Our readers—the gift that keeps on giving. 14
Fill ’er up.
A hunter’s quest for answers about Native American relics in our woods.
A
samplerof southern Finger Lakes country churches.
By Phil Hesser
Wellsboro’s Anna R. Kelsey was Alaska’s “Mother of Education.”
The story of Wellsboro’s unheralded Hetty Murray.
Out on a cold limb.
By Karey Solomon
Future projections are bright for Canton’s historic Rialto.
Romantique Collection opens a store in Wellsboro.
Cover design by Gwen Button. Cover photo Caleb Williams, Heritage Portrait Studio. This page (top) Caleb Williams, Heritage Portrait Studio; (middle) Rialto Theatre, by Bridget Callahan; (bottom) Rachel Davis (right) and Lissa Hoprich, by Carolyn Straniere.
We don’t just work here, we live here too, and C&N’s Giving Back, Giving Together is how we support the communities we call home. You & Us. That’s C&N.
cnbankpa.com/GBGT
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E ditors & P ublish E rs
Teresa Banik Capuzzo
Michael Capuzzo
A ssoci A t E P ublish E rs
Lilace Mellin Guignard
George Bochetto, Esq.
d ir E ctor of o PE r A tions Gwen Button
M A n A ging E ditor
Gayle Morrow
s A l E s r EP r E s E nt A tiv E
Shelly Moore
c ircul A tion d ir E ctor
Michael Banik
A ccounting
Amy Packard
c ov E r d E sign Gwen Button
c ontributing W rit E rs
Maggie Barnes, Carrie Hagen, Roger Kingsley, Don Knaus, Dave Milano, Brendan O’Meara, David O’Reilly, Linda Roller, Mark Simonis, Karey Solomon
c ontributing P hotogr AP h E rs Bernadette Chiaramonte, Diane Cobourn, Mary Harvey, Michael Johnston, Nigel P. Kent, Linda Stager, Sherri Stager, Curt Sweely, Sarah Wagaman
d istribution t EAM
Brian Button, Grapevine Distribution, Linda Roller t h E b EA gl E Nano Cosmo (1996-2014) • Yogi (2004-2018)
ABOUT US: Mountain Home is the award-winning regional magazine of PA and NY with more than 100,000 readers. The magazine has been published monthly, since 2005, by Beagle Media, LLC, 39 Water Street, Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, 16901, and online at www.mountainhomemag.com. Copyright © 2022 Beagle Media, LLC. All rights reserved. E-mail story ideas to editorial@mountainhomemag. com, or call (570) 724-3838.
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At Mountain Home, we love hearing about what happens after a story is published.
Like when the folks at Williamsport Bicycle Recycle tell how a man pulled up to offer a $200 donation. Louisa Stone told us, “Thumbing through the June 2022 issue of Mountain Home at the Wellsboro Diner, he found [the story]. He and his wife were heading home. He had to persuade her to take time for the side trip. He’s a cyclist. It’s his dream to start a place that sells bikes at reasonable prices and teaches bike repair.”
The Stones hadn’t even known the June issue had been released. They received two more donations directly because of the story. “This was the best article about us in all our eight years,” says Louisa.
See, the story after the story is usually the story of you, our readers, taking action. Making this great place we live in even better.
Remember Rosie whose diner in Tioga provides free Thanksgiving dinners and uses
whatever donations they receive to buy gifts for children in their community? That story in the November issue must have gotten folks in the giving spirit because before Thanksgiving even came, they’d raised $2,500. Melissa “Mel” Gee, a server and Rosie’s niece, says people would come in and take a magazine to read while they ate. “They’d say, ‘This is a great article. What y’all are doing here is great,’ and then they’d give us a donation.” When Thanksgiving did arrive, they served 450 dinners—150 more than the year before. Santa and Mrs. Claus got dinner too. I don’t know if they heard about Rosie from us or not. That woman has connections.
Virginia Gee, Rosie’s sister, handles the donations and getting the gifts. She tells of a man from New York City who read the article and came by to donate $500, asking that he stay anonymous. It’s almost like a Hallmark movie, but without the golden retriever. The final count was $5,000 raised.
The year before it’d been about half that. After buying gifts for forty kids, Virginia still had $480 left, so she called up the Tioga Roller Rink and arranged to host an admission-free New Year’s Eve skating party.
Looking back on 2022, I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished together. It means a lot to us that our readers are the kind of people who will go out of their way for others. And sometimes we’re sent a note so sweet, it goes in a file labeled “Mountain Home love letters.” Like one from Mary Moyer of Hammondsport, who wrote to tell us how much she enjoys our publication and even though she picks it up free, she wants to show more support. So, she sent us a check for a subscription, but said not to send her anything, she’d just keep picking it up free at Wegmans. “I feel better already!” she wrote.
It made us feel pretty good too.
For years, Tioga County hunters have protected the locations of ancient aboriginal stonework in once-remote parts of the woods. Although they reach heights of several feet or higher, the coneshaped stone mounds—known as cairns—are so camouflaged into the landscape that they startle those who come across them. Locals know of developers who have destroyed the pillars, treating them as random piles of rocks that obstruct the landscape. Others, recognizing the cairns as centuries-old artifacts, have protected them by keeping quiet about their precise locations. This method of preservation has deterred vandals, but it has also hidden relics of the area’s rich Native American history from the public eye, leaving only those with access and curiosity to uncover the cairns’ purpose. Such a quest occupied one grouse hunter in Charleston Township for decades. (Names of some people and places are withheld to protect these cairns.)
The hunter first encountered the rock formations on a retreat decades ago. Walking the woods behind his rental cabin, he came across a tall, austere-looking arrangement of stones. Before long he saw another pile, and then another.
“What are these things?” he remembers asking.
Rocks in the woods: Our writer, Carrie Hagen, gets her first look at the cairns.
Caleb Williams, Heritage Portrait Studio
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.59904.html
Close inspection revealed that the rocks surrounded and supported cavities, some of which held fragments of animal bones, decaying organic materials, and shards of pottery, pipes, and beads. The structures seemed to be types of monuments. But to what or to whom? Enchanted, the hunter felt drawn to the stonework. On subsequent trips, he combed the forest for as many cairns as he could find. A walk of one property revealed twenty-eight separate stone mounds. He asked locals what they knew of the structures. The owner of his rental said that they were connected to ancient Native American rituals. Others had heard this, too. Nobody, however, seemed to know exactly who had constructed the cairns, or when and why. One thing was obvious to the hunter—those who owned land on which the cairns rested did not want to draw the attention of looters or trespassers.
