Numerous Pennsylvania Germans were known for their Frakturs, colorful artwork. The word itself describes a German style of black lettering. One Fraktur artist, Charles Francis Portzline, came from Westphalia, Germany, in 1777. After spending several years in southeastern Pennsylvania, he eventually settled in Union County. He is buried in the family cemetery there.
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Dr.James Strawbridge of Montour County was one of several local physicians who saw extended duty in the Civil War. His workload during the war, imprisonment in a Confederate jail, and director of the hospital ship Nashville, all took a heavy toll. Strawbridge described the aftermath of the Battle of Milliken's Bend, and wrote to a friend that Black soldiers, " fight with a degree of intelligence and determination unequaled by the whites."
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Hiram Cranmer of Hammersley Forks, Clinton County, was born in 1891 and worked in the lumber camps of northern Pennsylvania from an early age. In 1947, he began discussing his experiences and memories, providing a unique insight into the heyday of lumbering, in which towns sprung up overnight and company owners became millionaires. We again share some of those insights, continuing the story we first shared in October of 2024.
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Many of us can remember the fun times in winter as children, taking a running start, or getting a push from a friend, and experiencing the exhilaration as we flew down a hill, on our wooden sleds. If your sled was a Lightning Guider, it was made in Duncannon, Perry County, Pennsylvania.
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The ice business each winter depended heavily on the weather across Pennsylvania and the Susquehanna Valley. Colder temperatures meant both better quantity and quality during the season.
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Although the “shooting in the New Year” custom was mostly prevalent among the Pennsylvania Germans in southeastern Pennsylvania counties such as Berks, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lehigh, and York, the tradition was also brought into other counties of the Susquehanna Valley, where Pennsylvania Germans settled.
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Among the rag-tag band of soldiers who made up George Washington’s Continental Army on Christmas night of 1776 in the Battle of Trenton, was Jacob Gearhart, who later settled in Northumberland County, just across the Susquehanna River from Danville, Montour County. I share two other connections between Washington’s crossing and the Susquehanna Valley.
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Christmas during the Civil War served both as an escape from and a reminder of the war which had split the country in two. Soldiers looked forward to a day of rest and relative relaxation but had their moods tempered by the thought of separation from their loved ones. Frederick Laubach of Danville's Company H in the 93rd Pennsylvania Regiment had this diary note for December 24, 25, and 26 of 1863, "The boys of Company H and generally throughout the Regiment was on a general drunk, spending the Christmas in the jolly old way."
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One of the recurring themes in soldiers’ letters and diaries during the Civil War was the weather. It had an influence on their daily lives, in camp, on the battlefield, and while on the march.
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In Pennsylvania, David Rittenhouse Porter, living in Huntingdon County when elected as Governor in 1838, declared a statewide Thanksgiving in 1843. It was not observed the following year, but in 1845, Governor Francis Shunk established November 27th as a day of Thanksgiving, and it has been observed in the state since then. In 1847, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania Merchants asked customers to shop the day before Thanksgiving and a 1910 Danville newspaper ad touted the benefits of pure spring water with the Thanksgiving dinner.
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