Local History

Town Indexes

Allenwood     Bloomsburg    Catawissa  Clarkstown  

Danville    Dewart    Hughesville      

Lewisburg       McEwensville  Mifflinburg    Milton   

Montandon      Montgomery   Montoursville  Mooresburg

   Muncy   New Berlin     New Columbia    Newberry 

Picture Rocks  Pottsgrove    Riverside   Salladasburg  

 Selinsgrove      Sunbury     Trout Run  Turbotville      

  Washingtonville    Watsontown      West Milton 

   White Deer   Williamsport   Winfield

Postcard Tours

Viewing Local Towns Block By Block Through The Decades

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2020/08/post-card-tours-of-valley-towns-through.html

Local History  By  The Year

A Time Line Of Local History

On This Day In Local History :

JAN    FEB    MAR   APR    MAY    JUNE  

JUL   AUG   SEP   OCT   NOV   DEC

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Airplanes	Amusement Parks
Artists	Authors

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Athletes & Athletics [Sports]

Baseball	Football

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Balloons, Hot Air	Biographies
Boats Steam Ships, Ferry Boats & Other Watercraft	Covered Bridges - An Index By Location

ADD - Bridges

Events & Holidays

New Years	Valentines Day
Easter	When April 1st Was Moving Day.   For Everyone In Pa.

Flag Raisings	Welcoming The Soldiers Home

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The Fourth Of July Historically

What the  4th Of July Looked Like 100 Years Ago,  Town By Town:

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	When 4th Of July Fireworks Destroyed The Town Of Benton
The 4th Of July in   Lewisburg 1836-1900	The 4th Of July in  Sunbury 1800-1927 Including Edison's Return	4th Of July in  Watsontown 1894-1918

The 4th Of July in Turbotville 1907-1917	The 4th Of July Parade Washingtonville 1908	The 1895 Centennial
The Lycoming County Declaration Of Independence [A historical marker for a tree that doesn't exist, and an event that probably never happened]

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Fires, Floods & Other Natural Disasters

Firsts	Food [Recipes]
Forts

Food

• Boilo - A Coal Country Tradition (and recipe)
• Jacobs Confectionary In Danville
• The McClure Bean Soup (a tradition started by civil war soldiers) 
• From the Red Arrow To The Arrowhead
• Trolley Car Diner In Milton

Firsts

• The Blue Eyed Six - First Murder for Insurance Money
• Julia Collins wrote the first novel by an African American Woman, in Williamsport
• First 3 Wire Electric Light -  When Edison Came To Our Valley - Sunbury, Shamokin, Mount Carmel & Turbotville
• First Steering Knuckle, Installed in Watsontown Pa
• The First To Run For President On The Prohibition Party Ticket Was From Lewisburg 
• York PA - The Birthplace Of The United States Of America
• The First Aviator To Fly Over Northumberland & Snyder Counties

Industries -  An index of the posts about the industries in each town	Inventors

Inventors

• Christopher Sholes, Inventor of the Typewriter
• Delong Memorial Hall - How A Hump In A Hook Made A Millionaire
• Edison Came To Danville
• Samuel B. McHenry from Bloomsburg
• The Invention Of The Price Tag - Wanamakers, Philadelphia
• When Edison Came To Our Valley - Sunbury, Shamokin, Mount Carmel & Turbotville
• Wilson Walkies - Made In Watsontown
• The Van Fleet Rose

An Index Of Lime Kilns	An Index Of Stories, Photos & History From the Lumbering Area Particularly Along The West Branch Of The Susquehanna River
Where To Find The Maps An Index	Where The Mills Once Stood An Index

Military 

• The Alvira Bunkers
• The Battle of Fort Freeland
• Fort Rice - A Revolutionary Fort That Still Stands in Turbotville PA
• In Flanders Field - The Tradition of Wearing Poppies on Memorial Day
• George Washington's Bodyguard, Montgomery Pa
• It's A Wonderful Life - Jimmy Stewart, an Indiana PA native, suffered from PTSD when filming
• The LeRoy Massacre
• Pearl Harbor Joe  - The first to spot the planes that bombed Pearl Harbor
• Remembering the Susquehanna Valley Men Who Died in The Spanish American War Of 1898 
• The Poetress Of The Confedereacy Was Born In Milton Pa
• York PA - The Birthplace Of The United States Of America
• When the Government Took Over Danville Steel For The War Effort
• 1919 Welcome Home, Sunbury Supplement

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The Molly Maguires

A Time Line  Of The  Molly Maguire Saga

When Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction Oddities From The Molly Maguire Saga

An Attempt to Understand The Molly Maguire Drama

The Valley Of Fear A Sherlock  Holmes  Novel,  l oosely based  on the  Molly Maguires

A Movie About  The Molly Maguires,  starring  Sean Connery,  was filmed at  Eckley Miners  Village

The Molly Maguire Memorial In Mahanoy

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Markers & Monuments

"Not Likely" Historical Markers for events that most likely never really happened.

