Eight chilling stories of crime, disaster and unusual deaths from southeastern Pennsylvania. A sequel to the first Dark History book, Murder, Madness, and Misadventure in Southeastern Pennsylvania, this book features more true tales of the region's disasters, deaths and tragedies – offering readers a window into a macabre slice of history. From the “coffin ships” that brought desperate European immigrants to American shores, to an explosion that took the lives of nineteen people, the Greater Philadelphia area has experienced its fair share of tragedy. Learn about the catastrophic fire that took the lives of nine ballerinas, investigate gruesome cases of murder for life insurance, and ponder the possibility that a Pennsylvania businessman appeared in ghostly form on a busy street the day before he died. Finally, one of the most puzzling cold cases in Pennsylvania history is finally solved after more than sixty years using forensic genealogy, while another unidentified little girl still waits for her own justice. Praise for Darkest History Vol. I “..the perfect book to keep you up all night." Philadelphia Magazine "Throughout the book, [Green] iterates that she is writing about history that has been largely forgotten and ignored due to its dark nature. By bringing these stories to the light again, she has given her readers a great gift...” Broad Street Review “….a tribute to suburban Philadelphia weirdness, evildoing, and death.” Montco Today

“Dark History of Penn’s Woods is the perfect book to keep you up all night... It’s ghostly, it’s ghastly, and we guarantee some of the included photos will stay with you!” — Philly Mag When ships under the command of white Europeans first sailed into the Delaware Bay in 1609, southeastern Pennsylvania's documented history of the strange and unusual began. This book tackles seven true "dark histories" from Chester and Delaware counties, which include tales of murder, witchcraft, cannibalism, tragic accidents and macabre events that actually happened in the Greater Philadelphia region. All stories are meticulously researched and placed within the greater context of Pennsylvania and world history. For example, the murder of three children by an indentured servant is placed within the context the kidnapping of children into servitude in England for sale to the Americas. The trial and execution of a woman for killing her infants is placed within the context of the rights of women in early America and how the court system failed them. The treatment of witchcraft is placed within the larger relationship of Quakers with the supernatural in Pennsylvania. This is not a book of ghost stories; this is an exploration of the real events that led people to believe in ghosts. It aims to strike a balance between a colloquial work that is accessible by a variety of readers, and an solid academic work.

On a hot and dusty Sunday in June 1872, 13-year-old Mary Secaur set off on her two-mile walk home from church. She never arrived. The horrific death of this young girl inspired an illegal interstate pursuit-and-arrest, courtroom dramatics, conflicting confessions, and the daylight lynching of a traveling tin peddler and an intellectually disabled teenager. Who killed Mary Secaur? Were the accused actually guilty? What drove the citizens of Mercer County to lynch the suspects? David Kimmel seeks answers to these provoking questions and deftly recounts what actually happened in the fateful summer of 1872, imagining the inner workings of the small rural community, reconstructing the personal relationships of those involved, and restoring humanity to this gripping story. Using a unique blend of historical research and contemporary accounts, Outrage in Ohio explores how a terrible crime ripped an Ohio farming community apart and asks us to question what really happened to Mary Secaur.

Prince Hall, a black veteran of the American Revolution, was insulted and disappointed but probably not surprised when white officials refused his offer of help. He had volunteered a troop of 700 Boston area blacks to help quell a rebellion of western Massachusetts farmers led by Daniel Shays during the economic turmoil in the uncertain period following independence. Many African Americans had fought for America's liberty and their own in the Revolution, but their place in the new nation was unresolved. As slavery was abolished in the North, free blacks gained greater opportunities, but still faced a long struggle against limits to their freedom, against discrimination, and against southern slavery. The lives of these men and women are vividly described in In Hope of Liberty, spanning the 200 years and eight generations from the colonial slave trade to the Civil War. In this marvelously peopled history, James and Lois Horton introduce us to a rich cast of characters. There are familiar historical figures such as Crispus Attucks, a leader of the Boston Massacre and one of the first casualties of the American Revolution; Sojourner Truth, former slave and eloquent antislavery and women's rights activist whose own family had been broken by slavery when her son became a wedding present for her owner's daughter; and Prince Whipple, George Washington's aide, easily recognizable in the portrait of Washington crossing the Delaware River. And there are the countless men and women who struggled to lead their daily lives with courage and dignity: Zilpha Elaw, a visionary revivalist who preached before crowds of thousands; David James Peck, the first black to graduate from an American medical school in 1848; Paul Cuffe, a successful seafaring merchant who became an ardent supporter of the black African colonization movement; and Nancy Prince, at eighteen the effective head of a scattered household of four siblings, each boarded in different homes, who at twenty-five was formally presented to the Russian court. In a seamless narrative weaving together all these stories and more, the Hortons describe the complex networks, both formal and informal, that made up free black society, from the black churches, which provided a sense of community and served as a training ground for black leaders and political action, to the countless newspapers which spoke eloquently of their aspirations for blacks and played an active role in the antislavery movement, to the informal networks which allowed far-flung families to maintain contact, and which provided support and aid to needy members of the free black community and to fugitives from the South. Finally, they describe the vital role of the black family, the cornerstone of this variegated and tightly knit community In Hope of Liberty brilliantly illuminates the free black communities of the antebellum North as they struggled to reconcile conflicting cultural identities and to work for social change in an atmosphere of racial injustice. As the black community today still struggles with many of the same problems, this insightful history reminds us how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go.