The grouse hunter’s search for an origin story was fruitless for years. Until one day, when he walked into an unrelated retail business meeting in Northampton County. Hanging from an office wall were framed images of familiar stone piles.
When asked about the photos on his wall, Fred Werkheiser, the meeting’s host,
identified himself as an amateur sleuth of aboriginal stonework. His cairn interests had begun years before. In a former life, Fred drove trucks for 7-Up, and it was on rural delivery routes through Pennsylvania that he noticed stone piles in forest clearings. He developed an eye for spotting cairns—both on the road and at home in the Lehigh Valley. Using his free time to canvass the woods, he found more of the stonework in Northampton and Monroe counties. He recognized familiar patterns and placements, but he didn’t know what he was looking at, who built it, or why. In a time before internet search engines, Fred’s hunt for information took him into libraries and bookshops. Answers started coming when he visited an antique shop in the Poconos and picked up an old book of regional history. Its pages held a photograph of the stonework that had fascinated him for years, and with it, descriptive information.
“Holy hell!” he thought out loud. “I’ve been looking for something like this for years!”
The book gave Fred more of a working vocabulary for the cairns, words that he used to trace readings on aboriginal architecture, conduct interviews with architectural historians, and converse with local history
enthusiasts. While books on the topic were not as prolific as he had hoped, and architectural historians seemed indifferent to his questions, Fred did come to understand more about the creators, purpose, and placement of the stonework. He started asking friends and acquaintances whether they had ever noticed stone piles on their own or on neighboring land. Too often, the answer was the same.
“Yeah, but they’re torn down now.”
“Yeah, blown up with dynamite.”
But, questions also introduced new leads. An Emmanuelsville farmer spoke of remnants on his property. In Berks County, a man invited Fred to see what he considers one of Pennsylvania’s most important archaeological sites: twelve to fourteen hillside acres covered with cairns and stone walls. Some of the structures stood ten feet tall. By then, Fred had connected with the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania and their then-chief, Bob Redhawk Ruth. On a site visit with Fred, Chief Redhawk Ruth commented on the large number of native medicinal plants that grew throughout the landscape.
In a 2007 interview with The Morning
Call, Bob Redhawk Ruth estimated that ninety percent of native sites in Pennsylvania had been destroyed or damaged. Fred became convinced that a large part of this ruination was due to ignorance. His interest in ancient stonework became a mission of historic preservation.
“People have these places,” he reflects today. “Nobody knows what they are, and so they rip them down.”
Together with Donald Repsher, a friend, regional historian, and Presbyterian minister, Fred published what he had struggled to find when he first began scouting cairns: a compilation of research and writings that traced the cairns’ origins and place in tribal societies. Documentary Evidence of Aboriginal Stonework in the American Northeast came out in 2005. Using the work to start a public awareness campaign, Fred mailed information to landowners with cairns on their properties in order to strengthen support for historic preservation.
At their initial meeting, the grouse hunter listened as Fred confirmed and supplemented what he had gathered from conversations in Tioga County. Native Americans, most probably the Lenni Lenape (also known as the Delaware Indians), had created the stone monuments centuries before.
Originally from homelands that extended along the Delaware River from modern-day New York to Delaware, the Lenape were Algonquin-speaking people who identified with one of three tribal clans—the Turtle (Unami), the Turkey (Unalachtigo), and the Wolf (Munsee). It was the Lenape with whom William Penn famously made a peace treaty in 1687 in Lenapehoking (modernday Philadelphia), the spiritual and physical home of the Unami. The agreement promised to honor the indigenous peoples’ claim to their ancestral lands in the wake of European immigration.
In less than fifty years, William Penn’s sons and business associates retracted this land agreement, sold the Lenape’s ancestral grounds to Europeans, and forced the Native Americans westward. Migrating through Pennsylvania into Ohio before moving further south or northwest, the tribal clans ultimately resettled in several government-approved areas—two in Oklahoma, one in Wisconsin, and two in Ontario.
This diaspora of the Lenape in the first half of the eighteenth century is largely why Fred struggled to find any information about aboriginal stonework. Those Lenape who stayed in Pennsylvania hid their identities, afraid of repercussions or further forced removal. From one generation to the next, families spoke of their heritage privately, kept their ancestral rituals alive in private group gatherings like powwows, or never spoke to their children about their true identities. Oral histories became silenced, and artifacts unrecognized. For a period of 200 years there was no continuous, formal Lenape “tribal entity” in Pennsylvania.
Today, the Keystone State is one of thirteen that does not acknowledge the presence of a single Native American tribe within its domain. To claim official tribal status, a people would need to submit an application, one that meets very specific requirements, to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. Such paperwork calls for expensive legal counsel and a trove of historical evidence that documents, among other things, the applicant group’s continuous residence within the state for over a century.
First Presbyterian Church Choir
RL Butler Middle School Chorus
Wellsboro Men’s Chorus
Wellsboro Women’s Chorus
Hamilton-Gibson Youth Ensemble
Pine Pitch and guest soloists
Whose woods these are I think I know: The landowner pauses while deer hunting to document the evidence that others also considered this land special.
Amanda Funk, co-founder of the Widoktadwen Center for Native Knowledge in Reading, says that the “whole lot of red tape” involved in applying for Native status is evidence that “the government is threatened by native sovereignty.” Tribal sovereignty brings numerous privileges—in addition to validating a people’s history and culture, it includes benefits such as tax exemptions, access to grants, and health coverage.
In 1998, the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania formed as a nonprofit corporation to promote cultural awareness and historical preservation. Like other groups, LNPA has tried and failed to get federal acknowledgement. Such efforts draw the ire of the Delaware Nation and the Delaware Tribe of Indians, both headquartered in Oklahoma. Spokespeople for both Lenape nations have told press outlets, including Mountain Home, that groups like the LNPA are fraudulent “Corporations Posing as Indigenous Nations” (CPIN) that take resources from those whose ancestors were forcibly removed from the state. Reasoning that tribal societies migrated as a collective people, these tribal nations say that should anyone of Lenape descent have stayed behind, they would have assimilated into another society.
