The National Museum of American History is engaged in a long-term project to create the first publicly accessible, annotated online edition of William Steinway's remarkable diary. This first installment of the Web site includes Edwin M. Good's complete transcription of all 2,500 pages of the Diary alongside high-resolution scans of each handwritten page.
THE summer of 1740 was cool and wet. An early frost injured much of the corn crop, and the long season of rain which followed hindered its ripening. One-third of it was cut when green, and the rest was so wet that it very soon molded. There was, therefore, very little seed cor in New England for the next spring's planting, and the amount of dry corn for the winter's consumption was also small. The rain of the summer and fall flooded the lowlands of the country everywhere.
East Berlin, Pennsylvania held their Annual Christmas House Tour on December 12, 2010. A little bit of rain did not dampen the holiday spirits of the people who paid $12 to tour the homes, church, and buildings owned by the East Berlin Historical Preservation Society. East Berlin has its share of colonial home open to the public along with a Victorian Bed and Breakfast.
Colonial Sense would like to share another yearly Christmas House Tour in one of the nation's oldest parks, Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We visited the Park on December 10, 2010. The mansion tours were begun 38 years ago with the help of V. Elizabeth Person who recently died.
On Saturday, December the 4th 2010, Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site held its annual Iron Plantation Christmas. Today the furnace was quiet prior to the Christmas Holidays. However, during Christmas when the furnace was operating in the nineteenth century, Christmas was just another work day.
Hopewell Village was a small self-sustaining village in colonial times which was built around a cold-blast, charcoal-burning iron furnace. The community life was in some respects similar to that of the small feudal manors of medieval Europe and was largely self-sustaining. Little had changed of the village from colonial times up through most of the nineteenth century.
Visit to the Families of Friends at Burlington. Journey to Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. Considerations on the State of Friends there, and the Exercise he was under in Travelling among those so generally concerned in keeping Slaves, with some Observations on this Subject. Epistle to Friends at New Garden and Crane Creek. Thoughts on the Neglect of a Religious Care in the Education of the Negroes.