Historic Markers in Pennsylvania

Meadville, PA

Raymond P. Shafer rose through Pennsylvania politics from state senator to lieutenant governor to governor from 1967 to 1971, opening his first law office here in Meadville. A World War II veteran and later president of Allegheny College, he presided over a sweeping reform of the state's 1874 constitution and pushed advances in welfare, education, transportation, and the environment. He went on to serve as counsel to Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.

Reading, PA · est. 1948

Reading was laid out in 1748 by direction of Thomas Penn, son of the colony's founder, and became the seat of the newly formed Berks County in 1752. Settled largely by German immigrants, it grew into a heartland of the Pennsylvania-Dutch culture and, after its incorporation as a borough in 1783, into a bustling industrial town. Its forges, mills, and later factories made it one of the enduring manufacturing centers of the region.

West Reading, PA · est. 1948

Marked from the west bank of the Schuylkill, Reading was laid out in 1748 at the direction of Thomas Penn and made the seat of Berks County in 1752. German-speaking settlers gave the town its lasting Pennsylvania-Dutch character, and after incorporation as a borough in 1783 it grew into a thriving industrial community. Ironworks and manufacturing would define its economy for generations.

Reading, PA · est. 1993

The economic depression of the 1870s brought wage cuts and rising anger across America's railroads, and in July 1877 that anger erupted into the nation's first great national strike. In Reading, workers whose pay had been slashed blocked the tracks, and on July 23 militia fired into the unarmed crowd, killing ten people before federal troops moved in to reopen the line. The bloodshed here was one episode in a wave of upheaval that swept the country's rail network that summer.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2003

Opened in 1893, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad's Terminal Station carried passengers into the heart of the city until 1984. Its vast train shed, designed by engineer Joseph H. Wilson, was a marvel of its age, built when competing railroads raced to erect terminals that were as beautiful as they were useful. Beneath the shed, the Reading Terminal Market — descended from Philadelphia's colonial-era outdoor markets — opened in 1892 and still bustles today.

Washington, PA · est. 2013

Born in 1831 in the Bradford House and schooled at the Washington Female Seminary that once stood here, Rebecca Harding Davis became one of America's earliest literary realists. Her 1861 story Life in the Iron Mills exposed the grinding lives of industrial laborers at a time when most fiction looked away from them. Over a long career she wrote hundreds of works pressing on the social wounds of her era.

East Hanover Township, PA · est. 1949

In 1755, as war raged along Pennsylvania's frontier, the home of Adam Reed just south of this point was fortified into a place of refuge. From here Reed and a company of Rangers drawn from Hanover Township stood guard over the surrounding countryside during a period of frequent raids. It was one link in the improvised chain of frontier defenses that ordinary settlers threw up when the empire's protection fell short.

Silver Spring Township, PA · est. 2010

On a late-summer day in 1752, some 250 Scottish Covenanter Presbyterians gathered at Joseph and Elizabeth Junkin's frontier farm for what is recorded as the first Communion of their faith in the New World. The nine-hour outdoor service at the "Junkin Tent" was led by Rev. John Cuthbertson, the first Reformed Presbyterian missionary in America. This scattered congregation of immigrants helped plant the roots of the denomination on American soil.

Mercersburg, PA · est. 1953

From 1837 to 1871, this Mercersburg campus was home to the German Reformed Church's theological seminary and to a remarkable trio of thinkers—Frederick A. Rauch, John W. Nevin, and Philip Schaff. Their work on theology, philosophy, and church history, later known as the "Mercersburg Theology," drew attention on both sides of the Atlantic. For a time this small town was a center of serious religious scholarship.

Tionesta Township, PA · est. 1947

By 1750 the powerful Seneca had set aside this reach of the Allegheny for Munsee and other displaced Native groups pushed from their homelands farther east. In the years 1767–70 the Moravian missionary David Zeisberger worked among these refugees, who lived in three towns strung along the river here. The settlements were part of the great mid-18th-century displacement that reshaped Native geography across the Ohio Valley frontier.