Lenape women most certainly did. Revered among their people for their wisdom and intuition, many Lenape women married immigrant German farmers and immersed themselves in the Pennsylvania Dutch community. This union allowed Lenape bloodlines to stay close to their ancestral homeland, even if, due to caution, children never learned their maternal heritage. That was the case in Fred’s family. Years after he first felt a powerful attachment to the cairns on his rural 7-Up delivery route, he learned they were
Raised in a Pennsylvania Dutch family, Fred knew about his German heritage, particularly in farming matters: since 1850, his family had operated the same farm. But it wasn’t until he turned fifty that he learned he had Lenape blood as well. Reading through diaries in a farmhouse attic, he learned that his great-great grandmother had been born into the Munsee clan. At some point in her adult life, she committed suicide, and the family spoke of her no more.
“On the day she killed herself,” reflects Fred, “everything was
After his business meeting in Northampton County, the grouse hunter’s next trip to Charleston Township had a specific agenda. He knew that Fred strongly suspected it was the Turtle clan of the Lenni Lenape who had created the cairns that fascinated him. Although Fred hadn’t yet studied Tioga County’s indigenous architecture, he felt confident that the grouse hunter’s descriptions matched the characteristics of the images framed in his office. And he knew how to make sure they did.
In the eighteenth century, those Lenape who made their homes in northcentral Pennsylvania had to navigate dangerous Iroquois territory. A confederacy of six separate Indian nations— the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Tuscaroras—the Iroquois held territory across New York state and into northern Pennsylvania. To avoid a land war, the Five Nations gave the name “Tioga” to an area along the Susquehanna River that marked a southern boundary to Iroquois territory. An Algonquin word meaning “entrance,” Tioga was an approved, guarded entry
point for Lenape crossing into the land. Land north of the dividing line was Iroquois territory; what lay south belonged to the Lenape. As they had in Lenapehoking, their ancestral homelands, the Lenape established sacred ground where they perceived spiritual imagery in the natural world. Revering the life force flowing through the earth, indigenous people hold sacred the sustainers of the life cycle, thus equally honoring humans, animals, minerals, and organic material. Wherever the Lenape recognized the shape of an exalted being in the landscape—for example the outline of a turtle, turkey, or wolf in tree bark or a knotted root—they read the location as holy, an intersection of the physical and spiritual worlds, and identified it with a marker such as stonework. These stone piles served as gathering places for mourning or celebrating. Some cairns honored the dead as burial mounds. Others served a utilitarian purpose as scientific instruments: within these rock formations, the Lenape crafted openings that aligned with the sun to measure solstices and equinoxes, indicators of seasonal changes that drove planting and harvesting. Shaping these monuments to fit the terrain, the Lenape built them near river tributaries in dense parts of the woods, accessible to tribal members yet hidden from those unaware of how to track the sacred grounds. The Turtle clan, Fred knew, used a bent sapling tree to indicate direction, serving as one such clue.
To see if his instincts were correct, Fred suggested that the grouse hunter go on a tracking exploration. The two men exchanged personal phone numbers, and Fred offered further guidance over the phone. Following the cues, the hunter started at the site of the most well-preserved cairn. He walked a gradually expanding radius around the stones in search of a bent tree that was once a young
December 3, 2022 – January 21, 2023
This exhibit features memorabilia from the L.L. Stearns Department Store, which flourished from 1889 until 1994 in downtown Williamsport.
858 W. Fourth Street
Williamsport, PA 17701
Hours: Tues.-Fri., 9:30am-4:00pm; Sat., 11:00am-4:00pm Please visit www.tabermuseum.org or telephone 570.326.3326
e are never going to fill this house.” I sure meant it when I said it a dozen years ago on move-in day. We had defied the usual empty-nest expectations and bought the biggest house we’d ever owned. We went from a little house with a shared garage on a busy street to a place in the country. (How do you share a garage, you ask? It has a lot to do with planning arrivals and departures, much like the air traffic control tower at LAX.) So, I could be forgiven for thinking we would never have enough stuff to take up all the space we suddenly had. Then we discovered auctions.
Auctions in rural communities are major social happenings. In settings from fire halls to churches to barns, bargain seekers, expert antique hunters, and the just plain curious gather to find a treasure.
There is a comfortable atmosphere of wide plank floors, creaky chairs, and, if you’re lucky, food someone’s grandma made.
“What are those?” I looked at the rusted steel gizmos at my husband’s feet. If the Marquis de Sade had gone into dentistry, these sharpened nightmares would have been his extraction tools.
“They are ice hooks. For pulling blocks of ice in the winter,” he replied.
“Are we going to freeze the hot tub? I know you wanted an ice maker on the deck, but there has to be an easier way.”
Bob gave me “the look” and returned his attention to the auctioneer.
In the hands of a talented auctioneer, the mundane becomes exotic. Things that serve a bygone purpose are showcased for their potential to become something else. “It may look like an old dresser, but if you cut out a circle and drop in a sink, it
becomes the perfect fish filet station! Get your husband and his stinky catch out of your kitchen, ladies!” If that fails, slap the label “vintage” or “collectible” on it and watch the paddles go up. Bids start low and sometimes go in unexpected directions. There was an antique spinning wheel that I only recognized from my childhood copy of Sleeping Beauty, which sold for more than the rent on my first apartment. There was hot competition for a butter churn and a yelp of joy from the winning bidder. Why, I have no idea. I’m not eating any butter from it.
There are wonderful characters to be found at auctions. People who are professional bidders, complete with a favorite paddle number, take this whole thing very seriously. They are the ones who come early and scope out items. They make notes. They glare at people who
outbid them. Then write in their notebooks. I’m envisioning some sort of “antique hit list” and uncomfortable encounters in the parking lot. “Nice hurricane lamp you got there, Agnes. You outbid me like that again and I’m putting your paddle where you’ll need some light, you follow?”
There’s a fellow who frequents one of our favorite auction houses and buys every clock that comes up. Grandfather, mantle, cuckoo, belly of a cherub…if it tells time, he snatches it. The moment he is awarded the bid, he unrolls a leather pouch, removes odd looking tools, and extracts the face of the clock. That goes in a box. Sometimes, he leaves the rest of it—like a discarded carcass. What is he doing with all those clock faces? Maybe he has a really specialized repair business—“The Hands of Time”—and he just replaces clock faces? I don’t know, and I really don’t want to. The mystery is part of the fun.
