I'm on a quest to photograph and research all of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's historical markers. This is my quest journal so you can join me on my adventures every Wednesday! Blog owned and written by Laura Klotz. Marker images used with permission of the PHMC. Header image created by Rachel Peeples.
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
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.
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.
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.