Hickory Township, PA · est. 1947

This part of the Allegheny was allotted by the Seneca before 1750 to Munsee and other Native peoples displaced from lands to the east. From 1767 to 1770 the Moravian missionary David Zeisberger lived and preached among these refugee groups, who occupied three towns along the river here. Their presence reflects the broad mid-1700s upheaval that scattered Indigenous nations across the Pennsylvania frontier.

Williamsport, PA · est. 2017

Founded in Williamsport in 1831 and named for its cherished director Daniel Repasz, the Repasz Band is among the oldest community bands in America. It reportedly played at Lee's surrender at Appomattox in 1865, marched in the inaugural parades of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft as the band of the 12th Pennsylvania National Guard, and performed at the dedications of Grant's Tomb a century apart. Its signature "Repasz Band March" is still played the world over.

Bell Township, PA · est. 2007

Born just south of here in the rural community of LaJose, Aiden Wilson Tozer rose from Clearfield County farm country to become one of the 20th century's most widely read evangelical Christian writers. A pastor with The Christian and Missionary Alliance, he preached at the Mahaffey Camp Summer Bible Conference in the 1940s and 1950s, near the ground this marker commemorates. His more than forty books have sold over three million copies worldwide.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2017

Known as the "Lion of Zion," the Rev. Dr. Leon Howard Sullivan pastored Philadelphia's Zion Baptist Church for 37 years and turned his pulpit into an engine for economic justice. His Selective Patronage Movement — boycotting companies that refused to hire Black workers — opened thousands of jobs nationwide, and his gospel of self-help built lasting institutions to train minority workers. Decades later, his Global Sullivan Principles pressed corporations toward human rights and helped isolate apartheid South Africa, earning him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1998

Isaac Leeser served as minister of Philadelphia's historic Congregation Mikveh Israel and became one of the most influential Jewish leaders in antebellum America. He founded The Occident, an early Jewish periodical, and in 1853 produced an English translation of the Hebrew Bible for American Jews. As a teacher and scholar he helped shape Jewish religious and communal life across the young republic.

Scranton, PA · est. 1999

In the late nineteenth century, deaf children in Pennsylvania often went without formal schooling, and Rev. Jacob M. Koehler—an ordained minister who was himself deaf—set out to change that. In 1882 he founded the Scranton institute that grew into the Scranton State School for the Deaf, and he became a national voice for the education of deaf children, serving as president of the National Association of the Deaf and representing the United States at the 1889 World Congress of the Deaf in Paris.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1998

In 1834 the Rev. Jehu Jones, Jr. led his congregation in building a brick church on this site — the home of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, the nation's first African American Lutheran congregation. Jones, the first Black Lutheran pastor in the United States, shepherded the community here through the 1830s, a time when free Black Philadelphians were building enduring institutions amid deep racial hostility. His church stood as a landmark of Black faith and self-determination.

Greene Township, PA · est. 1994

On the western Pennsylvania frontier of the 1790s, a federal excise tax on whiskey struck at the livelihood of farmers who distilled their grain into a marketable, transportable product. Baptist minister John Corbley became the area's most prominent voice against the tax, and on the "Dreadful Night" of November 13, 1794, he was among roughly 150 men rounded up by federal troops sent to crush the resistance. Jailed for a time in Philadelphia, he returned to Greene County and resumed his ministry.

Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 1995

From his pulpit at Holy Savior Parish, which he founded in 1895, Rev. John J. Curran earned the name the Labor Priest for standing with the coal miners of Pennsylvania's hard-coal country. He played a key role in resolving the great Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902, a bitter standoff that drew in President Theodore Roosevelt, who counted Curran a friend and visited Wilkes-Barre often. His work placed the church squarely in the era's fierce struggles between labor and capital.

Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 1990

Father Joseph Murgas was a Catholic priest in Wilkes-Barre who was also a restless inventor, and on these grounds in 1898 he began experimenting with wireless telegraphy. In 1905 he transmitted sound here in a public demonstration, part of the frantic international race to master radio in the years around Marconi's breakthroughs. A painter, naturalist, and passionate advocate for Slovak causes, Murgas embodied the immigrant clergy who bridged Old World loyalties and New World innovation before his death in 1929.