However, I did want to know what my husband intended to do with the huge box of aluminum floodlights he bought.
“When are the Rolling Stones playing in our field?” I asked. “You know Mick is getting pretty old. You’re gonna aggravate his cataracts with this much light.” Honed by nearly thirty years of marriage, Bobby has perfected the art of not hearing me. When he was the winner of the gorgeous ruby earrings from an old Victorian home, though, I knew exactly what he was going to do with those, and rewarded him with a squeal and a kiss.
That’s the joy of auctions. It’s like a small-scale lottery with someone winning every few minutes. Sometimes it’s a big win, like the beaming young couple who seemed to be buying most of the furniture for their first home on the cheap. Once in a while you get skunked, like the chainsaw Bob bought “as is.” It “as is”d for about twenty minutes and then turned into “as was.” But when the moon and the stars align just right, you find a real treasure. We have a full set of delicately etched cordial glasses that hold a ruby port as the final flourish to formal dinners in our home. They were an auction find and I love them.
There are sad moments, too. You look at a pole barn full of things, and you think that they were once cherished possessions, or essential tools to a day’s work. They had a life with a family that is now scattered, or gone. They are silent witnesses to history. Now, they go for five bucks to a collector who will scavenge their parts.
The photo albums break my heart. Who were these people and why is there no one left to cherish their images? Women in high collars and kids in short pants with scruffy dogs, standing stone-faced by a tree. I feel like we should apologize for reducing them to lot number 127.
But, mostly, auctions are fun events, a celebration that these things are going on to be a part of someone else’s life. Maybe that’s the best we can all hope for our possessions. One night far into the future, God willing, a young bride will squeal with delight when she wins my cordial glasses. I hope her eyes shine as she covers them in bubble wrap and drives home extra carefully. May they go on to hold gallons of good port.
As for our house today? There isn’t a blessed inch of space left for anything else. Except for maybe one spinning wheel…
To enter the historic Rialto Theatre on Main Street in Canton, you must step across the Centennial Memorial Plaza, an apron of commemorative pavers whose sections are inscribed with the names of those who contributed to the renaissance of this community icon. That, in part, explains what the Rialto means to the borough. It took sweat equity, creativity, creative funding, community support, and a lot of heart to revive this muchloved icon.
When it opened as the Crawford Theatre in 1912, movies were silent, save for the orchestral accompaniment and various vocalizations from the often awe-struck audience. (Those movies are coming back May 4, 2023, for you nostalgia buffs, BTW.) Back then, some who watched The Perils of Pauline and other cinematic dramas of the day were the locals who worked in logging. Others had come by train to imbibe the mineral-rich waters of nearby Minnequa Springs, named for a
Native American maiden who was healed from a serious illness after drinking this water. Some were members of Chas Lee’s London Show, a traveling circus whose acrobats, gymnasts, trapeze artists, and clowns spent their winters in Canton, along with their performing dogs and horses, who were presumably less interested in movies. Some locals ran away to join the circus. Some performers retired in Canton.
For thirty-five years of the “talkie” era, the theater, renamed the Rialto, was owned by Lou Smithgall Anderson. Known as “Aunt Lou” to much of Canton, as well as to her real niece, Mary Beth Schoonover, she was known for her kindness and insistence on strict decorum while movies were being shown. Mary Beth’s father was a projectionist—at that time, in order to work the complicated equipment, which included preventing hot lights from igniting the flammable celluloid, movie projectionists needed training and certification. Back in those days, a dime would get you into the movie with
a glass of soda and some popcorn to enjoy while you watched the film. Then, as now, the price of admission barely covered a theater’s operating costs, so an audience who visited the concession stand helped the bottom line.
As a high school student, Mary Beth worked as an usher. She was equipped with a flashlight to show patrons to their seats, and was charged with interrupting over-enthusiastic courting couples and intercepting spitballs before they could be launched to damage the movie screen. If rowdiness persisted, Aunt Lou would stop the film and emerge to quell the disturbance.
“She was a tiny woman, but a force to be reckoned with,” Mary Beth remembers.
By the 1980s, when Bridget Callahan, the Rialto’s current manager, was growing up, the theater had been shuttered. Those in search of a movie on the big screen had to travel to Elmira or Williamsport. In the 1990s, the Bradford County Regional Arts Council took
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over the Rialto and two other theaters. The group accomplished major renovations, including moving murals by Scott Griswold depicting Canton’s history from the Packard Hotel to the Rialto’s walls. Scott, who died in 2015, was a Canton-born artist who painted portraits of the rich and famous (Bill Clinton and Secretariat) as well as homegrown Bradford County scenes.
“They were wonderful stewards and did so much,” Bridget says. About a year ago, a local 501(c)(3), Rekindle the Spirit, took over to make the Rialto a hometown attraction for a new century. Mary Beth’s husband, Tom, heads up the board of directors. Everyone insists Tom’s the best popcorn maker. Bridget, who’d worked as a booking agent for musical groups, was hired as manager.
New seating was installed, with seats offset so everyone gets a great view in this 152-seat venue. Placards on most seats commemorate contributors who made the renovation possible, one piece at a time.
As the theater once again becomes a hub for the community, it’s become the venue for more than movies, though those are again shown every weekend. For Thursday evening Girl’s Night Out events, the Rialto partners with eateries in Canton and Troy. A popular chick flick film is the main attraction, likely to be accompanied by a wine-tasting courtesy of a local winery.
“Women say they can guarantee they’ll laugh and have a good time,” Bridget says.
On Mondays, gamers can plug their systems into the big screen to compete with larger-than-life digital foes. It’s popular, to say the least, so reservations are required.
