Browse Items (60 total)

Located about twelve miles southwest of Hazelton, Brandonville was laid out in 1864 by Nelson Brandon on land that he owned in East Union Township. The trains shown moving in either direction run on the Catawissa Valley Railroad, which extended from…

Not much can be added to the description of this event, which is provided in detail within the text below the image. What the historical archives have yet to reveal, though, is precisely why William White and his fellow “victuallers”—livestock…

The Centennial Exposition was held in Philadelphia from May 10 to November 10, 1876. Organized to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the event featured more than 200 buildings spread over 450 acres in…

The Centennial Exposition was held in Philadelphia from May 10 to November 10, 1876. Organized to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the event featured more than 200 buildings spread over 450 acres in…

This broadside announces the Tuscarora Academy, founded in Academia, Pennsylvania (about eight miles southwest of Mifflintown), in 1836 by the Reverend McKnight Williamson, pastor of the nearby Lower Tuscarora Presbyterian Church. The Academy was the…

George Lehman, a talented landscape painter who was also trained in printmaking, came to this country from his native Switzerland in 1824. He produced lithographs and engravings as early as 1827 for the Philadelphia publisher Cephas G. Childs, and by…

The great elm tree depicted here by George Lehman supposedly marked the location where William Penn negotiated a treaty in the early 1680s with Tamanend, chief of the Lenape clan that inhabited the area where Philadelphia was established. The tree…

This charming view of Lancaster was drawn on stone by James Benade, about whom we know relatively little not because he lacked talent, but because he died so young, at the age of 30. The son of a bishop of the Moravian Church in Bethlehem, Benade…

To anyone interested in bird’s-eye views of Pennsylvania towns during the late nineteenth century, the name of Thaddeus Fowler appears on a seemingly endless number of panoramic images. He was the most prolific of all the view makers, drawing and…

Thaddeus Fowler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. He ran away from home at age fifteen, and four years later he enlisted in the Union Army at the start of the Civil War. Wounded at the Battle of Bull Run, he was honorably discharged in 1863 and…