A recent visit to a cemetery in Schuylkill County inspired an examination of a dark chapter of local history.
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When the Klan came to Williams Valley – 1924
A Civil War officer’s grisly amputation at Spotsylvania Court House on May 10, 1864
Captain Edwin L. Severn lost his right arm at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House on May 10, 1864.
A young sailor from Lykens wrote home to describe his first action in the Spanish-American War
Clarence Holland was 16 when he first experienced battle during the bombardment of San Juan in May 1898.
“Big Lick” – Photographs from the 1860s show a Pennsylvania coal mine with an odd name
The images reveal pictures of industry growing on the side of Big Lick Mountain in Upper Dauphin County after the Civil War.
“Incidents of a by-gone age” – A description of life in the Coal Region before the Civil War
Catherine Romberger Myers was born in Porter Township in 1840. She spoke to a reporter in 1931 about growing up in pre-industrial Williams Valley.
The dramatic aftermath of the Lincoln assassination in Schuylkill County
In Pennsylvania's anthracite coal field, reactions to the dramatic events of April 1865 were shockingly mixed.
“Cheering, shouting and rejoicing” – A Pennsylvanian’s experience at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865
Sergeant Henry Keiser's diary reveals a soldier's perspective of the Civil War's dramatic final moments.
“Baseball fever” – Williams Valley’s 1906 season featured pro players, violent fans
In 1906, a small valley in Pennsylvania's Coal Region caught a case of baseball fever. The towns were never the same again.
“Nothing to really compare with this” – A reflection on the 1918 influenza epidemic in Wilkes-Barre
"Three hundred miles of funeral processions, and the tears and groans that accompany these sad partings."
After the First World War, miners in Williams Valley faced an uncertain future
A newspaper correspondent details life in Lykens and Wiconisco in the months after the end of the Great War.