The theater becomes a concert hall February 17, 2023, when internationally-known blues guitarist Gabe Stillman will take the stage. The headliner at the Norwegian Bluesfest, Stillman was the youngest recipient of the Gibson Guitarist of the World award. In March, local star Ike Bowers will perform, and Elvis (impersonator, Rubin Castillo) will be “in the building” in April. Silent movies return with the Silent Movie Paragon Ragtime Orchestra on May 4. Holidays are celebrated with annual events like the Halloween movie Scare-a-thon and a batch of family-friendly activities centered on Christmas. Small theater groups have used the stage for performances. Many of these events happen because a business or individual helps underwrite or sponsor part of the cost. Tickets are available at the Rialto, at Schoonover’s Plumbing and Heating in Canton, and at Hoover’s Hardware and the Clothing Store in Troy.
Between times, community members may rent the Rialto for business meetings and parties, corporate gatherings, family celebrations, and classes. The area destined to become a mini movie museum currently serves as a small meeting room, and it’s also where wineries set up for tastings.
“I don’t know whether we’re the biggest little theater in Pennsylvania or the littlest big theater,” Bridget jokes. Whichever, the board feels passionately about the value of this community gem, and they, along with a crew of volunteers, work hard to continue enhancing it.
Find out about current showings, events, and availability at cantonrialto.org, on Facebook, or call (570) 692-0572.
Karey Solomon is the author of a poetry chapbook, Voices Like the Sound of Water, a book on frugal living (now out of print), and more than thirty needlework books. Her work has also appeared in several fiction and nonfiction anthologies.
Robin Davis literally fell into the event decoration rental business about ten years ago after her youngest daughter got married. With all sorts of wedding décor leftovers they no longer needed, Robin approached the woman in charge of the venue and jokingly mentioned she should buy them and rent them out to future customers. The woman retorted that maybe Robin should rent them out herself! After a “why not?” moment, Robin decided to do just that, and Romantique Collection was created.
“With the romance of marriage and my love of antiques I thought that was the perfect name, with just a tweak of the spelling,” explains Robin.
Her original shop in Mifflinburg, where she was living, drew customers from the central Pennsylvania area; the business quickly expanded to a second shop in Newport, near Harrisburg. Both locations are also wedding venues in addition to housing their collection of party supplies. One Barn Farm Collection, a homestead on ninety acres in Mifflinburg,
is the perfect locale for weddings, family gatherings, and corporate events.
Robin’s other venue, The Barn at Riverbend, has become one of Harrisburg’s premier wedding spots, though when Robin and her husband Denny first saw it, the barn had been neglected for a number of years. The windows were broken, hay was still scattered around, and cobwebs were everywhere. “We looked past its dismal condition and envisioned a place for family and friends to come and relax,” Robin says. Two years of renovations brought that tired barn to life as The Brewery at Riverbend. Within a few years it morphed into The Barn at Riverbend, which now provides a beautiful setting for any occasion. “It’s just gorgeous,” Robin adds.
The success of both of her shops is credited to Robin’s background in interior design. Their collections range from elegant and upscale to rustic and romantic, with everything in between. “We have wooden cupcake stands that resemble slices of tree trunks, as well as beautiful ones with beads and
crystals on them. Whatever you’re looking for, chances are we have it,” says Robin.
So how did this mother of eight find her way to Wellsboro and a new business venture here?
“One of my daughters lives here, so I’m familiar with the area. And, my oldest daughter and business partner, Lissa Hoprich, had just moved to town,” explains Robin. “It’s such a great community and we thought it would be an excellent place to open up another shop. There’s nothing like this around.”
After looking for the perfect property to house the décor collections, mother and daughter stumbled upon a Gothic revival home for sale two blocks from Main Street. They purchased the place and hung their Romantique Collection shingle at 28 Central Avenue in March 2022.
Lissa and her husband, Steve, both behavioral analysts in a previous life, moved to Wellsboro the summer of 2021, ready for a change of pace. She joined forces with her
mom at Romantique Collection the same year. With a keen eye for design and trends, Lissa brings a fun new approach to their products. She can be found front and center helping clients achieve the style they want, while Steve is the one behind the scenes, handling the accounting and managing the website and inventory.
Weddings are a big part of what they do, but they also have party supplies for other festive occasions—with everything very accessible.
“Romantique Collection has just about everything you can imagine for your party or gathering right here in town, and if we don’t have it, we know where to get it.” Robin says. “We want to make your special occasion as easy and stress-free as possible.” That’s music to a busy bride’s ears.
“We were excited to be able to provide the decorations for Wellsboro’s prom this past year, which included twelve arbors and countless drapings,” Robin continues. “We hope to do it again this year.” They’ve also worked with the Penn Wells Hotel, the Tyoga Country Club, Red Barn Hollow, all in Wellsboro, and at Creekside in Gaines.
“We’re your one-stop party rental shop for any and all occasions, whether that’s a graduation, retirement, baby shower, anniversary party, or birthday,” Lissa says. “No need to drive long distances for what you need.”
To help make it all happen, Lissa and Robin offer personal shopping sessions, offering clients the luxury of time to browse their extensive collections and supplies, and choose just the right décor to fit their style.
“It’s a one-on-one experience so you get our full attention,” Robin explains. “We’re here to help you curate the perfect setting for your event.”
They’ve got chargers, candlesticks, greenery, and florals to make tables uniquely beautiful. Need chandeliers or lanterns to set the mood? They can light the way. Want fun phrases or sentiments scattered around? They’ve got signage and chalkboards you can personalize. Have drinks that need to stay cold? Romantique Collection has Jack Daniels half whiskey barrels that can handle the job and look good doing it (they also have full Jack Daniels barrels for rent).
Arbors are a hot commodity in the rental biz, and Romantique Collection has a wide variety of styles and designs, from the traditional wooden archway to the ever-growing popularity of the two-door standing arbor. While they’ve been used as the focal point to exchange vows at weddings, Robin points out another use—photographs.
“The arbors are a beautiful backdrop for an amateur photographer who might not have the financial means to purchase one but would love it for their photo sessions,” Robin suggests. “In fact, so many of our pieces would make great props for a photographer.”
Just picture that!
Romantique Collection is open by appointment. For more information or to schedule a time, call (570) 439-3104. You can also find them online at romantiquecollection.com.
Born in the Bronx, Carolyn Straniere grew up in northern New Jersey, and has called Wellsboro home for over twenty-four years, where she enjoys spending time with her grandkids and traveling. Carolyn lives with her four-legged wild child, Jersey, and daydreams of living on the beach in her old age.
“Where there is a church, there is civilization.”
