Provincial Courthouse, York, York County

I'm going to start this week's post with something special. I had an email from John Robinson, longtime reader and occasional guest photographer of the blog, and he had a wonderful idea for something fun for my readers to do. Since I presume most of you are here because you enjoy and care about the PHMC marker program, I'd love to hear about your personal favorites! 

Take a picture of your favorite marker, or one of your favorites if you just can't decide, and email it to me at markerquestblog@gmail.com along with a short explanation of why it's important to you. Maybe you had something to do with getting it added to the Pennsylvania Trails of History, or maybe it's related to your own family tree, or maybe it's a subject that's dear to your heart for some reason. Tell me about it, and for the blog's seventh birthday in May, I'll do a post sharing the stories I receive. I'll accept submissions until Sunday, May 18th (the blog's actual birthday) and put them in the post for Wednesday, May 21st. Let me hear from you! And thanks again, John, for the great idea!

Meanwhile, I have another bit of guest photography from Kaylee Lindenmuth of the Shenandoah Sentinel, since she managed to get out to York County and collect one of the markers I was missing. So let's dive in.

The Haines Shoe House, Hellam Township, York County

I'm a day late and a dollar short, but I did finally remember to get the August newsletter up and out! Subscribers, be sure to check your email. If you're not a subscriber, get on that you can click here and read it.

Last week I shared with you my adventures with bff Andrea as we attended the marker dedication for the Haines Shoe House in York County. As promised, now I'm going to tell you about the house itself.

Marker Dedication: Haines Shoe House

There has been so much going on around here lately that I feel a little head-spinny. But before I tell you about my latest adventure out in the world, I do have a fun announcement to make. I was recently contacted by John, the lovely gentleman who runs Mainly Museums, which is a crowdsourced blog dedicated to showcasing museums around the world. He likes my work (yay!) and invited me to do a series of articles about the Pennsylvania museums I encounter in the course of my research. Since blathering about Pennsylvania history seems to be what I do best, I of course said yes and my first article went live yesterday. My regular readers will know that I wrote about Eckley Miners' Village Museum here on the blog last year, and because I enjoyed it so much, I kicked off my MM series with the same subject. I'll be contributing two articles per month to the MM collective, so watch for future links and meanwhile check out the rest of the site; they're still pretty new but they've got a lot of talent in the pool.

Meanwhile, last week I mentioned that my bff Andrea and I were off to attend another marker dedication. I'll tell you about the actual Haines Shoe House in next week's post, but for today, here's everything that went down while we were in York. We met so many cool people!

Gen. Wayne Headquarters, York, York County

Tomorrow we leave for Zenkaikon, and I'm running around in circles trying to get everything done that I need to have done. That of course includes this blog post.

It's been a while since we looked at anything in York, so I thought it would be good to head back there. In the process of setting up this post, I learned that the individual named on the marker actually has a couple of markers about him. So I won't be talking a whole lot about the gentleman himself - we'll leave that for when I've collected those markers. I will, however, go into the details about his time in York.

"York House," York, York County

May the Fourth be with you! This post went up quite a bit later than I intended due to... well, it's hard to put this any other way, but due to a kitten emergency. We had a situation with abandoned two-week-old kittens at my mother's house. I'm happy to report that things have been resolved and the babies are in a good, safe home where they're being well fed and loved.

As the subscribers to the blog's monthly newsletter are aware, I'm running a giveaway over at the new Twitter account. Become a follower of the MarkerQuest Twitter by May 31st and you'll automatically be entered. One lucky winner will receive a $10 Amazon gift certificate, because that way nobody needs to give me their mailing address (which seems to have been a problem with the last giveaway). The winner will be announced in the post and newsletter on June 1st, since that's conveniently a Wednesday.

Meanwhile, let's head back to downtown York and have a look at one of their many exquisite historic houses.

