Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania Read online

  The British won the French and Indian War in 1763, but the conflict still influenced history. The American colonists who’d fought for King George’s lands wanted their rights as British citizens. Meanwhile, the king found the defense of the territories to be a drain on the treasury, and imposed high taxes on the colonists to foot the bill. Taxation, of course, eventually helped spark the American Revolution—a conflict largely directed by a more experienced General George Washington, who never surrendered again.

  Did You Know?

  Penn State University is one of the largest and most respected universities in the United States. Here are some facts about the school:

  •The university’s main campus in State College, Pennsylvania, has been a site of higher learning since 1855, when the state general assembly created the first school on the property: an agricultural college called the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania.

  •With more than 40,000 students enrolled, the State College campus is the largest in the Penn State system. But 23 other campuses around the state serve an additional 40,000 students.

  •Penn State is ranked among the United States’ top-15 universities and is often called one of America’s “public Ivies.”

  •The university’s Beaver Stadium—home of the famous Nittany Lions football team—is the second-largest college stadium in the United States, with 107,282 seats. (The University of Michigan’s stadium is the largest.)

  Good Scares

  Here’s a tour of some of Pennsylvania’s Erie . . . er, eerie spots.

  Altoona: The Baker Mansion

  The Ghosts: Elias and Anna Baker

  The Story: In 1836, Elias Baker and his cousin bought an iron furnace near Altoona, and he moved his wife and two sons there from Lancaster County. His daughter Anna was born a couple of years later, and at first, the family lived in a small home near the furnace. But in 1844, Baker bought his cousin out and kept all the profits from the furnace for himself. Now a wealthy man, he spent the next five years building his family a 28-room mansion. With limestone walls, marble fireplaces, and decorations made from the iron produced at the furnace, the Baker home was lavish.

  The family, however, wasn’t always happy there. Young Anna Baker wanted to marry a local man whom her father deemed “unsuitable.” He forbade the marriage, and even though Anna was angry with her father, she lived in the house until she died in 1914 in her 70s.

  Haunted Happenings: Today, the Baker mansion is a museum and the site of the Blair County Historical Society. Employees and visitors have reported a number of mysterious sightings—everything from Elias Baker’s ghostly form on the stairs to strange orbs showing up in digital photos. One employee even said that she heard someone whispering her name when she was closing up for the night. But the most dramatic occurrences involve Anna Baker’s wedding dress.

  When her father forced her to cancel her wedding, Anna packed up her white wedding dress and hid it away. Years later, the historical society put it on display in a glass case. But according to a report the society keeps of all haunted happenings in the mansion, several people said they’ve seen the dress case shaking and the dress rocking back and forth.

  Cashtown: The Cashtown Inn

  The Ghosts: Confederate soldiers and various children

  The Story: Peter Marck built the Cashtown Inn, a rest stop for travelers, eight miles outside Gettysburg in 1797. The inn (and later, the town) took their name from the fact that Marck issued no credit and always insisted that patrons pay in gold or silver before he’d give them a room.

  In late June 1863, Confederate soldiers under the command of General Ambrose P. Hill took over the inn. Robert E. Lee had gotten word that the Union army was on its way, and he ordered Hill to hold Cashtown, which was situated on one of the Confederacy’s supply routes. The inn was the perfect place for the soldiers to stay. It had comfortable rooms, a stable for horses, an oven for baking bread, and a freshwater spring. The inn also served as a Confederate hospital; soldiers wounded at Gettysburg were transported to the inn via carriages and wagons. And about a week later, when the Confederacy was defeated at Gettysburg, the inn acted as a stopping point for the retreating troops.

  The Cashtown Inn has changed hands several times over the past 150 years, and at times, it fell into disrepair. (One owner nearly sold the building to a condo developer.) But in 2006, Jack and Maria Paladino bought the place and restored it as a bed-and-breakfast.

  Haunted Happenings: Employees and visitors often report paranormal activity at the inn. One employee claimed that an invisible figure pulled her ponytail. Others mentioned a rocking chair that moved by itself, doors that slammed of their own accord, and a Confederate soldier who roamed the hallways and knocked on the door of room #4. One guest said someone mysteriously packed his suitcase, and others heard the faint voices of children playing. For their part, the owners say that their dog and parrot seem to simultaneously follow invisible things with their eyes.

  In December 2007, the Sci-Fi Channel television show Ghost Hunters filmed an episode about the Cashtown Inn. The show’s investigators visit supposedly haunted places and try to expose frauds or find nonparanormal explanations for strange activity. But they couldn’t explain the happenings at the Cashtown Inn. The group stayed overnight there and reported a variety of bizarre occurrences, including a picture frame that turned over on its own and boot steps on the top floor. One of the investigators also noted that, while he was sitting on a sofa, the cushions moved as though an invisible person had sat down next to him.

