Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Washington tried to keep the diseases from turning into an all-out epidemic. He had two hospitals built and made sure doctors were always available. He also petitioned the government for milk and medicines for his soldiers and ordered that his troops be inoculated against smallpox. But the diseases still took a heavy toll. During the encampment, more than 2,500 soldiers died, all without a shot being fired.

  Patience and Obedience Unparalleled

  Despite these miserable conditions, the sick, shivering, starving soldiers remained loyal to the patriot cause. Washington wrote:

  To see the men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie upon, without shoes . . . without a house or hut to cover them until those could be built, and submitting without a murmur, is a proof of patience and obedience which, in my opinion, can scarcely be paralleled.

  Even more amazing was that the men used their time at Valley Forge to become a superior fighting force. One of the new recruits who arrived in camp at the end of February was Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who had been a member of Frederick the Great’s Prussian army. Washington immediately put him in charge of training. Von Steuben drilled and trained the Americans, teaching them new military skills and turning the woodsmen, tradesmen, and farmers of the Continental Army into professional soldiers ready to push their way out of the valley and take on the British again.

  Forging Ahead

  They got some more help in May 1778 when France came to their aid, giving the patriots new allies and supplies. Then on June 19, six months after their arrival, the Continental Army marched out of Valley Forge. They were still outnumbered and undersupplied, but when they marched into New Jersey nine days later, they took on British troops at the battle of Monmouth and drove them from the battlefield. Washington’s men held the area for another three years until the Americans finally beat the British once and for all at Yorktown.

  Today, the encampment where Washington’s army spent that winter is the 3,600-acre Valley Forge National Historical Park. Washington’s original stone headquarters has been restored and furnished, and the log huts that saved the army from freezing have been reconstructed to retell the incredible story of perseverance and survival.

  Did You Know?

  Many people from northwestern Pennsylvania swear they’ve seen a 30-foot-long sea serpent named Bessie living in Lake Erie. The legend began as early as 1817 but seems to have picked up steam since the 1960s. Fishermen often report hearing strange slapping noises on the lake, feeling something bumping against their boats, and even seeing a prehistoric-looking monster with scales. Most scientists insist that Bessie is nothing more than lore and claim that it’s more likely the fishermen are seeing lake sturgeon, a type of fish that can grow to be four feet long and weigh 100 pounds. Sturgeon also have bony plates on their backs and whiskerlike organs called barbels hanging from their lower jaws. Still, many people of the Lake Erie region remain convinced that Bessie is real—the Ohio city of Huron even offers a reward for her safe capture.

  Queen of the Jail

  From our archives: a true story of danger, seduction, betrayal, and a deadly escape.

  The Setting

  Allegheny County Jail, Pittsburgh, 1901

  The Cast

  Katherine Soffel (the warden’s beautiful wife), Ed Biddle (famous outlaw), Jack Biddle (Ed’s younger brother and accomplice), Peter Soffel (prison warden)

  Prologue

  Jack and Ed were known as “the Biddle Boys,” leaders of a gang of small-time outlaws who relied more on brains than brawn to carry out their nefarious crimes. Sometimes they used chloroform to render their victims unconscious; sometimes they used beautiful women as distractions. They carried guns, too . . . just in case.

  On April 12, 1901, the gang was robbing a house next to a small grocery store in Mt. Washington, Pennsylvania. A female accomplice kept the grocer occupied while the boys searched the adjoining house, looking for a pile of cash. The distraction didn’t work, though—the grocer heard a noise and went to investigate. A struggle ensued, shots were fired, and the grocer ended up dead on his living room floor. The Biddle brothers fled the scene and holed up nearby, but the police soon caught up with them. After a shootout in which a police officer was killed, the outlaws were arrested. The trial was quick and the sentence severe: the Biddle Boys were to be hanged for their crimes on February 25, 1902.

  Secret Love Affair

  Prison warden Peter Soffel and his wife Katherine were in the midst of a divorce when the Biddles arrived at the Allegheny County Jail. Katherine spent most of her time visiting the prisoners, offering them spiritual advice and bringing them Bibles. For the inmates, Katherine Soffel was a welcome sight—they called her the “Queen of the Jail.”

  She first went to see the Biddles out of curiosity. Their exploits had made them notorious, and Ed’s charm and good looks soon won her over. She became infatuated and visited him more and more often, at least 25 times over the next few months, sneaking him food and books. The warden knew his wife had taken an interest in the outlaw, but he must not have realized how keen an interest it was, because he didn’t stop her from visiting.

  After a few months, Ed and Jack convinced Katherine that they were innocent and asked her to help them escape so they could live honest lives as coal miners in Canada. She agreed.

  Daring Escape

  Katherine’s room was so close by that Ed could see it from his cell window. The two devised a secret code: Katherine would point to various parts of her body that represented different letters and to spell out messages about the warden’s movements. The two brothers then came up with a plan. They asked Kath erine to smuggle in two saws and a revolver. Again, she agreed.