Clearfield Township, PA · est. 2004

When the Civil War came, Richard C. Christy left this parish to serve as chaplain of the 78th Pennsylvania Volunteers, ministering to a regiment that was overwhelmingly not Catholic. In an age thick with anti-Catholic suspicion, he won over the soldiers with plain courage under fire, earning the nickname the "Fighting Chaplain of the Army of the Cumberland." He returned to his pastorate after the war, and hundreds of veterans came to bury him in 1878.

Montgomery Township, PA · est. 1947

On the mid-1750s frontier, the line between pulpit and battlement often blurred. The Reverend John Steel, pastor of the Upper West Conococheague congregation, was commissioned a militia captain, and his church at Church Hill was stockaded in 1755 to shield the community from raids during the French and Indian War. A house of worship thus doubled as a fortress in the war's most dangerous years.

Scranton, PA · est. 1948

Born in England in 1749, William Bishop became the first ordained minister to serve the future city of Scranton. Around 1795 he raised a combined log church and dwelling near this spot, where he preached to the scattered settlers of the region until moving on; he died in nearby Scott Township in 1816. His humble log meetinghouse was among the first institutions of faith in the Lackawanna Valley.

North Strabane Township, PA · est. 1931

The Reverend John McMillan carried Presbyterian faith and formal schooling into the rugged country of western Pennsylvania in the years after the Revolution. Over six decades of ministry he helped plant churches at Chartiers, Pigeon Creek, and beyond, and lent his energy to founding institutions that became Jefferson College and Western Theological Seminary. He and his wife endured the hardships of frontier life to build lasting religious and educational roots in the region.

Langhorne, PA · est. 1999

In the winter of 1776–77, the village then called Four Lanes End became a place of recovery and death for Continental soldiers. Wounded in the two Battles of Trenton and stricken by disease during that brutal winter, the men were treated in four hospital buildings here after Washington's forces passed through. Archaeological work in 1992 confirmed the burial ground, where written accounts say roughly 166 soldiers were laid to rest.

Hummelstown, PA · est. 2012

When British troops seized Philadelphia in 1777, Pennsylvania's revolutionary government fled westward and needed weapons for the fight. Near Hummelstown it set up its official state gun factory, working in secret from 1777 to 1779 to turn out muskets and rifles for the Continental Army. In an age when a single skilled gunsmith might finish only a few arms a month, the concentrated production here was a small but vital arsenal for a cause perpetually short of firepower.

Phoenixville, PA

This marker records the farthest inland point reached by British forces during their 1777 campaign to capture Philadelphia. In late September of that year, after the Battle of Brandywine, British and American armies maneuvered across Chester County — including the rain-drenched 'Battle of the Clouds' — before General Howe's troops pressed on toward the rebel capital and Washington's army withdrew.

Perkiomen Township, PA

In the autumn of 1777, George Washington's army fought a costly battle at Germantown just outside British-held Philadelphia. Among the wounded was Major Edward Sherburne of New Hampshire, an aide to General John Sullivan, who was struck down on October 4 and died the following evening. This grave marker remembers a young staff officer whose service ended far from home in the war's brutal Philadelphia campaign.

Bethlehem, PA

During the Revolutionary War, the Moravian town of Bethlehem served as a refuge and a major Continental Army hospital, and scores of soldiers who died of their wounds or of camp diseases were buried in its ground. Two centuries later, when those long-forgotten graves were disturbed or rediscovered, the remains were gathered and reinterred with honor, marked by this monument dedicated on May 25, 1996. The stone stands not for a battle but for the quiet toll of the war's sick and wounded far from any front line.

Boyertown, PA · est. 2008

On the night of January 13, 1908, a fire tore through the Rhoads Opera House in Boyertown during a crowded performance, killing 170 people. Overcrowding, badly designed and unmarked exits, and inadequate fire escapes turned a theater into a death trap, and many of the victims were laid to rest nearby. The horror shocked Pennsylvania into action.

