In the summer of 1899, a newspaper reporter from the Baltimore Sun, Charles Weathers Bump, took a trip down the Susquehanna River from Otsego New York, to the Chesapeake Bay. During the twenty-eight-day journey from mid-August to mid-September Bump compiled stories for the newspaper’s readers. In one of his articles in early September, Bump shared his thoughts on a stop in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, and the demise of the Pennsylvania Canal.
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Many people remember the opening lines of Paul Revere's Ride, written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. But most don't know of the ride of Rachel Silverthorne in the Susquehanna Valley near Muncy, to warn settlers of an impending attack by Indians.
William "Bill" Brewer, spent more than sixty years spreading the Gospel in the lumber camps of northern Pennsylvania. This story shares a humorous encounter he had with a bear while preaching on Young Woman's Creek
Early settlers in northern Pennsylvania used clumsy axes and hoes to clear land and prepare the soil for farming. Thrashing was done with a flail or trampled by oxen or horses. Men usually worked at lumbering, clearing land, building fence[s], and raising field crops, while women and children tended livestock, made dairy products, and preserved food.
Rivers such as the Susquehanna were the transportation highways before canals and railroads transported farm produce and lumber throughout Pennsylvania
In his book, Pennsylvania Mountain Stories, Henry Wharton Shoemaker shares a trip he made to Fanny Heddens Hotel in Washingtonville, Montour County in the early 1900's.
In 1893, Pennsylvania Governor Robert E. Pattison appointed a commission to come up with a report on the forts erected throughout Pennsylvania to protect early settlers from the Indians prior to the year 1873. Here is a brief story on Fort Antes, in Lycoming County
An anecdote from Otzinachson: or a History of the West Branch Valley of the Susquehanna by J.F. Meginness
Captain Jack, whose baptismal name was John Wallace Crawford, was born in the late 1840's in Donegal, Ireland. After his father came to this country and obtained a job in the mines near Minersville, Schuylkill County, Jack, his mother, and the rest of the Crawford offspring arrived to join the elder Crawford.
John Mason owned a farm of ninety acres of land on Blue Hill, overlooking Northumberland, and who, from his eccentricities, came to be known as the “Hermit of Blue Hill.”
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