Movie Theaters

• The Capitol Theater In Milton
• The Drive In Movie Theater On The Milton Island
• When There Was A Motion Picture Contest In Milton
• The Pike Drive In In Montgomery
• When The Silver Moon Drive In In Lewisburg Was Illegally Showing Moving Pictures On Sundays
• When Watsontown Had A Movie Theater

Murder & Mayhem

• The Gallows In Central Pennsylvania
• Allenwood - The Christmas Eve Murder in Allenwood
• Dewart - When The Bodies Were Discovered At The Dewart River Bridge (And that bizarre Houseknecht Mystery)
• Lewisburg - When 4 Inmates Crashed Through The Prison Gates & Held My Great Grandmother Hostage
• Mausdale - Mystery Of The Mine
• Milton - Murder In Milton, The Chalfont House
• Milton - 1916 Love Triangle Murder
• Montgomery - When Montgomery's Police Chief Was Killed By A Madman - 1938
• Montgomery - William Hummel, Lycoming County's Notorious Axe Murderer
• Sunbury - Cressinger, The Youngest To Be Executed in Pennsylvania
• Trevorton - When The German Fortune Tellers Were Murdered In Snyder County
• Watsontown- The Unsolved Murder Of Amos Ritter in Watsontown, 1897
• An Attempt To Understand the Molly Maguire Story

Notable Visitors

• Amelia Earhart Landed In Hughesville (and Sunbury Too)
• Edison Came To Danville
•  When Edison Came To Our Valley - Sunbury, Shamokin, Mount Carmel & Turbotville
• Houdini Came To Williamsport To Expose Fake Mediums
• Jim Thorpe never visited Jim Thorpe PA, but he did stay in Hughesville!
• When Katherine Hepburn Vacationed Here
• Lionel Legares Mammoth Spiral Tower
• Will Rogers Landed In A Field In Beaver Springs - then wrote about it in the Saturday evening post
• Twain - When Mark Twain Visited Milton Pa
• Twain - When Mark Twain Came To Williamsport
• When Walt Whitman Came To Lewisburg
• When The Presidents Came To Fish In Lycoming County

Notable Residents

• George Washington's Bodyguard, Montgomery Pa
• It's A Wonderful Life - Jimmy Stewart, an Indiana PA native, suffered from PTSD when filming
• Mrs Bucknell Sailed On The Titanic & Lived To Tell About It
• Prohibitions First Presidential Candidate Was From Lewisburg

Parks, Past & Present

An Index Of The Town Postcard Tours

• 
  
• Sketches of Shamokin, 1851

Resources, Assorted

Where To Find The Valley's History In Books	Where The Valley Towns Got Their Names

The Watsontown Star & Record Anniversary Edition 1907

Revolutionary War

• 1775-1784 - A Time Line Of the Susquehanna Valley In The Revolutionary War
• Mrs Durham was scalped while leaving Fort Freeland.  She survived, and lived for another 50 years.
• See Also - Forts
• 1778 - The Great Runaway

Ripped From The Headlines

•  The Guyer House is moved from the "dumb-built circle" in Shamokin Dam
• The Hessian Soldier Found In Lycoming County 
• Milton Silk Mill Worker Seeking 10,000 Husband
• Mrs Bucknell Sailed On The Titanic & Lived To Tell About It
• Stahlman's Scripture Rocks
• Wilkes Barres Millionaire For A Day Presents Statue To Milton

Schools - One Room Schoolhouses An Index
Songwriters

Songwriters

• We Three Kings Was Written By A Williamsport Rector
• Winter Wonderland Was Written by A Honesdale Native

Transportation

Boats	Cars [Automobiles]
Ferries	Trolleys

Train Stations	An Index Of  Railroad Incidents [Wrecks, etc], By Year
Train Lines

Traditions

• The Shoe - A Muncy / Montgomery High School Football Tradition
• Boilo - A Coal Country Tradition (and recipe)
• The McClure Bean Soup (a tradition started by civil war soldiers) 

The Underground Railroad 

• The Underground Railroad In Central Pa
• Charles Bell, The Escaped Slave Who Worked At Bucknell For 40 Years
• Hetherington House In Milton Pa 
• The Stained Glass Window donated by The Underground Railroad Club in Williamsport
• Julia Collins, The First African American Author, Lived in Williamsport Pa
• When Frederick Douglas Spoke In Williamsport PA

Wednesday Words

Assorted Memoirs, Reminisces, Letters & Stories 

About Life In The Central Susquehanna Valley

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2022/02/wednesday-words.html

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History For The Holidays

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New Years

• The Histories Behind The Unique Things That Drop On New Years Eve In Pa
• What Is A Mummer, And Why A Parade?
• Why Pork & Sauerkraut on New Years Day?

Easter

• The Bunny In The Window At Jacobs Confectionery

Memorial Day

• In Flanders Field - The Tradition of Wearing Poppies on Memorial Day

Fourth Of July

Thanksgiving

• The First National Thanksgiving Was Proclaimed in York Pa

Veterans Day

• From Armistice To Veterans Day - The History Of Thanking Those Who Served
• In Flanders Field - The Tradition of Wearing Poppies on Memorial Day

Christmas

• It's A Wonderful Life - Jimmy Stewart, an Indiana PA native, suffered from PTSD when filming
• The History Of Christmas Tree Lights
• Christmas Traditions Of The Past - As Published in Local Papers
• How A Small Town Band From York Pa Stole Christmas
• We Three Kings Was Written By A Williamsport Rector
• Winter Wonderland Was Written by A Honesdale Native

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