Meadville, PA

Born into slavery in Maryland in 1801, Richard Henderson escaped as a boy and made his way to Meadville around 1824, where he built a life as a barber. From his home on Arch Street he became a fixture of the Underground Railroad, and by tradition the house sheltered some 500 freedom-seekers before the Civil War. In the decades before emancipation, small northern towns like Meadville formed vital links in the secret network carrying people north toward freedom.

Rosslyn Farms, PA · est. 2023

Born and raised in Rosslyn Farms, Dick Thornburgh rose to lead Pennsylvania as its 41st governor and later the nation's Department of Justice as U.S. Attorney General. Just months into his governorship, he steered the state's emergency response to the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the most serious in U.S. commercial history. As Attorney General he pressed prosecutions of white-collar crime and drug trafficking, and he championed the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Quakertown, PA · est. 2019

In the decades before the Civil War, eastern Pennsylvania's Quaker communities formed a dense network of shelter for people escaping slavery. Richard Moore, a Quakertown businessman and man of conscience, turned his own home into a station on the Underground Railroad, sheltering freedom seekers moving north through Bucks County. Among those he aided was William Parker, a central figure in the 1851 Christiana Resistance in which a Maryland slaveholder was killed. Over roughly thirty years Moore helped hundreds continue on toward liberty.

Northampton Township, PA · est. 2007

This was one of thirteen Nike missile sites ringing the Philadelphia area during the Cold War, part of a nationwide air-defense shield built to guard American cities against Soviet bombers. From the mid-1950s, radar here guided Ajax anti-aircraft missiles skyward from launch magazines nearby. As missile technology advanced and arms-control agreements took hold, the system was phased out by the early 1970s.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1982

On April 3, 1793, the English equestrian John Bill Ricketts opened America's first purpose-built circus building at 12th and Market Streets and gave the young nation its first complete circus performance. Blending daring horsemanship with acrobatics and clowning, Ricketts introduced a form of popular entertainment that would sweep the country. His shows drew the era's most famous spectator: President George Washington attended later that first season.

West Norriton Township, PA · est. 1947

David Rittenhouse, one of colonial America's foremost men of science, farmed near this spot and pursued astronomy with instruments he built by hand. He is credited with constructing what many consider the first telescope made in America, and in 1769 he joined an international scientific effort to observe the transit of Venus across the sun. His careful measurements helped place American science on the world stage before the Revolution.

East Norriton Township, PA · est. 1949

David Rittenhouse, born in 1732, spent his early life on this farm, where he launched one of colonial America's most remarkable scientific careers. A self-taught clockmaker and astronomer, he built precise instruments and in 1769 computed and observed the transit of Venus across the sun—a globe-spanning effort to measure the solar system that placed American science on the world stage. He later moved to Philadelphia, serving the young republic until his death in 1796.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1991

In 1690 William Rittenhouse, the first Mennonite minister in America, built the English colonies' first paper mill along the Wissahickon Creek. Generations of his family expanded the operation, turning this valley into the birthplace of American papermaking. By the 1850s the village had grown to more than forty buildings, seven of which still survive from this once-thriving industrial hamlet. It was also the birthplace, in 1732, of the noted astronomer and instrument-maker David Rittenhouse.

Conoy Township, PA · est. 2012

Around 1780, amid the ferment of the Revolutionary era, a small band of Pennsylvania German believers gathered along Conoy Creek for their first baptism, founding one of the earliest home-grown American religious denominations. They worshipped down this lane at Magdalena House, the home of co-founder Jacob Engel, and came to be called the River Brethren for the streams in which they baptized. By the mid-19th century the group took the name Brethren in Christ, and its offshoots — the Old Order River Brethren and the United Zion Church — carry the lineage still.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2012

