In January of 1861, State Representative Thomas N. Crumpler announced in the North Carolina House of Commons that Ashe County was not likely to support secession. Crumpler's estimation of his voters' opinion proved correct. In February, his constituents gathered in Jefferson to participate in what was described as a "lively debate" on the merits of leaving the Union and voted down a North Carolina secession convention by a count of758 to 144.
David Schuyler, A City Transformed: Redevelopment, Race, and Suburbanization in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1940-1980. University Park PA: Penn State Press, 2002. Photos, 278 pps., $19.95.
Matthew C. Ward, Breaking the Back country: The Seven Years' War in Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1754-1765. Pittsburgh PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003. Maps, photos, 329 pps., $34.95.
Lorett Treese, Railroads of Pennsylvania: Fragments of the Past in the Keystone Landscape. Mechanicsburg PA: Stackpole Books, 2003. Photos, 256 pps., $18.95.
Anne M. Ousterhout, The Most Learned Woman in America: A Life of Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004. Photos, 394 pps., $35.00.
In April 1825, the Pennsylvania General Assembly authorized the construction of the "Public Works," a state-built system of canals and railroads designed to provide improved transportation throughout the Commonwealth. The most vital portion of the Public Works was the "Main Line," a 395-mile long series of canals and railroads built to link the state's largest city, Philadelphia, with the important western city of Pittsburgh.
At an academic conference on Marianne Moore, I needled one of the editors of Moore's letters for writing assertively that in 1896 the Moore family moved from Pittsburgh to "nearby Carlisle." Even a century later, with a turnpike, the trip is four and a half hours by a fast car; at the end of the nineteenth century, it must have been akin to burning your bridges behind you. "Oh, that's all right," said this professor from Pomona College, "from California every place in Pennsylvania is nearby." If unguarded, perspective can trump historical reality every time.
Lying broken on the ground in the underbrush of a neglected Cumberland County burying site is the only known stone carved by Jacob Heneman. Who was he? Who were the other carvers of Cumberland County? There are 228 Cumberland County burying sites listed in Cemeteries of Cumberland County by Bob Davidson (Carlisle, PA: Cumberland County Historical Society, 2000). After removing the sixty-four that are identified as leveled, moved, or unknown, 164 are still in existence.
Beneath Saint Patrick's Church on East Pomfret Street in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, are the mortal remains of Peter Helbron. He was a German Capuchin priest, his parish being in Westmoreland County. His subterranean presence in Cumberland County raises obvious questions, and those questions lead to a glimpse into the daily life of a country priest in early nineteenth-century America. This paper will look at Father Helbron's life, with special attention to the inventory of his estate.
Author's note: The Trout Gallery at Dickinson College presented an exhibit entitled "The Carlisle Indian School: 1879-1918" from January 30 to February 28, 2004. Visitors to this exhibit were able to see several pictographs that were once part of an album of drawings presented to Mason D. Pratt by his father, Richard Henry Pratt. The front cover of that album is embossed in gold letters "A Kiowa's Odyssey", and the Kiowa whose drawings formerly rested inside the red covers was Etahdleuh Doanmoe, the subject of this article.