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William Penn Weekend

Posted on September 24, 2018 by nphistory

The last weekend of September, local historical organizations will commemorate the 300th anniversary of William Penn’s death with a schedule of activities celebrating his legacy of tolerance.

  • Thursday, September 27: Lecture at Lima Estates, 7:00 PM
  • Friday, September 28: Colonial Music Presentation, 6:00 to 7:30 PM at Newlin Grist Mill
  • Saturday, September 29: Bus & Car Tour of Historic Sites (contact Delaware County Historical Society for details: 610 359-0832).
  • Sunday, September 30: Self-Guided Tours of Historic Sites

Nether Providence Historical Society will have a display of Sharpless family history at Chester Meeting House (520 East 24th Street, Chester) on Sunday afternoon from 1:00 until 3:00 PM.

The John and Jane (Moore) Sharpless (Sharples) family were the first permanent English settlers in what became Nether Providence, in 1682 on a Penn land grant. They are buried at the Chester Meeting House. A son, after finishing the house his father started, “Wolley Stille,” on today’s Harvey Road lived in a house on Providence Great Road from 1700 until 1720, now known as 322 North Providence Road.

Other sites open Sunday afternoon are the Pusey Plantation in Upland, and the Delaware County Historical Society Library and Museum in Chester, and the 1724 Court House next door.

Come visit local history sites this special Penn weekend, especially our Sharpless display at the Chester Meeting House!

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Long before Ellis Island, there was Lazaretto.

Posted on May 17, 2017 by nphistory

Where Route 420 ends at the Delaware River, you’ll find Lazaretto.

Considered both the oldest surviving quarantine hospital and the last surviving example of its type in the United States, it was built by the newly created Board of Health after the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 killed off one tenth of Philadelphia’s population. Thereafter, every vessel headed toward the port of Philadelphia first stopped at Lazaretto.

Later, it was the home of the Philadelphia Athletic Club, then a flight school during World War I and then a seaplane base.

Speaker Barbara Selletti will paint a vivid picture of Lazaretto’s long and fascinating history.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Known as the “Lazaretto Lady,” Barbara Selletti is a local historian, genealogist and Neumann University librarian. She and her husband, Tony, were instrumental in the effort to save and restore the Lazaretto.

The program is free and open to the public: Monday, June 12 at the Helen Kate Furness Library on Providence Road in Wallingford, starting at 7:30.

RSVP

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HSP Surveys Collection

Posted on July 28, 2014 by nphistory

Von Byre DiaryThe Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s “Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories” seeks to ferret out the hidden, but often important, archival collections held by the many small, primarily volunteer-run historical organizations in the five county Philadelphia area.

Project Surveyors recently visited the Leiper House to view the Nether Providence Historical Society’s collection.

They posted an account of what they found on the HSP’s blog, Archival Adventures in Small Repositories.

Today is the anniversary of the beginning of World War I, so they focused their post on the collection of materials we hold related to the Byre family. Von Byre served in WWI and kept a journal of his June 1918 voyage to Europe on a troop ship.

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