In the tense years around American independence, printing was a political act—and Robert Aitken's Philadelphia shop sat at the center of it. In 1782 he produced the first complete English-language Bible printed in the new United States, a feat made possible by wartime import embargoes that cut off British editions, and notable enough to win an endorsement from Congress. Aitken also printed the official Journals of Congress and, through The Pennsylvania Magazine, first carried Thomas Paine's electrifying prose to American readers.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1991

In 1813 Robert Bogle, a free Black Philadelphian, opened a fashionable eatery on this spot and built a reputation as the city's premier caterer. Famous for his savory meat pies, he became the sought-after master of ceremonies for the elaborate weddings, funerals, and banquets of Philadelphia's wealthy elite. In effect a pioneer of the American catering trade, he made a name and a living in a business he helped define.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1994

In the spring of 1840, only months after photography was announced to an astonished world, the Philadelphia metallurgist and brass founder Robert Cornelius opened one of its very first commercial studios here. Working with chemist Paul Beck Goddard, he found ways to shorten exposure times dramatically — the breakthrough that made it possible to sit for a portrait without holding still for agonizing minutes. Cornelius had already made himself one of the first people ever photographed.

Cresson Township, PA · est. 1947

Robert E. Peary, the Arctic explorer long credited with reaching the North Pole on April 6, 1909, was born in Cresson in 1856 before his family moved to Maine three years later. This monument honors the town's connection to a man whose expeditions captured the world's imagination during the great age of polar exploration. His name became synonymous with the daring pursuit of the earth's last frontiers.

Fulton Township, PA · est. 1978

Robert Fulton, born in this corner of Lancaster County in 1765, first made his way as a portrait painter in Philadelphia and Europe before turning his restless mind to machines. In 1807 his steamboat—the North River Steamboat, remembered as the Clermont—proved that steam could reliably move a vessel against the current. He also experimented with an early submarine, the Nautilus, floating mines, and improvements to canals.

Bethlehem, PA · est. 1993

In the decades after the Civil War, Bethlehem was reshaped by the twin engines of railroading and iron, and Robert H. Sayre stood at the center of both. As the driving force behind construction of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and a founder of the Bethlehem Iron Company, he helped turn the Lehigh Valley into one of the industrial powerhouses of Gilded Age America. His wealth flowed back into the community through a hospital, a church, a girls' school, and the young Lehigh University he helped charter.

Spring Creek Township, PA · est. 1997

On the family farm at this spot in 1892 was born Robert H. Jackson, one of the towering American lawyers of the twentieth century. He climbed from country attorney to U.S. Solicitor General, Attorney General, and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, where he was known for defending civil liberties. He is best remembered as the chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, where the Nazi leadership was held to account after World War II.

Pittsburgh, PA · est. 1997

In the early decades of the 20th century, a Black-owned weekly newspaper became one of the most powerful voices in Black America, and its headquarters stood here in Pittsburgh's Hill District. Under the editor named on this marker, the Pittsburgh Courier grew into a national institution that campaigned for civil rights, fair employment, and dignity at a time when the mainstream press ignored Black life. Its influence stretched far beyond Pennsylvania, and its editor even served in the U.S. Justice Department during the New Deal.

Lewisburg, PA · est. 1954

The hymn writer Robert Lowry lived in this Lewisburg house from 1869 to 1875, a productive stretch during which he composed some of the works that carried his name around the world. Among them is "Shall We Gather at the River," a hymn still sung in churches far beyond America. A Baptist minister as well as a composer, Lowry helped shape the sound of 19th-century American gospel music before his death in 1899.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1993

Robert Mara Adger came of age in a Philadelphia that was home to one of the nation's largest free Black communities, active in the antislavery and self-help movements before and after the Civil War. A businessman who helped lead a pioneering Black building-and-loan association, he was also a passionate bibliophile who gathered a major collection of rare books and pamphlets on Black life and the fight against slavery. He helped found an Afro-American historical society to preserve that record for future generations.