Example in this ebook I. FOSSIL REMAINS. When the writer first visited the hunting lodge home of Seth Iredell Nelson (1809-1905) at Round Island, Clinton County, in August, 1899, he noticed a medium-sized set of moose-horns hanging on the wall of the great Nimrod's living-room. Having heard traditional stories of the occasional appearance of the Black Moose or Original in Pennsylvania, the thought flashed through his mind, "Those may be the antlers of a Pennsylvania Moose." Upon asking Nelson where the horns came from, the magnificent old hunter replied that they were Canadian horns, sent to him some years before by a party who had once hunted with him in Pennsylvania in deer season. "But," added the old Nimrod, "there once were moose in Pennsylvania." Asked if he had ever seen any, he replied that he never had, that the last were gone long before his day, but that he had killed at least 500 elk, sometimes called "grey moose" in the Pennsylvania forests. That same fall, the writer heard that a farmer named John Hennessy, about 1850, as near as could be ascertained, while grubbing stumps on the edge of the Tamarack Swamp in Northern Clinton County, had unearthed a pair of fresh looking moose horns. When Samuel N. Rhoads published his great work, "Mammals of Pennsylvania and New Jersey," in 1903, the writer found little comfort in the assumption that moose had wandered into Pennsylvania in post-Columbian days. This is what Rhoads has to say under title of "Eastern Moose": "The fossil remains of moose have been found in Pennsylvania caves. Certain statements of earliest travellers imply that the moose was found on the west shores of the Hudson River opposite New York and in Northeastern Pennsylvania. There is a Moosic in Lackawanna County; a Moosehead in Luzerne County, and Chickalacamoose in Clearfield County. In Doughty's 'Cabinet of Natural History,' Volume I, Page 281, a Philadelphia correspondent says that the horns of moose were found in a salt lick in the Allegheny Mountains, Pennsylvania, near the New York State line. These items are here noted in support of the theory that the moose in late pre-Columbian times wandered into the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania from its more favored haunts in the lake regions of New York. Miller states 'it once ranged throughout the State of New York.' If this can be verified by history it would be an interesting fact, at once removing any improbability of its range in parts of Northern Pennsylvania, quite as well suited to its needs." Rhoads further states that fossil remains of the East American Moose (Alces Americanus Jardine) dating from the Pleistocene period were found in the Durham Cave, near Reigelsville, Bucks County, and that a skeleton of Scott's Fossil Moose (cervalces scotti Lydekker) also of the Pleistocene period were unearthed from a shell marl beneath a bog at Mount Hermon, Warren County, New Jersey. It will be the purpose of the following pages to endeavor to show that the Black Moose was present in Pennsylvania as an irregular migrant or straggler within the last one hundred and twenty-five years, citing as evidence, the writings of reliable travellers and historians, and the traditions of old hunters who were themselves sons of old hunters. That it is not a case of confusion of Nomenclature, for Rhoads states that somewhere in Dr. B. S. Barton's writings the grey moose or wapiti is called the "Original," will also be demonstrated, as the old-fashioned hunters were very jealous and proud of their knowledge of the different kinds and species of wild animals. To be continue in this ebook

In the first comprehensive history of the fraternity known to outsiders primarily for its secrecy and rituals, Steven Bullock traces Freemasonry through its first century in America. He follows the order from its origins in Britain and its introduction into North America in the 1730s to its near-destruction by a massive anti-Masonic movement almost a century later and its subsequent reconfiguration into the brotherhood we know today. With a membership that included Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Paul Revere, and Andrew Jackson, Freemasonry is fascinating in its own right, but Bullock also places the movement at the center of the transformation of American society and culture from the colonial era to the rise of Jacksonian democracy. Using lodge records, members' reminiscences and correspondence, and local and Masonic histories, Bullock links Freemasonry with the changing ideals of early American society. Although the fraternity began among colonial elites, its spread during the Revolution and afterward allowed it to play an important role in shaping the new nation's ideas of liberty and equality. Ironically, however, the more inclusive and universalist Masonic ideas became, the more threatening its members' economic and emotional bonds seemed to outsiders, sparking an explosive attack on the fraternity after 1826. American History

