John Durang, Lancaster, Lancaster County

This week's post is brought to you by Edgar Winter. No, not the musician; I'm hanging out with my parents' cat this afternoon. He is a very unusual cat, who wags his tail when he's happy and loves to be vacuumed. I'm supposed to also say that he is exceptionally handsome and intelligent. He wants you all to know that he actually has his own Facebook account now, so if you'd like to enjoy his antics, you can find him at Edgar Winter the Cat. (Yes, I am his social media manager. The price of being one of his favorite humans is feeding his ego.)

Of course, this post is not about the cat. I'll let him think it is, since one thing he can't do is read - at least as far as I know - but in fact we're going to talk about someone who was born a couple centuries before him. This Lancaster native has the very interesting distinction of being remembered as George Washington's favorite entertainer, and his performances were as varied as they were memorable.

John W. Coltrane, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

I'm back! It was a very lovely vacation - I can say now that we were on a cruise to Bermuda, thanks to the generosity of my parents, and it was exactly what the doctor ordered. I've been feeling kind of run-down and burned out in recent weeks, so this did me a world of good. It was my fourth time on that beautiful island, but we've already picked out one or two new things to do if there's another visit in our future. 

I hadn't decided what my topic would be when I returned to the blog, but I sort of had the decision made for me thanks to a new addition to the list of guest photographers. Kevin's brother Darren sent me a photo of a marker I didn't have in Philadelphia. (I considered saving it until September, for the 100th birthday of the gentleman in question, but knowing me I'd forget.) My prior knowledge of John Coltrane was extremely limited; it mostly stemmed from having seen the movie Mr. Holland's Opus in my late teens, in which the title character names his son Coltrane after the musician. While researching this quest, though, I learned a lot of things, some of which surprised me. For one, this is the first time I'm writing about a canonized saint, although it won't be the last.

Out of Blogosphere!

First, happy anniversary to this blog! MQ turned eight years old this past weekend. They grow up so fast.

Meanwhile, there will be no new quests this week or next - I'm on vacation. Your humble blogger needs some serious R&R and I'll be doing my best to actually get it. I'll be back in the saddle on June 10th with a fresh new story for my history-loving readers, but in the meantime, I hope we all have a great and peaceful two weeks. <3

Chocolate Workers' Sit-Down Strike, Hershey, Dauphin County

Spring? Never heard of her. In my part of Pennsylvania, we seem to have leaped from winter's last grasp straight to the front door of summer, but in the next couple days we're dropping from temperatures in the 90s down to the 50s. But on the bright side, it's not snowing.

I recently saw a trailer for a new movie from Angel Studios, coming out later this year, simply titled Hershey. I'm surprised it's taken this long for someone to make a movie about the guy, since Milton Hershey is arguably one of the best-known figures in Pennsylvania history. In fact, out of all the native Pennsylvanians I can recall, it might be a toss-up between him and Mister Rogers for the top spot, though I'm inclined to give the prize to my childhood hero. (I'm only counting natives in that. The commonwealth has many famous figures who came from elsewhere, like William Penn himself and Ben Franklin.)

However, while Hershey the man is remembered with great affection, Hershey the company has a few dark spots in its story. This week's quest is about one of them.

Andrew G. Curtin, Bellefonte, Centre County

It's been an unexpectedly busy week! As I mentioned last time, I was recently interviewed by Alton Northup of the Harrisburg affiliate of ABC News. He was doing a piece about places that claim that "George Washington slept here" and my pal Kaylee Lindenmuth recommended that he contact me. We had a wonderful conversation and his article is now live, so definitely check it out here.

I also came across a surprising discovery on YouTube. I found a video about Thaddeus Stevens, whom I've often mentioned as being one of my favorite historical figures. Much to my surprise, about a year ago a video was produced about him using this blog as one of the sources! I'm very happy to have contributed, however unknowingly, to helping Thad's legacy spread in this way. You can watch the video here. I guess I'm going to have to create a page for listing places where I find MQ in other media.

Meanwhile, this week we're going to venture back to lovely Bellefonte, in Centre County, and talk about one of the individuals who grew up to be the governor of our fair commonwealth. 

Thompson's Rifle Battalion, Carlisle, Cumberland County

I'm a bit shook, as the kids today like to say. Tomorrow evening I'll be giving my first on-camera interview since Laury's Island was published back in 2020. Alton Northrup, of WHTM ABC 27 in Harrisburg, was introduced to my blog by Kaylee Lindenmuth of the Shenandoah Sentinel and he wants to ask me some questions about it. Unlike last week's disappointment with the publisher scam, this one's legitimate and actually going to happen. I still haven't decided what I'm going to wear. (Thank you, Kaylee!)

Meanwhile, a post! This week's topic ended up being a bit more complex than I expected. It's actually spread across four different markers in four different counties, although this is the primary one and the others are sort of supplemental material, if that makes sense. I don't have the other three, but I'll give them posts when I do and connect them with this one. The other markers are about some of the companies which served in this battalion of lore, so I'm sure they've got some interesting stories of their own. As I've said in a few other posts, Pennsylvania is a treasure trove of American firsts, and this is no exception: we provided the Revolutionary War with the very first battalion authorized by Congress itself. (And really, is anyone surprised by that?) To put it another way, the Army of the United States was born here.

Baker Mansion, Altoona, Blair County

Those of you who follow the blog's Facebook may have seen a post from me a few days ago, which I've since deleted, about how I was contacted by a literary agent who was interested in my work. It was a scam. I'm addressing it now because I want to warn fellow creatives about it - the company, Sourcebooks, is legitimate, and Anna Michels really is their senior editorial consultant. However, they've had a number of instances of people being sent spoof emails in recent months, wherein authors and illustrators are being approached with possible offers of being published by the company. Long story short, if you get an email from someone claiming to be with Sourcebooks, unless it comes from an email address ending with sourcebooks.com, it is not legitimate.

Fortunately, I did a little research before I responded to the email or did anything more than reporting it as spam, so no harm done except to my ego. I'll live. Just be careful out there!

Moving on, I realized that it's been a long time since Kevin and I went to the city of Altoona for his birthday. A lot has happened since then; sadly, Leap-the-Dips has been officially closed, because Lakemont Park has shifted its focus to things like picnics rather than amusement rides. It was already closed when we were there, so we didn't get to ride it, but since then it became official that it will not reopen, or at least not any time soon. I was looking through my folder of photos from the trip, and I realized there was one more marker I photographed while we were there that I haven't profiled here on the blog yet. Seems like a good time.