Scranton, PA · est. 2012

A lifelong son of Scranton, Robert P. Casey climbed through a long public career — state senator, auditor general, and finally two terms as governor of Pennsylvania from 1987 to 1995. His administration pioneered the Children's Health Insurance Program, a state experiment in covering the working poor's kids that became a national model, alongside landmark clean-water reforms like PENNVEST. A devout Catholic, he also drew national attention for an outspoken pro-life stance that cut against his party's grain.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2004

Robert Patterson chaired mathematics and served as vice-provost at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1800s, a respected man of science in the young republic. In 1803 he tutored Meriwether Lewis in the celestial navigation and surveying skills the explorer would need to chart the unknown West. From this home Patterson helped equip the Lewis and Clark Expedition with the mathematical tools of discovery.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1992

Robert Purvis, born in 1810, devoted his life to the abolition of slavery through lecturing, writing, and leadership in antislavery societies. As an agent of the Underground Railroad, he built a hidden compartment in his home here to shelter freedom seekers fleeing bondage. Wealthy and eloquent, he risked reputation and safety to advance the cause of Black freedom and equal rights.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1983

Robert Smith, born in Scotland in 1722, became colonial Philadelphia's most accomplished architect and builder, shaping the skyline of the young city. His hand is visible in some of the era's most enduring structures, including the soaring steeple of Christ Church, St. Peter's Church, and Carpenters' Hall, where the First Continental Congress would gather. He died in 1777 as the Revolution he helped house in brick and timber unfolded.

Camp Hill, PA · est. 1991

Robert Whitehill settled on this land in Lowther Manor, conveyed by the Penn family in 1771, and became one of Pennsylvania's most persistent voices for popular rights. A drafter of the radical 1776 state constitution, he led the Anti-Federalist minority at the 1787 convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution, pressing amendments to guard individual liberties that were later echoed in the Bill of Rights, and he served in the legislature, the executive council, and Congress.

Titusville, PA · est. 1954

Here near Hammond Run, one of the oil industry's boldest early innovations took shape: the exploding torpedo, publicly demonstrated in 1865, which used a charge set off deep inside a well to shatter rock and dramatically increase the flow of oil. The volatile nitroglycerin that powered it was manufactured a short distance to the south, a reminder of how dangerous this frontier of technology could be.

Morrisville, PA · est. 2017

The Robertson family, ceramic artisans, founded their art tile and abrasives works in Morrisville in 1890, and it ran until 1982. The firm won notice for its craze-free pure white tiles, an efficient single-fire process, and an on-site quality lab, and its ceramic mosaics were among the first in the country to line an indoor swimming pool. By the 1950s Robertson tiles graced most of the original Levittown homes.

Heidelberg Township, PA · est. 1992

Ironmaster George Ege founded this furnace in 1794 as Reading Furnace, part of the charcoal-iron industry that flourished across colonial and early Pennsylvania. Henry P. Robeson enlarged it in 1845, and the growing works gave rise to the town of Robesonia in 1855. Though the furnace was razed in 1927, the ironmaster's Georgian mansion, Italianate office, and workers' houses still stand a mile away as a preserved industrial village.

Bensalem Township, PA · est. 2007

On September 2, 1781, French and American troops under Comte de Rochambeau and General George Washington camped along nearby Poquessing Creek as they marched south. Officers used the Red Lion Inn, once located here, as a headquarters. This encampment was one leg of the extraordinary overland march that carried the allied army to Yorktown, where the decisive victory of the Revolution was won.

Chester, PA · est. 1954

In the late summer of 1781, the combined French and Continental armies were racing south for the decisive campaign that would end the Revolutionary War. After a grand review before Congress in Philadelphia, the allied columns marched down the old King's Highway toward Wilmington, pausing to camp here at Chester on September 5. Within weeks these same troops would help trap Cornwallis at Yorktown.

Huntington Township, PA · est. 1947

Methodism spread across the American backcountry in the 1700s through humble meeting houses like this one, first raised in 1773 as the region's earliest Methodist house of worship. The congregation rebuilt in 1849, and that second structure still stands about a mile up the side road. It endures as a quiet monument to the plain, itinerant faith that took root on the colonial frontier.