  On January 29, 1902, the brothers cut through their cell bars, overpowered three guards, and locked them in a cell. As the Biddles hurried from the prison, Katherine came out to meet them . . . which was not a part of the plan. She was supposed to lie low and meet them in Canada a month later. But to their surprise, she’d taken a page out of their book, chloroformed her husband, and then snuck away in the night.

  The warden awoke to a nasty headache and an empty house. When he was told the Biddle Boys had escaped, he knew Katherine was involved and immediately put out an all-points bulletin on the three of them.

  On the Run

  Meanwhile, Ed had agreed to let Katherine come along, much to the dismay of his brother Jack, who thought she’d slow them down. They stole a horse and sleigh from a nearby farm and made it to Cooperstown, 38 miles north of Pittsburgh. They planned to have a quiet breakfast and slip away unnoticed, but news of the breakout had beat them there and the police were on their trail.

  Final Showdown

  On January 31, 1902, just outside the town of Mount Chestnut, the Biddle Boys and Katherine Soffel ran into a posse at the crest of a snowy hill. Ed stopped the sleigh, handed the reins to Katherine, and then he and Jack jumped off, each with a gun in hand. The sheriff told them to surrender, but Ed opened fire. The lawmen responded with a hail of bullets.

  When the shootout was over, Ed was shot twice, Jack 15 times, and Katherine—who had grabbed a gun and joined in the fray—was shot once by Ed after pleading with him to take her life. (She didn’t want to live without him.)

  The three were taken to nearby Butler Hospital. Katherine’s wound was treatable; Ed and Jack were not so lucky. As he lay on his deathbed, Ed told police he’d never loved Katherine, that he just used her to help him escape. Katherine claimed that Ed was just saying that to protect her, and love letters he’d written her while still in prison seemed to back her up. And Jack? He died, along with his brother, on the night of February 1, 1902.

  Postmortem

  The Biddle Boys’ bodies were put on display at the Allegheny County Jail for two hours. More than 4,000 people came to see the famous bandits. Katherine served 20 months in prison and died on August 30, 1909.

  Did You Know?

  During the 1700s, it usually took two week
s for a letter to travel from Philadelphia to New York since all mail was carried by ship because the roads over land were poorly maintained and marked. When Ben jamin Franklin became Philadelphia’s first postmaster in 1737, his first order of business was to improve the postal system. He built roads and set up a 24-hour mail wagon that traveled from Philadelphia to New York during the day and night. Under Franklin’s supervision, the travel time for a piece of mail between major colonial cities was cut in half.

  Quotable Cosby

  Comedian Bill Cosby is one of the most famous people to be raised in Philadelphia. And like fellow Philadelphian Benjamin Franklin, Cosby can be both witty and wise. Here’s some of what he’s had to say.

  “Always end the name of your child with a vowel so that when you yell, the name will carry.”

  “Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.”

  “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

  “When you become senile, you won’t know it.”

  “A word to the wise ain’t necessary. It’s the stupid ones who need the advice.”

  “I want to die before my wife, and the reason is this: If it is true that when you die, your soul goes up to judgment, I don’t want my wife up there ahead of me to tell them things.”

  “Did you ever see the customers in health-food stores? They are pale, skinny people who look half dead. In a steak house, you see robust, ruddy people. They’re dying, of course, but they look terrific.”

  “Gray hair is God’s graffiti.”

  “Every closed eye is not sleeping, and every open eye is not seeing.”

  “Immortality is a long shot, I admit. But somebody has to be first.”

  Pennsylvania’s Grand Canyon

  . . . and some other natural wonders in the Keystone State.

  The Allegheny Petroglyphs

  Five miles south of the town of Franklin in northwest Pennsylvania is the Indian God Rock, a large boulder that sits on the bank of the Allegheny River. The 22-foot-high rock is covered with hundreds of ancient petroglyphs: images of people, hands, animals, arrows, and geometric designs. Archaeologists believe they were carved between the tenth and the seventeenth centuries, probably by ancestors of the region’s Algonquin Indians. But some historians say the petroglyphs resemble ones made by Europeans and may have been carved by European explorers—possibly Vikings.

  Coral Caverns

  This deep cave system in south-central Pennsylvania is the only fossilized coral reef cavern known in the world. Discovered by miners quarrying for lime in 1928, the cave’s defining feature is a towering wall that was once a living coral reef lying on the seabed of an ancient ocean. It’s covered with fossils of tiny sea creatures that lived more than 400 million years ago.

  Triple Divide Summit

  The Triple Divide Summit, located in Potter County on the New York border, isn’t much to look at—it’s just a mountaintop about 2,500 feet high. But it has the distinction of being a major “hydrographic triple divide point” of North America, meaning that the water that falls on it can end up in one of the continent’s major drainage areas. Depending on where it lands, rain falling on Triple Divide Summit can flow north and end up in the St. Lawrence River and then Hudson Bay; east and into the Atlantic Ocean; or south to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and then into the Gulf of Mexico.