~Dorothy Sayers, The Nine TailorsIn the days when transportation required a horse, just about every rural hamlet had a church or two. While many are now gone, a fair number of country churches still speckle the small towns and small cities of the southern Finger Lakes region. Here’s a sampler—all still standing, and nearly all still active.
Pioneer aviation giant Glenn Curtiss went to Sunday School at Hammondsport Methodist Church when he was a boy. His grandfather had been minister at the time Glenn was born in the parsonage. Solicited to donate for organ repair in memory of his grandfather, the adult Curtiss asked how
much was needed to finish the job, pulled it from his pocket in cash, and handed it over. The church has been altered since this 1951 photo, but the organ still sounds forth on Sunday mornings.
After several meetings and debates, Bath voters desegregated their schools in 1867, and at least by 1899 were hiring black teachers. They gave the former “colored school” (a polite term in those days) on Pine Street to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, which had been founded more than half a century earlier by former slaves. The old school was replaced in the 1890s, but the congregation petered out around World War I. It’s now Bath’s Grange hall.
Pastor Thomas K. Beecher, yes, that Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe,
made Park Church in Elmira a large modern facility that was also a center for many activities, groups, and events from the larger community, thereby setting the standard for busy, community-oriented churches, and even pioneering the modern “mega-church.”
Grieving parents created a chapel on the Bluff (overlooking Keuka Lake) as a memorial for their son Charles Garrett, who died young of tuberculosis. Garrett Chapel’s stonework, forested setting, and remarkable location make for memorable summer services, conducted by the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester.
Margaret Higgins was baptized at the new St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church on Corning’s southside when she was
born in 1879—and that was the high point of their relationship. Her militantly atheist father was constantly at odds with the church. And as Margaret Sanger, she herself spent half a century campaigning for the right to birth control, along with freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and rights for women.
Students, families, and community members had gathered in 1972 to celebrate eighth-grade graduation at St. Vincent’s Church and School on Corning’s northside, only to be trapped by the flooding, courtesy of Hurricane Agnes. Over a hundred people spent the night on the upper levels, some even taking to the roof, from which the pastor called to neighbors and parishioners passing by in boats. The church, now inactive, was recently merged with St. Mary’s. New uses for the building are now pending approval.
The jewelbox Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, with its chalet-style roof and dramatic shingled front, is an unusual and delightful cobblestone edifice in Savona, created before World War I.
Open the doors and see all the history: The Hammondsport Methodist Church (top); St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Dansville (center); and Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Savona (bottom).
The 1845 Town Line Church in Rathbone has given up its steeple in the years since its construction. But it still has the unusual two separated doors, a New England practice that goes back to colonial days. Some Puritans figured that since Catholic churches had large central aisles, their own churches should have two side aisles. Town Line Church and Cemetery are on the National Register of Historic Places.
IBM founder Thomas J. Watson supported his boyhood church, Coopers Plains Methodist, all his life. The structure was originally some miles away, in an unpopulated stretch up toward Campbell. The tale is told that Coopers Plains residents literally stole the church one winter’s night in the 1860s, first jacking it up and then sledging it down the frozen Cohocton River!
In 1881 Clara Barton gathered a group of like-minded neighbors at what’s now St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Dansville. Together they founded the American Red Cross Chapter Number 1. Red Cross is still very busy meeting needs across the nation and the world. St. Paul’s Church and Chapter Number 1 both still serve the Dansville community.
Where can we find them? First United Methodist Church of Hammondsport, 35 Lake Street; Bath Grange (formerly Bath African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church), 21 Pine Street; The Park Church, 208 West Gray Street, Elmira; Garrett Memorial Chapel, 5251 Skyline Drive, Penn Yan; St. Mary’s Church, 155 State Street, Corning; St. Vincent de Paul, 222 Dodge Avenue, Corning; Church of the Good Shepherd, 33 Church Street, Savona; Town Line Church, 8343 County Road 119 (Canisteo River Road), Cameron Mills; Coopers Plains Community Church, 10 Race Street; St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 33 Clara Barton Street, Dansville.
Kirk House is a historian, writer, hiker, and birder from Bath, New York. He’s director of Steuben County Historical Society, and he also collects comic books.
Where the girls are: This class photo from the Sitka Industrial Training School shows students with a teacher who could have been Anna Kelsey, though she is unidentified here. These girls were often sold to men by their mothers for “base purposes,” according to an 1885 report by U.S. General Agent of Education in Alaska, Sheldon Jackson, which is why the boarding home was established to remove them from their mothers’ control.
It’s just curious. How did a woman born in Delmar Township in 1840 end up as a missionary in Alaska for fourteen years? What did she do during the chunks of time for which there is no record (not one we could find) of her whereabouts or activities? Why did her 1927 obituary list no survivors, despite the existence of nieces and nephews? Clues piling up like autumn leaves with no end in sight…
I found Anna R. Kelsey while doing biographical research on Frances H. Willard, an Alaska native who had studied in New Jersey before returning to Alaska as a missionary. I published a book about Harriet Tubman’s early life in Maryland a year or so ago and became interested in learning more about her time in Auburn, New York. That led me to a reported meeting of “three remarkable women”—Tubman, Pundita Ramabai, and an “Indian Girl” who turned out to be Frances H. Willard. Her return to the mission in Sitka, a community on the west side of Baranof Island, in 1885 was in the company of another missionary—Anna Kelsey of Wellsboro. The two took the transcontinental railroad from New York City, then boarded a steamer in San Francisco or Tacoma for the trip along
the inland passage to Sitka.
A daughter of a justice of the peace, “Squire” Daniel Kelsey, and his wife, Rebecca (Merrick), Anna grew up on the Kelsey farm in Delmar Township. She had five siblings. She became an English teacher in Wellsboro, so she must have had some training somewhere, though we don’t know where, and she was actively involved in meetings of county and state teachers’ associations in the 1860s. From 1869 to 1871 she applied her teaching experience to the English program at Mansfield Normal School; one source indicates she was an assistant in mathematics, but Mansfield archives list her only as an assistant in English for two years.
In 1878, she turned up in Erie, where she established a kindergarten at the Erie Academy. She also made an appearance that year at the normal school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in a one-week course given by Emily Coe, an early advocate for the education of young children. Still teaching kindergarten at Erie in 1879, she returned home to speak at the county teachers’ institute, describing how kindergartens actively engage children.
