Durham Furnace, Durham Township, Bucks County

As you might have seen on the Facebook page for the blog, there was no post last week; I came down with a sinus infection that made me very sleepy and unable to focus. Sorry for the delay! We're back to business as usual now.

Before I get started on the subject of last-week's-post-turned-this-week, I do want to give a shout to the Herstory Club, which you might recall accepted me into its ranks last fall. This month's blog theme is medieval history, and I had the chance to make my first contribution! I introduced the Herstorians to one of my favorite historical figures, Princess Gwenllian of Wales; they seemed to really enjoy it and I hope you enjoy it too. Thanks for the opportunity, team!

Back in March, my husband Kevin and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. Most things were still kind of locked down, though, so we decided to just go for a nice drive and enjoy the scenery. The roads brought us down to Bucks County, to where George Taylor had once been the ironmaster, and we got out of the car and snooped around with our phone cameras for a bit. (We must look like weird tourists.)

Northkill Amish, Bernville, Berks County

Things have been a little quiet here lately, except for some unsettled weather patterns doing what they do to me. Nothing new there. I'm getting ready for my upcoming week's vacation, half of which will be spent running around in search of new history tidbits; the other half will be spent doing, well, as little as possible to be honest. 

I see by my list of planned blog posts that it's time for a visit to Berks County (hello to my pals in the Berks History Buffs) so off we go. We're heading back to the lovely community of Bernville, but this time we're just a mile from the neighboring community of Shartlesville; it's so close that I scratched my head a little bit about where exactly the marker is located. If you are, or I should say were, at all familiar with the now-closed and much-lamented attraction Roadside America, the marker is located very close to the exit from their parking lot. In fact, the property which held Roadside America was once part of the farm which was the site of this post's major event.

Harriet A. Baker, Allentown, Lehigh County

I've done quite a bit of traveling lately in this blog, so it's nice to return to my home county for a bit of a breather. This is one of the markers I collected on my last birthday, and the subject is an interesting one. I could wish that slavery wasn't part of our country's history, but it's one of those chapters that we have to acknowledge. The woman at the heart of today's quest was never a slave herself, but the reality of slavery impacted her for most of her life and shaped who she was and who she became.

Bailey's Printshop, Lancaster, Lancaster County

I had to delay this week's quest by a day because we had such strong and lengthy thunderstorms yesterday. As my longtime readers know, I'm one of those 'walking barometer' type people and severe weather conditions make me ill. But in one respect this was a good thing: because the post is going up a day late, I get to tell you about something that was posted this morning. Martha Capwell Fox of the National Canal Museum did an article about Laury's Island, using my book as her reference, and gave me a cool shout-out for my work! (I don't know where she found the picture she uses in the article, which I'd never seen, but it's a great image.) Thanks, Martha, you started my day off right!

For this week's quest, after a couple of weeks of visiting new places, we're heading back to some lovely familiar territory in Lancaster. If you're like most people, the mention of a "colonial printer" undoubtedly brings up a mental image of Ben Franklin, churning out copies of Poor Richard's Almanac and issues of the Pennsylvania Gazette. And you're not wrong. But in Lancaster, there was another man whose printing press contributed to the birth of our nation. 

American Institute of Mining Engineers, Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County

As I mentioned recently in my post about Colonel Jacob Stroud, I was invited to attend a historical event in Wilkes-Barre. It so happens that the organization celebrating their 150th anniversary also has one of these markers, so this is the perfect time to do my first post from Luzerne County. 

Fort Franklin, Andreas, Schuylkill County

The Schuylkill County Historical Society is following this blog on Facebook! I was so excited to learn this that I was determined to get to a marker in that county this month, and here we are.

Here's a fun fact which I didn't know until I started researching today's quest. Pennsylvania has actually, at different points in the 18th century, had two different places named Fort Franklin. One was in Venango County, which I've never visited, so I expect to be tackling that subject in a future post. The other, which is today's subject, was the first of its name and stood in Schuylkill County overlooking a scenic valley.

Colonel Jacob Stroud, Stroudsburg, Monroe County

I'm delighted to report, as my Facebook followers have seen, that I've been invited to a historical event up in Luzerne County later this month! A gentleman named Michael Korb very kindly reached out to let me know that they're going to be installing a plaque in Wilkes-Barre to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. It's not one of my markers (they already have one of those, so you can guess what I'll be doing while I'm there), but he thought it would be of interest to me and my readers. If the name of the organization sounds vaguely familiar, that may be because I've mentioned it before in this blog - David Thomas, the Welsh ironmaster considered the father of my hometown, was its first president. The ceremony is to take place at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 16th, in the Public Square of Wilkes-Barre, and you can read the details here. So if you're in the vicinity, grab your face mask and come enjoy a socially distanced historic event. (And look for me.)

As for this week's quest, it's my first post from Monroe County! I'm hitting all kinds of new places lately, between the restrictions easing up and the contributions from guest photographers, and I'm very pleased about it. Today's quest is from a few weeks ago, when my best friend Andrea and I took a little road trip to Stroudsburg. For some reason, despite being only about thirty miles away, Stroudsburg has always seemed like it's incredibly far off; I guess it's because it's considered a gateway to the Poconos. (Then again, as I think I've mentioned in another post or two, my sense of distance is inexplicably skewed.) What I found was a charming, quiet community with a rich history of which they are justifiably very proud.

Stroudsburg dates its origins back to colonial times, and has a Moravian connection which I'll be discussing in more detail in a future post. They actually have two different markers for the man who gave his name to the community, so we're going to hit them both.