The Crayola Factory in Easton isn’t actually a factory anymore. The original factory also housed a museum, but the building was always crowded with tourists, had a waiting list to visit the museum, and didn’t allow children under six because of safety concerns. So in 1996, Crayola’s management decided to split the two: the actual factory moved to another site in Easton, and the museum re opened bigger and more colorful than it had been before. Some highlights: a pane of two-sided glass that kids can decorate, a station for painting with melted crayon wax, and demonstrations of how the company’s crayons and markers are made.
There are some interesting demonstrations at the Crayola Factory these days. In particular, employees willingly “prove” the museum’s assertion that eating crayons isn’t dangerous. One worker says, “You can eat 3,500 crayons a day, and they are not as toxic as one glass of city drinking water.” (But we don’t recommend that.)
The Joy of Sects: A Pop Quiz
We’re speaking, of course, about religious sects, which have always thrived in Pennsylvania. How to tell them apart? Well, to start with, the Pennsylvania Dutch aren’t Dutch, but German. Once you get your mind around that, the rest is easy. (Answers on page 305.)
1. You see a group of girls in old-fashioned clothes. They’re probably . . .
A. Mennonites
B. Quakers
C. Amish
D. Moravians
2. On the weekend, you notice men moving benches into a home with dark green window shades. You should . . .
A. Call the police to report a bizarre case of burglary, in which thieves are putting furniture into the house.
B. Check the entertainment guide in the local paper to see if a concert is scheduled.
C. Realize it’s basketball season, buy some pretzels and beer, knock on the door, and ask if you can watch the game.
D. Ignore the whole thing, unless you’re Amish.
3. You’re invited to a “Love Feast” at the local Moravian church. You should . . .
A. Bring all your souvenir buttons from Woodstock.
B. Practice your musical scales.
C. Bake a pie.
D. Make sure the iPod is charged up because there’s likely to be a long, boring sermon.
4. Imagine an all-day religious service with sermons lasting several hours. The preachers do not pause, not even when the listeners get up to eat. At the end of it all, people pair off and wash each other’s feet. Who does this?
A. Quakers
B. Amish
C. Catholics
D. Moravians
5. A Mennonite, a Quaker, an Amish, and a Moravian walk into a bar. Which one orders tea?
Did You Know?
Pennsylvania was the first state to . . .
•Manufacture Cracker Jack (1894).
•Cover balls of chewing gum with hard candy to make gumballs (1900).
•Serve a banana split (1904).
•Sell hoagies (1920) and the Klondike ice cream bar (1929).
•Issue vanity license plates (1931).
Meet Me in Coupon
Comical, unpronounceable: How did Pennsylvania come up with these crazy town names?
Bird-in-Hand
In colonial times, towns often sprang up around an area’s tavern and took on the tavern’s name. Bird-in-Hand is named for a tavern that had a swinging sign that included a hand holding a bird and the motto “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” (The sign may have been the innkeeper’s not-so-subtle warning about the accommodations farther down the road.)
Burnt Cabins
In 1750, when squatters were encroaching on Indian lands, their cabins were burned by order of the colonial government.
Coupon
This was a coal town whose center was its general store, which also served as a post office. In 1893, the coal company began using coupons instead of cash to pay workers, but the coupons could be redeemed only at the coal company’s store. This so infuriated the postmaster, who also ran the (noncompany) general store, that he pushed the town to change its name from Delaney to the derogatory Coupon as a slam against the coal company. The town complied in 1893.
Eighty-four
The exact origin of this name is disputed, but there are three theories: the name commemorates either the 1884 election of Grover Cleveland, the fact that the post office opened in 1884, or the town’s position as the #84 mail drop on the rail line.
Forty Fort
Forty settlers came and built a fort, and then named the town after that founding fact.
Glen Campbell
Glen is a Scottish word for “valley”; Cornelius Campbell was the owner of the town’s Glenwood Coal Company in the 1880s. (The name has nothing to do with the country singer, although local lore says he did visit once.)
Intercourse
Intercourse was named in 1814 when the word meant “meeting socially at a crossroads.” The town’s name either derives from its being at the intersection of the Old Kings Highway and the Washington-Erie Road, or from being near the entrance to a racecourse, the Entercourse.
Nanty Glo
In Welsh, this means a “stream of coal,” and indeed, around the turn of the 20th century, coal mining was the area’s major industry.
Panic
This town owes its name to a brand of chewing tobacco, the Panic Plug, which itself was named for the hard economic times that followed the Civil War.
Paoli
General Pasquale Paoli liberated the island of Corsica in the late 18th century, and Pennsylvania colonists seeking independence from Great Britain sympathized with him and his cause. The first thing named in Paoli’s honor was a tavern, reputed to be a meeting place for American revolutionaries. The town followed suit in 1769.