After a decade or more on the move, she
returned to Wellsboro in the 1880s, teaching high school grammar before she left once again, this time with Frances H. Willard, to become a missionary in Alaska, just twentytwo years after the United States purchased that territory from Russia. As the girls’ matron of the Sitka Industrial School, she was described as being “devoted and consecrated, as well as a successful worker in the Master’s vineyard.” She raised funds so “her” children received gifts on Christmas. Her interest and belief in the value of kindergarten was seen in her special attention to the littlest girls, to whom she taught hymns and prayers. In the Alaska of the time, Anna was “everywhere hailed as the Mother of Education.”
She became a founder and member of the executive committee of the Society of Alaskan Natural History and Ethnology in 1887, giving papers on trees, jellyfish, and the “phosphorescence of the sea.” Anna spent eight years in Sitka, five years in Fort Wrangel (also spelled Wrangell), and a final year in Sitka before leaving Alaska in 1899, having “with zeal and courage…devoted her time and strength complete.”
She was on the move again in the states,
briefly sampling retirement at Port Townsend, Washington; moving on to Newton, New Jersey, at the Merriam Home for Women and Presbyterian Ministers; and then returning to Wellsboro, sharing a room with the widow Anna Gleen Creighton on Hastings Street, home to four other boarders.
By 1920, she was living in the Home for the Friendless in Williamsport. The grimly-named institution was one of several in the country for vulnerable women and children, admitting women over sixty-five exclusively by 1902. The adult residents who were willing and able helped care for the resident children, who were served by the Home until 1958. The facility was ultimately moved and rechristened the Williamsport Home.
Anna died June 12, 1927, with pneumonia listed on her death certificate as the cause. She was buried at nearby Wildwood Cemetery. Her grave can be seen on the crest of a hill between two other residents of the home—Adeline M. Wheeler from Covington and Della Johnson from south of Williamsport. According to her obituary, Anna “was a person who adhered strictly to principle, even when it was to her personal disadvantage, and was found on the right side of all questions affecting the good of the community in which she lived.” Likewise, her father, Squire Kelsey, was known for his “unbending spirit,” “marked individuality,” and “his own way of doing things.” Were they kindred spirits or did they butt heads? We don’t know.
It is interesting to speculate how and why a single woman of Anna’s era lived as she did. One clue may be found in the loss of all of her family during her lifetime: She was six when her mother and brother Daniel died, eighteen when her brother Isreal died, twentythree at her father’s passing, thirty at her sister Letitia’s death, forty-four at her brother Benjamin’s, and sixty at her brother Robert’s. When she left on her first mission to Alaska, every member of her immediate family, save brother Robert, had died.
In her years as a matron in Sitka, “[she] nursed the girls most heroically.” In Fort Wrangel, she “spent days and nights” with sevenyear-old Emily “in caring for the little sufferer” until her death. She likewise gave comfort to sixteen-year-old Lila Rice, dying of consumption, by bringing the girls to see her “so that they might sing the old familiar hymns and stay with her.”
Anna seems to have been a principled lady who perhaps had no patience for those who failed to take her seriously. It’s possible the Sitka mission and the Home for the Friendless appealed to her, in part, because both institutions were governed by women. While she seems to have thrived in Alaska, we don’t know about her social/ personal life there or elsewhere—whether she was lonely or just alone. We know she comforted the girls who died in Sitka and Wrangel. We know that as a “kindergartenist” she believed in the value of educating the youngest children.
We hope she found peace in Williamsport—if not teaching songs to the children in the Home for the Friendless, then perhaps viewing the Pennsylvania countryside from Wildwood Cemetery, where her fellow residents, and later she, found a final resting place.
When he isn’t writing about the Chesapeake Bay watershed, Phil Hesser runs and rambles around the Delmarva Peninsula and north central Pennsylvania. He is the author of What a River Says: Exploring the Blackwater River and Refuge and co-author of A Guide to Harriet Tubman’s Eastern Shore: The Old Home Is Not There
Nobody knows the history I’ve seen: This partial stone marks the area of the Wellsboro Cemetery where there are several unmarked graves. It was here that the black servants and citizens of the time were buried. The writer believes this may have been for Betty Murray, daughter of Hetty and Ebenzer Murray, who died in 1901.
Did the granddaughter of an African head man really live in Wellsboro?
Well, yes! An older, dignified lady named Hetty Murray (spelled as Murry in the 1897 edition of History of Tioga County), and her husband, Ebenezer Murray, both former slaves, lived in the early to mid-1800s in a small house on Main Street. The borough had a population of over 500 around that time (that number would exceed 3,000 by the end of the century). Within walking distance were a few hotels and shops—including the Coles House, the United States House, Erastus Fellows’ Fellows House, the Benjamin Van Horn Cabinet Shop, and a wagon shop. The Tioga County Courthouse, a relatively new building in those days, was just down the street.
Hetty Murray was born into slavery in colonial America. Her mother was the daughter of an African head man, thus giving Hetty her link to royalty, from an area of Africa’s west coast on the Gulf of Guinea. The Portuguese mined gold there in the fifteenth
century. It was subsequently a British Crown colony known as Gold Coast, and is today the country of Ghana. Hetty’s mother was a young woman captured and brought to America on a slave ship. Her name is not recorded, and we can only imagine the misery of that forced trans-Atlantic journey. But we do know that she gave birth to Hetty around 1773 in the Delaware area, and that Hetty was born into a culture and place during a time when we were not yet defined as a nation. There were, however, rumblings of revolution in the Delaware of Hetty’s childhood, and in the other American colonies.
Hetty would have worked alongside the other slaves learning domestic and agricultural chores. Somewhere in her early years, she met Ebenezer Murray. Ebenezer’s last name at birth was Parker, but he took on the last name of his owner, James Murray. After serving as slaves to the Murray family, Ebenezer and Hetty began the journey that would eventually bring them to Wellsboro. Their services were purchased by William Wells, who was the brother of Mary
Wells Morris, wife of Benjamin Wistar Morris, one of the men credited with Wellsboro’s founding. William was a lawyer and a United States senator from Delaware. He paid $500 for five years of the Murray’s service to his family.
