry, an even crueler punishment never stopped his life of crime.
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James Aiken spent nearly sixty years of his life in the Susquehanna Valley, mostly in Union County. The teacher, poet, and orator was born in 1799 in Otsego County, New York . Aiken was an advocate of the temperance movement and was a frequent public speaker on behalf of the cause. At the time of the 1850 census, he was living in a temperance hotel in Lewisburg.
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John D. Nerhood, who was born in Centre County, was among a unique group of men who rafted the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers. He rafted for ten years and later owned a lumbering operation in the wilds of Centre, Huntingdon, and Fulton Counties until about 1912, when he retired.
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The one-room school in Mooresburg, Montour County, is a survivor. The Montour County Historical Society celebrates its 150th anniversary on Saturday, May 17th. Visitors can step back in time to experience the early days of education in one-room schools. One of the teachers in those one-room schools who witnessed the transformation of the education system was Miss Margaret Madden, a fixture in front of the classroom for sixty-three years. Beginning her career as a teacher in the 1850s, she was younger than some of the students she taught. She was never marked tardy or absent during those six decades.
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