Bellefonte Air Mail Field, Bellefonte, Centre County

It's crunch time for Zenkaikon. We leave tomorrow and spend three and a quarter lovely days in beautiful downtown Lancaster, hobnobbing with other weirdos (most of them in costume). I'll be doing two presentations about Lancaster history and one about Celtic mythology. I'm not sure which ones will be available to watch via Zenkaikon Online, but they did make it free for everyone this year - so if and when I have links to share, I'll provide them for anyone who might care to watch me babble about history. I'll also return to uploading podcast episodes next week when it's over, I want to do a little fine-tuning.

For today, you just get to read my babbling. We're going to skip back in time just a little over a century, back to when air mail was a relatively new thing and somewhat dangerous to boot. A little community in central Pennsylvania was key to the success of the endeavor.

James Lick, Fredericksburg, Lebanon County

About this time next week I expect to be in my usual pre-convention frenzy. All the things in the world to do, no time in the world to do them. It happens every year.

But for today, I'm bringing you a blog post that turned out to be much more complex and intriguing than I initially expected. It's my first post from Lebanon County in well over a year, and it's a bit longer than usual because there was just so much to tell you. I can honestly say that it's the first time I've ever started a blog post by saying that almost everything you're about to read was the result of a young man's quest to be able to marry the woman he loved.

Union Church, Mechanicsburg, Cumberland County

Again, I really want to say how much I appreciate all the support I've received for the podcast. I haven't gotten a ton of feedback, but every single scrap I've been given has been very positive. Some of it even came from people I don't know personally! If you haven't checked it out already, please investigate this page for all the details. I posted a new episode yesterday featuring a surprise cameo by one of my cats; he's taking his newfound fame in stride.

We're coming down to the wire for Zenkaikon, at which I'll be doing three history-related presentations - two about Lancaster, where the con takes place, and one about Celtic mythology and its relationship with modern media. It's crunch time and the panic is starting to set in, because my to-do list for the two weeks remaining is out of control. I think I picked a bad year to give up soda for Lent, because I desperately need some caffeine!

Well, in the interest of getting at least one thing checked off of that list, let's have a blog post, shall we? This week I'm taking you back to beautiful Cumberland County to learn about the oldest public building in Mechanicsburg, and the many ways it has served the community for nearly two hundred years. Please note that the images in this post turned out inexplicably large, so I had to shrink them in order to make the page readable; just click on them if you'd like to see bigger versions.

Charming Forge, Womelsdorf, Berks County

First of all, I want to express my appreciation to everyone who has checked out the podcast so far! I genuinely had my doubts about it, despite what my friends said, but it's been very reassuring to get so much positive feedback. I anticipate uploading the next episode tomorrow, and it's my hope that I will have all of 'season one' (that is, the blog posts from 2018) recorded and uploaded by the end of May.

Meanwhile, for this week's quest we're going to visit an allegedly haunted house in Berks County. I say 'allegedly' mostly because I can't verify either way, but the stories persist.

Aaron Siskind, Doylestown, Bucks County

Those of you who subscribe to the monthly newsletter already knew this was coming, but it's officially happened. As of Tuesday, February 20th, I am a podcaster. It's my hope that the blog will reach lots of new friends in this manner, but also that my existing followers and readers will find it interesting as well. You can get all the details here.

Meanwhile, for this week's quest I'm returning to the poll I took on Facebook last week. We're heading back down to the very photogenic Bucks County to learn about a gentleman who found inspiration in the unique architecture of the region.

Frank N. D. Buchman, Pennsburg, Montgomery County

Happy Valentine's Day! It's also Ash Wednesday, for those who observe the Easter holidays. We got hit with a fast-moving snowstorm yesterday which dumped an entire foot of snow on my neighborhood, but fortunately, we never lost power so here I am.

I invited the followers of the blog's Facebook account to vote on this week's topic. It was very nearly a three-way tie, but by a margin of one vote, we had a winner. He gained international renown for his rather unusual approach to world peace.

Sugarloaf Massacre, Sugarloaf and Conyngham, Luzerne County

Recently, the Luzerne County Historical Society's Facebook page began doing "Marker Mondays," in which they take a weekly look at one of the PHMC historical markers in their county. As I joked with my own Facebook followers, "A weekly look at PHMC markers? Why does that sound familiar?"

Well, I promised them that I would do a Luzerne County post in the relatively near future, and that's what we're doing today. Let's travel back to 1780, and learn about a tragedy which befell a company of militia from Northampton County.

Before I get started, I do want to clarify up front that a number of sources don't entirely agree with each other about names and other pieces of information. I've done the best I can to tell the basic story. All I try to do with each blog post is give my readers a fair understanding of the subject, and then if anyone wants to learn more, they're welcome to do their own research into the deeper lore. (This sometimes results in me coming back to correct a post later, when they share their findings with me, and I have no problem doing that! In fact, it happened recently with regards to my post about the Packer Mansion.) So if anything recorded here turns out to not be completely accurate, it's because of the conflicting details in the various sources.