James Smith, York, York County

I'm not often speechless, but I definitely had a few dumbstruck moments upon logging into the blog. Last week's quest, an examination of the work of William G. McGowan, was shared by a number of individuals on Facebook, as well as two large organizations - Anthracite Coal National Park and the Wilkes-Barre Preservation Society. As a result, the hit count catapulted it into the #1 spot on my all-time statistics record! In just six days, it managed to overtake the piece about the Moravian Cemetery in Bethlehem, which is over three years old. I'm truly floored and very grateful for all the shares.

Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary, so husband Kevin and I have plans to go down to Philadelphia for the first time in over a year. Catching some Philly markers isn't the focus of the trip, but you can bet it's going to happen, because I'm having a serious problem with the blog - I'm running out of markers. That's not to say that they aren't there (the commonwealth has more than 2,000, as I've noted on other occasions); I just don't have pictures of them. The only county where I've literally run out of markers is Carbon County, since they only have six and I've done them all, but I definitely need more. So this trip to Philly should help.

Meanwhile, for today we're going to head back to scenic York. I've already told you about one signer of the Declaration of Independence who's buried in the city, but there's another one across town.

Hall & Sellers Press, York, York County

I hate winter. I know I say that a lot, but I mean it more than usual this week. This week's quest was delayed by the fact that I took a nasty fall on the ice in my driveway and was pretty banged up for a couple of days. It could have been a lot worse though, I'm okay!

It's been almost a year since I paid my inaugural visit to lovely York, but I've still got plenty of markers to share from that county. So let's head out that way and read about one of Benjamin Franklin's printing endeavors, shall we?

Golden Plough Tavern and Gen. Horatio Gates, York, York County

In a couple of days I'll be having my book signing at the local Barnes & Noble! I have no words for how I'm feeling, but it's kind of a combination of excitement, bewilderment, and nausea. There are a lot of things I still need to do before Saturday, so I'm trying to focus on those in order to keep any nervousness at bay. Like this post.

So in the name of personal distraction, let's head down to beautiful York for this week's quest. This one's a double post, due to the fact that the buildings associated with the markers are connected and it was sort of impossible to separate them. Both markers are situated on West Market Street, directly in front of the two buildings.

Philip Livingston, York, York County

June is winding down with a heat wave, although they're saying today should be the last day of it in this area. I certainly hope so. 

I'm doing my best to ignore both the heat and the threat of thunderstorms. Instead, I'm casting my thoughts back a few months to a much more temperate day, when my best friend Andrea and I went exploring in York County. Today's quest features the first York marker I actually caught; I turned the car down a random street in hopes of reaching the city's Colonial Quarter, and she caught sight of the marker. She's very good at spotting them from the passenger seat, which is extremely helpful since I have to, you know, pay attention to the road.

The odd thing about today's subject is that he isn't from Pennsylvania at all. But he has a marker here, for tragic reasons.

York Liberty Bell, York, York County

Welcome to April, and the grass has turned green in my yard! In my last email, I made an allusion to an announcement coming this month, and indeed I'm making one. I'm looking at the project I have created for myself with this blog, and realizing that even though I double up some of the markers when appropriate, there are a lot more of them than I had ever imagined (over 2,000 and counting), and I've barely made a dent in the last three years.

Wow, it's been three years? Already? Huh.

Anyway, the big news is that... I'm increasing the frequency of posts. Instead of every other Wednesday, I'm going to see how it goes with posting every Wednesday, so I can fit more markers into each calendar year. It's an experiment - if I feel too overwhelmed I'll drop it back to the every other week plan - but I have hopes that it will succeed. I've already sketched out my schedule of planned posts leading into the first week of June, because I have that much material handy, so we'll see what comes of it.

For today, I'm sharing the first fruits of my labor from last month's road trip. My best friend Andrea and I, as I wrote a few weeks ago, spent her birthday visiting York County and collected several markers in its county seat. It had been a long time since I crossed the Susquehanna River - I forgot how wide it is! Today's quest is a trek back to colonial times to learn about a liberty bell which, until that day, I never knew existed.