  Bethlehem: Lehigh University’s Linderman Library

  The Ghosts: An unidentified ghost, possibly Lucy Linderman

  The Story: Lucy Packer Linderman died in 1873. In her honor, her wealthy father, Asa Packer, donated $500,000 to Lehigh University to build a library. The original structure went up in 1878, got an addition in 1929, and underwent a renovation between 2005 and 2007.

  Haunted Happenings: An unidentified ghost (whom some claim is Lucy Linderman herself) reportedly likes to haunt the library and tease the people who work there. One of the library’s assistants, Gayle Nesbeth, told a story of going to the library’s basement and finding about 150 magazines pulled off of their shelves and restacked in an artful design. Some suspected a student prankster, but the doors were locked when Nesbeth went into the basement. She said, “The designs were just beautiful, like an architect had done them . . . I would love to know who did it if it wasn’t a ghost because it must have taken hours to complete.”

  Did You Know?

  If western Pennsylvanians had gotten their way in the years before the American Revolution, there would have been 14 colonies. Settlers in Pennsylvania’s western frontier—and in most of what’s now West Virginia, the Maryland panhandle, and parts of eastern Kentucky—didn’t think the government in the urban East empathized with their rural needs. So they suggested creating their own colony. In 1775, they petitioned the Second Continental Congress to become a colony called Westsylvania. But with the colonies on the verge of a revolution, the congress decided to ignore them. For the next several years, Westsylvanian supporters refused to be silenced, but in 1782, a Pittsburgh lawyer—and advocate of a strong national government—went to the Pennsylvania general assembly with his own legislation: make it an act of treason for citizens of an existing colony to petition for a new state. It worked; the threat of treason quashed the Westsylvania movement and the areas remained part of their original colonies.

  The Weather Prophet

  You’ve seen it on the news and even in that Bill Murray movie: Every year, groundhog Punxsutawney Phil looks for his shadow. If he sees it, we’ll have six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t, spring is sure to come early—or so say the people in Punxsatawney.

  Groundhog Day traces its roots back to an early European celebration called Candlemas. Literally “candle mass,” it was the day when clergy members blessed all their congregation’s church candles. Candlemas was held every February 2, right betwee
n the winter solstice and the spring equinox, and over the years, the day’s weather took on a superstitious component: if the sun shone on Candlemas, winter would supposedly continue. But if the weather was cloudy or rainy, winter was over.

  Sometime before the 1800s, the Germans added their own twist to the holiday. They used a hedgehog to predict the weather: If the sun was shining and the hedgehog cast a shadow, winter would continue. But if he was shadowless, spring was on the way. German immigrants who arrived in Pennsylvania in the 19th century brought this tradition with them, but there weren’t any hedgehogs there, so they improvised and used groundhogs instead.

  The Original Groundhog Day

  The first official Groundhog Day was celebrated on February 2, 1886, in the town of Punxsutawney, about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. The local newspaper proclaimed good news: “Up to the time of going to press the beast has not seen its shadow.”

  The following year, members of the newly created Punxsutawney Groundhog Club gathered at Gobbler’s Knob, a small clearing just outside of town. (They chose the spot because it was well populated with groundhogs.) The local newspaper editor was there, too, and he officially proclaimed Punxsutawney the world’s weather capital. The group also officially named its groundhog: “Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinaire.”

  The Legend

  Over the years, legends grew up around Punxsutawney Phil:

  •The town’s folklore claims that there has never been more than one official weather-forecasting groundhog and that Phil is more than 120 years old. (Legend says he stays fit by sipping “groundhog punch,” which adds seven years to his life every time he takes a drink.)

  •Once Phil decides whether or not spring will come early, he announces his prediction to the Inner Circle’s president in a language called Groundhogese. The president translates for the rest of the world.

  The Truth

  The folklore is fun, but we’ve also tracked down some of the truths about the life and times of Punxsutawney Phil.

  •When he’s not predicting the weather, Phil and his female companion, Phyllis, live in a climate-controlled area called the Groundhog Zoo. It’s a fiberglass enclosure connected to the Punxsutawney Memorial Library. There, he spends 364 days a year in leisure . . . mostly napping. A group of locals who call themselves the Inner Circle and have prestigious titles like “Stump Warden” and “Fair Weatherman” care for the couple. (The Inner Circle is also the group that crowds around Phil every February 2, wearing top hats and tuxedos as he looks for his shadow.)

  •The Inner Circle claims that there’s been only one Phil. No one knows for sure how many groundhogs have played the role over the years, but because a groundhog’s average lifespan is six to eight years, a fair estimate is that there have been 15 or 20 Phils since 1886.

  •The folks in Punxsutawney claim that Phil is always right with his weather predictions. Not so. In fact, according to weather records, he’s correct only about 40 percent of the time.

  Did You Know?

  Want fries and slaw on that? That’s how they make sandwiches at Pittsburgh’s Primanti Bros. restaurants. Their giant sandwiches start with two thick slices of crusty Italian bread, stuffed with sizzling meat (choices: steak, turkey, sausage, ham, pastrami, chicken, corned beef), cheese, tomato, and fried egg. Then they put hand-cut fries and coleslaw right in the sandwich. The result: a six or seven-inch-thick creation. Don’t even think of cutting it with utensils—you’ll be laughed out of the place—but you will get a sheet of wax paper to catch whatever falls out.