Scalp Level
Around 1794, the settlers here had a brush-clearing “frolic,” at which time they passed around a whiskey jug. With the lumber-jacks operating axes under the influence, one of them yelled, “Scalp ’em level, boys,” meaning cut the tree trunks level to the ground.
Wilkes-Barre
John Wilkes and Isaac Barre were members of the British Parliament who championed the cause of the American Revolution. This town honored them by taking their names in 1769. (Interesting: John Wilkes Booth was named after John Wilkes.)
Did You Know?
Pennsylvania’s nickname the “Keystone State” comes from the fact that during the colonial era, there were six colonies north and six south of Pennsylvania, making it the new country’s central link—like a keystone in an arch.
All Aboard!
By the 1850s, Philadelphia was one of the busiest hubs of the Underground Railroad. And by many accounts, 19 out of 20 slaves who made it to Philadelphia were fed and housed by one man—William Still. His dedication to the cause earned him the nickname “The father of the Underground Railroad.”
A Run for Freedom
William Still knew first-hand the plight of the runaway slave—his own mother, Sidney, had once been a fugitive. In the early 1800s, Sidney and her husband, Levin Steel, were slaves in Maryland. But when Levin bought his freedom and moved to New Jersey, Sidney took their four young children and ran away to join him.
The family hid during the day and spent their nights tramping through woods and swampland until slave catchers caught them and shipped Sidney and the children back to their master. Sidney tried again, but on that second attempt, she managed to take only her two daughters; sons Levin Jr. and Peter stayed behind with their grandmother. Sidney intended to return for the boys when she had enough money to rescue or buy them, but they were sold before she could do it and the family lost track of them.
Sidney and Levin made a good life for themselves in the North, but they were still in hiding—bounty hunters and slave catchers roamed the area looking for fugitive slaves. The couple moved to a farm in southern New Jersey, and to stay undercover, Sidney changed her name to Charity; the family name became Still. Born in 1821, William was the youngest of Charity and Levin’s 18 chi
ldren. But the tragedy of the two lost boys clouded the family’s happiness, and those memories helped make William a dedicated abolitionist.
Philadelphia Freedom
William Still moved to Philadelphia in 1844, when he was 23 years old. He arrived with just three dollars and the clothes he was wearing. At first, he took jobs doing manual labor, but he later taught himself to read and write in order to find better employment. In 1847 he landed a position in the office of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society where, along with janitorial work, his duties included being a mail clerk.
Still moved up quickly. Soon he was helping the society’s Vigilance Committee, which maintained “lines” on the Underground Railroad and housed runaway slaves. By 1851, William Still was the committee’s chairman; his responsibilities included finding safe housing, food, and clothing for hundreds of former slaves who were coming to the city from as far south as Georgia. He was part of a committee that interviewed the runaways, taking down their biographies and records of family left behind.
He also kept a lookout for suspicious “packages” . . . trunks or boxes that might contain living human beings. Some slaves were so determined to escape that they hid in parcels and shipped themselves north.
Still also housed fugitives in his own home, where they would rest and gather their strength before hiking a difficult, dangerous trail over the Appalachian Mountains to New York and then Canada. The runaways couldn’t stay in Philadelphia because the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 permitted bounty hunters to track slaves down—even in free states—and return them to their masters. To find real freedom, they had to cross into Canada.
Despite the law, Still’s operation continually frustrated slave catchers. He was arrested only once, for allegedly kidnapping a woman named Jane Johnson and her two children. The trio had come to Philadelphia with J. H. Wheeler, their wealthy master, and when Still escorted them to a safe house, Wheeler accused him of kidnapping. Johnson ultimately testified at Still’s trial as a surprise witness for the defense, and Still was acquitted of all charges. (Johnson was arrested at the trial, but she managed to escape again.)
Band of Brothers
Over the years, hundreds of people came to William Still for help, but one man who came to see him in 1850 became particularly important. Peter Friedman wasn’t a fugitive; he’d already bought his freedom. But he had traveled 1,500 miles from Alabama to Philadelphia hoping to find some word of his mother. Her name was Sidney, he said, and he hadn’t seen her since he was six years old when she left him to go north to find his father. William later wrote that as he listened to Peter, “My feelings were unutterable. I could see in the face of my newfound brother, the likeness of my mother.”
Levin Sr. had died a few years before, but Sidney was still alive. William took Peter home to introduce him to their mother and siblings. Peter told them his story: After Sidney’s former master sold him and his brother, Peter and Levin Jr. were resold again and again. Levin Jr. died in his early 30s from a beating he’d received. Peter had taken the name “Friedman” from a pair of Jewish brothers who helped him buy his freedom, but he’d had to leave his wife and children in the South. After an attempt to free his family failed, Peter spent years saving money until he finally purchased them in 1854 for $5,000—an incredible sum at the time.