During those years, William Wells decided to give up his Senate seat to assist in the development of his investments in the Pine Creek Land Company here in northern Pennsylvania. Around 1800, he moved his family, household, and servants to this area so that he could oversee road construction and the sale of land and lumber. Neither the county of Tioga nor the borough of Wellsboro were established when they moved—there was just vast forest, wildlife, and financial opportunities.
Eventually two cabins were constructed for the Wells family and the servants on a 200acre parcel in the area we know now as Heise Run. William and his wife brought six black servants/slaves with them. The group included Hetty and Ebenezer Murray, Elias and Maria
Spencer, and two single men—Marcus Lovett and a man known only as Sanby. The status of these six as either servants, indentured servants, or slaves was not clearly documented. It may have varied among the group.
Hetty served as a domestic and a nurse for the Wells children, in addition to caring for her own—she and Ebenezer eventually had six children, only one of whom, their daughter, Betty, is recorded to have stayed in the area. It is unknown if the other children survived to adulthood or if they moved away. Ebenezer and the other men labored about four years to clear the land and raise the necessary buildings, but William and his wife ultimately decided this was not the life for them and opted to move back to Delaware. Hetty, Ebenezer, and their children could have moved with them, but William offered to give them the farm, animals, and furnishings. And all of the servants were given their freedom at this time. How did Ebenezer and Hetty decide to stay or go? Perhaps it was the opportunity to own their own property and build a life for themselves that convinced them to remain. This was probably around 1806.
However, neighbors reportedly took advantage of them, so they were eventually forced to sell the farm. Another local settler, John Norris, helped the Murrays to move to a small house in the new town of Wellsboro, probably about 1820. The house was between the intersections of Main Street and King and Norris streets. The Murrays lived well into their eighties and nineties, with care from their daughter, Betty. She had become a well-known caterer in Wellsboro, and catered the weddings of two of Mary Wells’ grandchildren.
Hetty was characterized as a modest woman, and the Murrays were esteemed in the community. They once helped two fugitive slave men to escape to freedom in New York State (that account is also in the 1897 edition of History of Tioga County). The Murrays, known as Aunt Hetty and Uncle Eben, are described as “dignified, courteous and highly respected by all.” Ebenezer likely continued working as a laborer (he was bedridden at the end of his life), and Hetty may have continued doing domestic work. She died July 4, 1868. According to Wellsboro, Pennsylvania: The First Two Hundred Years, 1806-2006, by Scott Gitchell, the bell at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church tolled over ninety times, not to mark the anniversary of the founding of the country, but to announce the death of “Aunt Hetty.” The Murrays are buried in the Wellsboro Cemetery, near other well-known settlers but in a section that is mostly unmarked.
Hetty was denied the life of a “princess” she may have been entitled to in her homeland—that due to American slavery. But she and Ebenezer, and other citizens like them, had their own kind of majesty nevertheless. They were among those who cleared the land, dug the wells, and raised the crops and the children. They helped to build this area, and local history counts their strong character, dignity, resilience, and perseverance among their gifts to the community.
Nancy Ebling Laudermilch is a retiree originally from Hershey. She and her husband, Dale, moved to Tioga County several years ago. Exploring history is one way Nancy is getting to know the area, and she’s looking forward to more local discoveries and adventures!
Special thanks to the research, writings, and assistance of Scott Gitchell of Tioga County Historical Society, Joyce Tice, Green Free Library staff member Bryan Robinson, and Wellsboro Cemetery Director Cheryl Furrow.
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bent sapling. He found one that leaned in the direction of the cairn. Then he turned his attention toward the ground, knowing that, if Fred was correct, the cairn would stand near the image of a turtle found nearby. Some might say that the chance of finding a centuries-old turtle outline in the woods would be quite low. But the grouse hunter believed he just might come across it. And he did. In an area of the forest he had traversed many times, he noticed a huge boulder covered in moss. A tree appeared to grow directly from the center of it, something that distracted attention from the boulder’s place on the forest floor. Standing a few yards away, an observer can see how the green moss that covers the top of the boulder highlights its shape—a turtle’s shell. At the ends of the boulder, smaller rock formations clearly resemble a turtle’s webbed feet and head. The effect was astonishing. After years of inquiry, the grouse hunter had answers to his questions about the creator, the origin story, and the purpose of the cairns.
Indigenous activists and groups in Pennsylvania today focus on promoting cultural awareness and preserving the land. In 2007, the Morning Call reported on Lenape efforts to block contractors from destroying sacred grounds. And a decade before, in 1997, Lenape activist Joseph Windwalker led a local group in stopping the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation from constructing a highway on a route through Tioga County that would have endangered plant and animal species and destroyed Native lands. Joseph worked meticulously, raising awareness through conservation meetings, joining forces with environmental action groups, garnering support at powwows, producing petition after petition, securing hundreds of indigenous and non-Native American signatures, writing hundreds of letters, and making countless phone calls. He lives now in New York with his wife, Sandra Windwalker. Both remember the campaign to change PennDOT’s mind very well—the road was built, but along an alternate route.
“That highway would have cut through the wetlands,” says Sandra. “It endangered blue heron and other endangered species.”
Together, the couple worked to conserve natural springs and wildlife. They hosted tribal meetings in their home, taught people what plants and leaves to gather for food and for medicine, and offered workshops on topics like tribal music and instruments. Until the pandemic began, the Windwalkers did what they could to educate young people near their Corning home, which included offering hands-on lessons at a local environmental center on Native American history, language, and craftsmanship making use of traditional components such as feathers, leather, and loom work.
“Very often, there is a ‘they were, they did’ attitude in people’s minds about Native Americans,” Sandra says. “For some people, they are learning that we are still here. We are sharing about our history, the good and the bad. Hopefully they will want to understand what they see and search for more information themselves.”
Inspired and haunted by true stories, IRMA and Keystone Awardwinning writer Carrie Hagen is the author of We Is Got Him: The Kidnapping that Changed America. She lives in Philadelphia.
By Bernadette Chiaramonte
On a quiet winter day in Tioga County, I spotted this fella in my willow bush. Using a telephoto lens, I caught him as he stoically faced into the snow (maybe so his crest of feathers didn’t get messed up), clutching the tree with all his might.
“Cooking is how I express myself. I try to put love in everything.”