  Archbald Pothole

  Archbald Pothole State Park, northeast of Scranton, features one of the world’s largest known potholes—depressions cut into solid rock by swirling water . . . in this case, water from glaciers that melted during the last ice age. The massive Archbald Pothole—it’s about 40 feet deep and 40 feet across—formed between 10,000 and 30,000 years ago.

  Pennsylvania’s “Grand Canyon”

  Located in Tioga State Forest in the north-central part of the state, Pine Creek Gorge is known as the “Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania.” The long, forested gorge runs nearly straight for more than 40 miles, is more than a mile wide, and is more than 1,000 feet deep. Hiking trails line the rim and the gorge floor, and the area is home to a vast array of wildlife, including bald and golden eagles, ospreys, wild turkeys, otters, fishers, porcupines—and lots of black bears.

  Did You Know?

  Condé Nast Traveler magazine ranks Pittsburgh’s International Airport as the eighth-best airport in the world . . . and the best in the United States.

  The Sweet Life of Milton Hershey

  Today, the name Hershey is synonymous with sweet treats. But did you know that the man behind the brand built an entire community in Pennsylvania—and then kept its citizens employed through the Great Depression?

  Hershey, Pennsylvania, is a town built for fun. Not only is it the unofficial “chocolate capital of the world” and the self-proclaimed “sweetest place on Earth,” it’s also home to a chocolate factory, a theme park, a zoo, and a chocolate spa . . . where guests can take a whipped cocoa bath or get a chocolate fondue wrap. And it was all the vision of one man: Milton S. Hershey.

  Milking It

  Hershey founded the Hershey Company in 1894 in his home-town of Derry Church, Pennsylvania. The son of Mennonite farmers, he’d become an apprentice to a candy maker in Lancaster when he was a teenager, and in 1875, at the age of 18, he moved to Philadelphia to open his own candy business. That shop failed after just a few years, so he headed to Colorado, where he took on another apprenticeship, this time with a caramel manufacturer.

  It was during this trip that Hershey perfected a caramel recipe with extra milk, which resulted in a softer, tastier product. Armed with his new caramels, he headed back to Lancaster, where there were plenty of dairy cattle to provide milk for his new candy. Then in 1883, after two other shops failed (one in Chicago and another in New York), he had a hit: his Pennsylvania-based Lancaster Caramel Company became a commercial success, and its caramels were popular all over the United States and Europe.

  The Chocolate King

  Hershey wasn’t done coming up with new kinds of candy, though. At the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, he saw an exhibit of German chocolate makers who added milk to the otherwise crumbly candy to create creamy milk chocolate.

  Intrigued by the process, Hershey had one of the German machines sent to Pennsylvania and decided to devote his career to manufacturing an affordable domestic version of milk chocolate. He created the Hershey Chocolate Company in 1894 and, six years later, gave up on caramel and turned his attentions entirely to chocolate. He sold his Lancaster Caramel Company and used the profits (about $1 million) to buy 40,000 acres in Derry Church. The area provided everything he needed: access to the nearby Susquehanna River for shipping, abundant dairy farms for milk, and a willing workforce. By 1905, Hershey was operating the largest chocolate manufacturing plant in the world, and a year later, the town of Derry Church was renamed to honor him. Hershey, Pennsylvania, was born.

  The Park that Chocolate Built

  The chocolate-making business made Milton Hershey one of the wealthiest men in the country. And he decided to invest some of his money in the workers who had contributed to his success. To make the company’s town as fulfilling a place to live as possible, Hershey created an entire community around his factory, including homes, an accessible public transportation system, and lavish recreational opportunities. In 1907, he built a small neighborhood park for his employees to enjoy on their days off. Initially, the park was landscaped with trees and ponds, but over the years, Hershey added a swimming pool, a bandstand and pavilion (the site of company-sponsored concerts and theater productions), a bowling alley, and a carousel. By the mid-1930s, the park included a fun house, a water flume ride, a roller coaster, and a penny arcade.

  For many years, the park remained just a local attraction. But as more people outside of Hershey started to visit, it seemed logical that the park should incorporate and expand. So in the 1970s, the company park officially became Hershey Park, an amusement complex that today sits on more
than 100 acres and boasts 60 rides—including 10 roller coasters. Next door is Hershey’s Chocolate World, which offers guests chocolate-themed shopping and restaurants.

  Philanthropy Brings Sweet Dreams

  The amusement park wasn’t all that Milton Hershey gave to his workers. The Great Depression hit Pennsylvania hard, and the craftsmen who’d built the town fell on tough times. Hershey, on the other hand, was producing cheap, tasty chocolate, and his business had barely suffered. So he conjured up the Hotel Hershey and hired 800 local laborers to build it. His primary stipulation was that the dining room not have any corners. Hershey had spent a lot of time in fancy hotels where bad tippers were banished to corner tables, and he didn’t want visitors to his hotel to encounter the same fate.

  The workers completed the hotel—circular dining room and all—in little more than a year, and since the grand opening in 1933, it has been in continuous operation. Today, the Hotel Hershey is a member of the Historic Hotels of America.