This weekend Old Economy Village presents “The Panic of Pittsburgh: A Civil War Event.” This living history program will explore the impact of the Civil War on western Pennsylvania and the response of local residents. A small exhibit in the Visitor Center will feature the Harmonists’ involvement in supporting the troops and other civilians through charitable efforts and other means. Some members of the Harmony Society were subject to the draft; they exercised their legal exemption on religious grounds and paid for substitutes. Documents in the OEV archives reflect these activities as well as the fact that the Harmonists kept in contact with and supported those substitutes. (My thanks to curator Sarah Buffington for images and text--I’m hoping to do a more in-depth post about this and other Civil War stuff on the Trails of History later in the summer.) The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had a nice article about the event this past Monday; check it out here. The schedule for this weekend’s program is Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm, and Sunday, noon to 5 pm.
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| Militia List, Harmony Township, Beaver County, 1862 (Old Economy Village) |
Tuesday night, June 11, Eckley Miners’ Village will be the Community Organization of the Night as the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders play the Buffalo Bisons—gotta love minor league baseball team names. (This is Triple-A baseball--the RailRiders are affiliated with the New York Yankees, the Bisons are with the Toronto Blue Jays.) As the featured organization, folks from Eckley will have an information table and advertising on the Jumbotron, and they’ll participate in a ceremonial first pitch, pre-game announcements, and in-game interviews. (On an almost completely unrelated note, you can see photos from last month’s Victorian Fashion Show at Eckley here.)
You may want to head over to YouTube to catch up on Trails of History activities. For example, students from Lebanon’s Cedar Crest High School produced a segment on Cornwall Iron Furnace (above) as part of their “Our Town” series. A young railfan tours the Railroad Museum of PA here and Landis Valley Museum was featured in a "360 Lancaster" segment here. Or see why the view from Bowman’s Hill Tower at Washington Crossing Historic Park was recently named a finalist for best view in Bucks County here. Or watch a very brief reenactment of the Battle of Lake Erie during the Perry 200 parade on Memorial Day here.
Photos from Memorial Day weekend events abound on Facebook and elsewhere—among them the Pennsylvania Military Museum’s World War II Revisited here and Washington Crossing Historic Park’s Memorial Day Observance here (thanks to Linda Silkwood on Flickr).
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| Erie Maritime Museum/Flagship Niagara float Perry 200 Grand Patriotic Parade (photo by Linda Bolla) |
Summer interns have started their work at many sites on the Trails of History. At Ephrata Cloister, they’re already blogging about their experience. I hope to have some interns as guest bloggers on Trailheads later this summer.
Drake Well Museum’s MEET-U (mobile energy education training unit) recently held a successful 5-mile trail race to raise funds, participated in the Perry 200 parade, and hosted a field trip of university, government and industry professionals who were in Pittsburgh for the annual conventions of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the Petroleum History Institute (by all accounts they had a fabulous time).
That’s just a small snapshot of all the activity that’s going on out there on the Trails of History. I’ll leave you with one more—progress is being made at the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum on the project to renovate and expand the Visitor Center. One important change is that there will be a fully accessible ground level entrance, which means taking out the existing steps. It’s a big job, as you can see.
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| Pennsylvania Lumber Museum (photo by Jeff Bliemeister) |
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