  It Happened in 1787

  Pennsylvania officially became America’s second state on December 12, 1787, but that wasn’t the only important thing that happened that year.

  January

  Sir Frederick William Herschel, a British astronomer, discovered two of Uranus’s moons: Oberon and Titania.

  February

  The tallest man ever to live in Great Britain was born on February 10. William Bradley weighed 14 pounds at birth and grew to be seven feet, nine inches tall. He still holds the record of “Britain’s tallest man.”

  May

  British sea captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet (11 ships carrying convicts) set out for the Australia penal colony on May 13.

  June

  Connecticut statesman Oliver Ellsworth—whom George Washington appointed as the third Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1796—proposed that the new country be called the “United States.”

  July

  The U.S. Congress enacted the third Northwest Ordinance, which laid out rules for how areas in the Northwest Territory (now the Midwest) could enter the Union: territories could apply for state-hood when they had populations of 60,000. The ordinance also outlawed slavery in the new states, assured their residents religious freedom, and made provisions for public education.

  August

  John Fitch launched the first steamboat on the Delaware River. After serving in the Revolutionary War, Fitch settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and got to work building a sailing vessel powered by steam. On August 22, he successfully sailed his 45-foot steamboat for the first time, and he patented the design four years later. (Robert Fulton, who usually gets credit for building the first steamship, didn’t launch his first boat until 1801.)

  October

  Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, based on the story of libertine Don Juan, premiered at Prague’s Estate Theatre on October 29.

  November

  Robert Lowth, an English bishop and writer of one of the best-known grammar books in the English language (A Short Introduction to English Grammar), died on November 3.

  December

  Delaware became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on December 7.

  Man of Steel, Part II

  By 1892, Andrew Carnegie was a wildly successful steel tycoon who was trying to forge a reputation as a forward-thinking businessman. But one bloody workers’ strike was about to change that reputation forever. (Part I is on page 19.)

  Publicly, Andrew Carnegie advocated for more influence and better conditions for workers, but he did not actually run his businesses according to those ideals. His profits relied on keeping costs down. Workers in Carnegie’s steel mills were on the job for 12-hour shifts (often without breaks), seven days a week, and many earned salaries of about $500 a year, less than teachers (who made about $650 a year). Carnegie spent very little on safety measures, so accidents in his factories were common; workers were often disabled and sometimes killed.

  In 1892, with his steel profits declining, Carnegie tried to cut costs by lowering the wages of workers at his mill in Homestead, Pennsylvania. That—and the company’s history of poor working conditions—led the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) to call for a strike there.

  Say No to Strikers . . . Round Two

  Carnegie was on vacation in Scotland at the time, so he entrusted the mill’s manager, Henry Clay Frick, to handle the strike. Frick acted decisively: he refused to negotiate with the union and locked workers out of the plant. He also brought in guards from a private security firm, the Pinkertons, to keep the union workers away from the mill and even built a 12-foot-high fence around the mill, complete with barbed wire and rifle peepholes. But his drastic measures drew an equally drastic response from the miners. As the workers tried to drive the Pinkertons out of Homestead, gunfights broke out. The men set dynamite, dumped oil into the Monongahela River (where the Pinkertons’ barges were docked), and set the oil on fire. Ten workers died and hundreds were injured, but they finally got the Pinkertons to leave. As the strike continued, the mill hired nonunion workers to fill the strikers’ jobs and called in the Pennsylvania state militia protected them as they traveled to and from the mill.

  The strike lasted four months before the workers, destitute and at a stalemate with the Carnegie management, finally gave up and went back to their jobs. For his part, Ca
rnegie remained solidly behind Frick. He wrote to his manager, “We are with you to the end.” But by the time Carnegie returned to Pennsylvania, the media and public who had once praised his business ethics now branded him a hypocrite. He was seen as personally responsible for the 10 strikers’ deaths and for ruining the lives of the men who had worked so hard to help make his fortune.

  Carnegie later called the Homestead strike “the trial of my life . . . Such a foolish step—contrary to my ideals, repugnant to every feeling of my nature.” A few years later, perhaps out of remorse, he built a library, swimming pool, concert hall, and bowling alley in Homestead. But still, Carnegie continued to pay his workers low wages, he effectively drove all unions out of Pittsburgh’s steel industry, and by 1900, his mills were bringing in annual profits of more than $40 million.

  The Deepest Pockets in the World

  In 1901, Carnegie sold his steel company to J. P. Morgan for $480 million. (It became part of the massive U.S. Steel Corporation.) On making the deal, Morgan said, “Congratulations, Mr. Carnegie. You are now the richest man in the world.” But Andrew Carnegie had always believed that excess wealth was of no benefit to an individual. He once said, “The man who dies rich, dies disgraced.” So after selling his steel company to Morgan, he proceeded to give away 90 percent of his fortune.