Historic
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Almost a Century Later, Judge Erases Criminal Record of Executed Teen, Glen Mills Student
Doubt about what 16-year-old Alexander McClay Williams could have done in the space of 20 minutes at the Glen Mills Schools has grown so strong in the 86 years since he was executed that a Delaware County judge has agreed to expunge the boy’s criminal record. “I feel very strongly that this kid was executed…
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Serial Killer Returns from His Grave in Yeadon
After more than a century, a serial killer is coming back from the grave — to try to put to rest persistent rumors about whether or not it was actually him who was hanged in 1896 at Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia. The remains of Dr. H.H. Holmes are being exhumed from Holy Cross Cemetery in…
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Poppy Seeds Being Planted Across Delco to Remember World War I Veterans
Delaware County Council and Destination Delco, the county’s Tourism Bureau, announced a county-wide initiative on Tuesday to plant poppy seeds in honor of World War I veterans. This year marks the Centennial of the United States entering World War I, known as “the war to end all wars.” More Americans gave their lives during that…
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Harvard Takes Notice of Penn State Brandywine Scholar’s Work
In her spare time, an associate professor of English at Penn State Brandywine has discovered a key figure lost in history. Now, Kimberly Blockett will bring that figure back to life through a sabbatical year of writing. Blockett has been given fellowships by the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard University and the National…
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Sharon Hill’s Scenery First Brings the Revolution to Life
Working behind the scenes for nearly a year, Sharon Hill-based Scenery First has reshaped modern Philadelphia into the Revolutionary War stage it once was. This week, the world will be able to step back into history and walk on concrete floors made to “look muddy, icy, snowy, wet, or covered with human footprints or animal…
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New Museum Could Spark March on Brandywine Battlefield
A new museum in the heart of Philadelphia could soon send thousands of visitors marching to the historic Brandywine Battlefield near Chadds Ford. With 30,000 advance tickets already sold for the Museum of the American Revolution, the Brandywine Battlefield Task Force is arming itself for an invasion of interest once the museum opens on April…
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County, Destination Delco to Launch WWI Remembrance Project on Saturday
On Saturday morning, Delaware County will officially launch its celebration of the 100th Anniversary of America’s Entry into WWI. And it includes a plan to “paint the county red” by planting the iconic, red Flanders Fields Poppies from Delco’s riverside to its Main Line and its Brandywine borders. This program kicks off at 9 AM in…
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Collingdale’s Eden Cemetery Holds Corpses That Survived Infamous Grave Robber
Among the memorial stones in Collingdale’s Eden Cemetery are the buried remains of African-Americans who survived one of Philadelphia’s gravest injustices. In 1903, what remained of Lebanon Cemetery in South Philly was unearthed and moved to Eden Cemetery to make way for new development. But many of the bodies that were supposed to be there…
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Pearl Harbor Sent Delaware County into Action
Well before the afternoon news of Pearl Harbor’s disaster on Dec. 7, 1941 sent Delaware County and the rest of Philadelphia into a frenzy, local residents had already ramped up the war effort. The Baldwin Locomotive Works in Eddystone and Ford Motor Co. factory in Chester were producing tanks, half-tracks, and jeeps, according to a…
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Did You Know? The Brandywine Once Served as the Industrial Center of New Nation
According to information provided by the Brandywine Conservancy, the Brandywine River once supported over 125 mills, including steel mills in Coatesville, grist mills in Chadds Ford and gunpowder mills in Delaware. All kinds of mills were located along the Brandywine. In the 18th century, mills on the Brandywine produced most of the paper used in…
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Untouched for Half-Century, Corvette Tells Story of Delco Legend
Even after it sat untouched for 50 years, the 1963 Corvette recently pulled out of a forlorn Delaware County garage practically still smelled of raw power and speed. It was the life savings and first big dream of Henry “Hank” Wendt, a Ridley Township High School graduate who in 2013 passed away at the age…
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Historic Gravestone Missing from Rhode Island Found in Upper Darby Woman’s Yard
It had been missing for more than 30 years until it literally turned up in an Upper Darby woman’s yard. The gravestone of a one-year-old child named William Mayes, who died in 1690, was recently returned to Newport, R.I., and reset in the Common Burying Ground. Upper Darby’s Stephanie Pallas “was doing some landscaping, hit…
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Four from Neumann University, All Delco Residents, to Receive Papal Honors
Pope Francis has bestowed Papal Honors upon 45 individuals – including four from Neumann University, all of whom are Delaware County residents – for their dedication and exceptional service to the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia last year and the pastoral visit of the Holy Father. Among 16 people receiving the Benemerenti Medal are:…
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American Legion Joins County Council to Commemorate 75th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor
People of a certain age in Hawaii and across the United States will never forget Dec. 7, 1941 as a day that changed everything, the day we were attacked on American soil, and the day that thrust the United States into World War II. “And we should never forget,” said Delaware County Council Chairman Mario…
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Delco Council, Veterans Memorial Association to Host Freedom Medal Awards Dinner
Delaware County is home to many brave veterans who have served our nation with strength and courage. Today, we have 35,000 veterans of all military branches living in Delaware County who continue to serve their communities through their work, their church, their schools, and their families. In 2013, the Delaware County Veterans Memorial in Newtown…
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Havertown Car Gang Relives Its Glory Years
The only thing better than the days they hung out in the parking lot of the Havertown Burger King and talked all things cars back in the 1970s was the day they came back to relive those memories. “Back in the day, we lived in this parking lot,” Garnet Valley’s George Moore said in a…
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Flashback Friday: MLK Jr. Studies at Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland
The following is the fourth installment of a weekly series that turns back the clock to celebrate a mostly-forgotten moment in Delaware County history. Long before he pioneered the Civil Rights Movement or won the Nobel Peace Prize, Martin Luther King Jr. spent three of his formative years as a Delaware County resident. Following his…
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Mystery of Vietnam War Monument in Chadds Ford Solved
The mystery of Delaware County’s oldest Vietnam War monument, discovered four years ago behind some brush in an unused bank parking lot in Chadds Ford, has been solved. The monument, a cannon on a stone base, was rededicated on Saturday at the Brandywine Mills Shopping Center in Chadds Ford. And it was Bill Gafford –…
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