Notes from a Secret World
William Still ran his line of the Underground Railroad until 1861, when the Civil War began. The fighting halted many slaves’ escape attempts, and President Lincoln’s 1863 Eman-cipation Proclamation officially freed them. Thus began the next phase of Still’s life; he bought a coal yard and sold coal to the Union army during the Civil War. After the war, he continued his coal business and used some of its profits to buy real estate.
He also spent time going over records from his days with the Vigilance Committee. Since finding his brother, Still had been especially careful to keep records of his interviews with fugitives, in case their families later came looking for them. But because he’d essentially been running a criminal operation and was often in danger of arrest, he’d kept his records well hidden inside a basement wall.
In the years after the Civil War, though, William Still pulled out those records and compiled them in a book called The Underground Rail Road: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, etc. It was published in 1872 and was an immediate best seller. The 780-page collection included letters, biographies, and interviews with fugitive slaves. Among them were the story of one of President Tyler’s slaves, who left the presidential caravan in Philadelphia, and that of Ellen Craft, a light-skinned woman who escaped with her husband William, who had darker skin. Ellen pretended to be a young white man, and William masqueraded as her butler.
At the time, biographies and interviews were new to most people, and few Americans knew anything about the details of life on the Underground Railroad. Both factors helped make Still’s book enormously popular. He went on to publish three editions and exhibited the volume at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.
A Full Life
Slavery had come to an end, but William Still continued to champion civil rights. He led a successful campaign to integrate local railway cars in the 1860s. He founded the Mission School (a church-sponsored school for African American children) in North Philadelphia, organized the first African American YMCA, and helped manage homes for the aged, destitute, and orphaned. He spent most of the rest of his life in Philadelphia (with a brief foray to New Jersey) and died there in 1902.
Did You Know?
At 1,244 square miles, Lycoming is Pennsylvania’s largest county . . . even bigger than the state of Rhode Island. But Lycoming used to be even larger than it is now. When it was founded in 1795, Lycoming encompassed most of north-central Pennsylvania, and 16 modern-day counties—including Tioga, Forest, and Jefferson—were once part of the original Lycoming county.
The Sixers By the Numbers
One of the NBA’s top teams since their opening tip-off in 1963, the Philadelphia 76ers have won 8 division titles and 2 championships. Find out more about this dynamic franchise from the Quaker City.
1
Ranking of the 1966–67 squad, arguably the best Sixers team of all time. In fact, in a poll conducted as part of the NBA’s 35th anniversary celebration in 1980, the ’66–’67 Sixers were considered the best of their era. That season’s squad included Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer, Chet Walker, and Luke Jackson.
2
Number of backboards shattered by center Darryl Dawkins during the 1979–80 season. Dawkins, who liked to name his dunks. Examples: Go-Rilla, Yo-Mama, and In-Your-Face-Disgrace. He called his first backboard-breaking slam the “Chocolate-Thunder-Flying, Glass-Flying, Robinzine-Crying, Babies-Crying, Glass-Still-Flying, Cats-Crying, Rump-Roasting, Bun-Toasting, Thank You-Wham-Bam-I-Am-Jam.” After the game, Dawkins told reporters, “I didn’t mean to destroy [the backboard]. It was the power, the Chocolate Thunder [his nickname for himself]. I could feel it surging through my body, fighting to get out. I had no control over it.”
4
Players who received the league’s Most Valuable Player Award: Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, Moses Malone, and Allen Iverson.
5
Conference titles the 76ers have won: 1976–77, 1979–80, 1981–82, 1982–83, 2000–01.
7 feet 6 inches
Height of former 76ers center Shawn Bradley.
12
Number of different uniform designs used by the team since 1963.
33.5
Wilt Chamberlain’s scoring average during the 1965–66 season—the highest in franchise history.
34
Jersey number of Charles Barkley. The 6'5" “Round Mound of Rebound” averaged 22.1 points and 11.7 rebounds per game over 16 NBA seasons.
36
Number of consecutive home wins from January 14, 1966, to January 20, 1967, a franchise record.
68
Number of regular-season victories during the 1966–67 season
. Philadelphia went on to capture the NBA crown for that season by defeating San Francisco in the finals, four games to two.
500
Number of fans who submitted suggestions to name Philadelphia’s team after they moved there from Syracuse in 1963. The winning entry was submitted by the late Walt Stahlberg of West Collingswood, New Jersey, in honor of Philadelphia’s revolutionary heritage.
1,122
Games played by Hal Greer, the most of any 76er.
1983
The second (and last) year the 76ers won the NBA championship.
21,600
Seating capacity of the Wachovia Center, Philadelphia’s current home arena.
842,976
Record home attendance during the 76ers’ 2001–02 season.
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania Page 19