"The Oxford Handbook of Peace History uniquely explores the distinctive dynamics of peacemaking across time and place, and analyzing how past and present societies have created diverse cultures of peace and applied strategies for peaceful change. The analysis draws upon the expertise of many well-respected and distinguished scholars from disciplines such as anthropology, economics, history, international relations, journalism, peace studies, sociology, and theology. This work is divided into six parts. The first three sections address the chronological sweep of peace history from the Ancient Egyptians to the present while the last three cover biographical profiles of peace advocates, key issues in peace history, and the future of peace history. A central theme throughout is that the quest for peace is far more than the absence of war or the pursuit of social justice ideals. Students and scholars, alike, will appreciate that this work examines the field of peace history from an international perspective and expands analysis beyond traditional Eurocentric frameworks. This volume also goes far beyond previously published handbooks and anthologies in answering what are the strengths and limits of peace history as a discipline, and what can it offer for the future. It also has the unique features of a state-of-the-field introduction with a detailed treatment of peace history historiography and a chapter written by a noted archivist in the field that provides a comprehensive list of peace research resources. It is a work ably suited applicable for classrooms and scholarly bookshelves"--

An illuminating look at how Philadelphia's antebellum free Black community defended themselves against kidnappings and how this "street diplomacy" forced Pennsylvanians to confront the politics of slavery. As the most southern of northern cities in a state that bordered three slave states, antebellum Philadelphia maintained a long tradition of both abolitionism and fugitive slave activity. Although Philadelphia's Black community lived in a free city in a free state, they faced constant threats to their personal safety and freedom. Enslavers, kidnappers, and slave catchers prowled the streets of Philadelphia in search of potential victims, violent anti-Black riots erupted in the city, and white politicians legislated to undermine Black freedom. In Street Diplomacy, Elliott Drago illustrates how the political and physical conflicts that arose over fugitive slave removals and the kidnappings of free Black people forced Philadelphians to confront the politics of slavery. Pennsylvania was legally a free state, at the street level and in the lived experience of its Black citizens, but Pennsylvania was closer to a slave state due to porous borders and the complicity of white officials. Legal contests between slavery and freedom at the local level triggered legislative processes at the state and national level, which underscored the inability of white politicians to resolve the paradoxes of what it meant for a Black American to inhabit a free state within a slave society. Piecing together fragmentary source material from archives, correspondence, genealogies, and newspapers, Drago examines these conflicts in Philadelphia from 1820 to 1850. Studying these timely struggles over race, politics, enslavement, and freedom in Philadelphia will encourage scholars to reexamine how Black freedom was not secure in Pennsylvania or in the wider United States.

A collection of original essays exploring the history of the various American religious traditions and the meaning of their many expressions The Blackwell Companion to American Religious History explores the key events, significant themes, and important movements in various religious traditions throughout the nation’s history from pre-colonization to the present day. Original essays written by leading scholars and new voices in the field discuss how religion in America has transformed over the years, explore its many expressions and meanings, and consider religion’s central role in American life. Emphasizing the integration of religion into broader cultural and historical themes, this wide-ranging volume explores the operation of religion in eras of historical change, the diversity of religious experiences, and religion’s intersections with American cultural, political, social, racial, gender, and intellectual history. Each chronologically-organized chapter focuses on a specific period or event, such as the interactions between Moravian and Indigenous communities, the origins of African-American religious institutions, Mormon settlement in Utah, social reform movements during the twentieth century, the growth of ethnic religious communities, and the rise of the Religious Right. An innovative historical genealogy of American religious traditions, the Companion: Highlights broader historical themes using clear and compelling narrative Helps teachers expose their students to the significance and variety of America’s religious past Explains new and revisionist interpretations of American religious history Surveys current and emerging historiographical trends Traces historical themes to contemporary issues surrounding civil rights and social justice movements, modern capitalism, and debates over religious liberties Making the lessons of American religious history relevant to a broad range of readers, The Blackwell Companion to American Religious History is the perfect book for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in American history courses, and a valuable resource for graduate students and scholars wanting to keep pace with current historiographical trends and recent developments in the field.