Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania (9 page)
Read Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers' Institute
“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”
“People who are wrapped up in themselves make small packages.”
“So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”
“Old boys have their playthings as well as young ones; the difference is only in the price.”
“He that teaches himself, hath a fool for his master.”
“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
Ben Franklin also made witty remarks off the page:
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When Franklin saw a demonstration of hot-air balloons in France, another spectator asked, “What good is it?” Franklin responded, “What good is a newborn baby?”
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At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock urged all present to sign the document, saying, “We must all hang together.” “Yes, we must indeed all hang together,” Franklin added, “Or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
Uncle John wondered . . . what Pennsylvania city is older than New York, but newer than England's (Old) York?
Town:
York
Location:
York County
Founding:
1741
Population (2008):
41,000
Size:
5.3 square miles
County seat:
Yes
Settlers who moved out of Philadelphia started the town and named it after York, England, where many of them were from originally.
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The York Peppermint Pattie, now manufactured by Hershey (
more about that on
page 284
), was invented in York in 1940.
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The Continental Congress met in York from September 1777 to June 1778.
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During the Civil War, Penn Park in downtown York was the site of the York U.S. Army Hospital. Between July 1862, when the hospital opened, and the end of the war in 1865, more than 14,000 Union soldiers were treated there, including 2,500 from Gettysburg alone.
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In 1777, George Washington was having little success in his
military campaigns. So a group of disgruntled soldiers, led by Brigadier General Thomas Conway, met in York's Golden Plough Tavern and cooked up a plot to oust Washington from his position as the head of the Revolutionary army. (They failed.) The tavern still stands today, and is the oldest building in the city.
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In the early 1900s, the York Motor Car Company built an automobile called the Pullman, a luxury car that cost between $1,500 and $3,000. (A Model T, the most popular car at the time, cost about $500.) The York company went bankrupt in 1917, but not before it launched a publicity campaign to show how durable their automobile was: in 1908, an employee drove a Pullman from York to San Francisco, California, and back. It took him a month.
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York is nicknamed “Muscletown” because, in 1932, bodybuilder and fitness advocate Bob Hoffman started the York Barbell Corporation there. He went on to become an Olympic weightlifting coach. York is now home to the USA Weightlifting Hall of Fame.
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York's biggest employer: a Harley-Davidson motorcycle plant. Half of all Harley employees work there.
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“I thought it might be a good move to get into a beauty contest so I tried for Miss Pennsylvania and won. I think that helped me get noticed, at least by the people of Pennsylvania.”
âSharon Stone
From fried pork scraps to Tastykakes, Pennsylvania's delicacies are a source of hometown pride
.
There's a rumor that shoofly pie is actually a French dish whose top looked like a cauliflower (
cheux-fleur
in French), and eventually the term was shortened to “shoo-fly.” But Pennsylvanians don't buy that. They know that Pennsylvania Dutch settlers invented shoofly pie in the early 1900s, when they ran out of fruit one winter and had only flour, molasses, and lard to make a dessert. Those chefs fashioned a sweet, gooey tart that's often topped with a sugary flour crumble.
Despite the French rumor, the sticky treat's name probably comes from the number of flies it attracts as it cools, eliciting cries of “Shoo, fly!” from bakers. Today, shoofly pie comes in two varieties: “wet bottom” (soft filling and a crumb topping) or “dry bottom” (with the crumb topping mixed into the pie).
After the bacon and chops have been cut, what's a frugal farmer to do with the rest of his pig? In the case of German settlers in eastern Pennsylvania, they put the scrapsâhead, heart, liver, tongue, and skinâinto a pot; boiled them; cut off the leftover meat; mixed that with cornmeal, onions, and spices; and created a new dish. Most people eat scrapple at breakfast (with fried eggs), but scrapple sandwiches are also popular. Common condiments: maple syrup, ketchup, apple butter, and mustard.
The hue of these puckered eggs is more pink than red, but the name comes from the red beets used to color and flavor the eggs, and once again, this culinary delight comes from the Pennsylvania Dutch. Sweet, tart red beet eggs show up at nearly every Pennsylvania picnic.
Recipe:
Combine ¼ cup of sugar, ½ cup of vinegar (some people prefer apple cider vinegar), a pound of sliced red beets, and a sliced onion, and boil for 15 minutes. Then pour that mixture over one dozen peeled hard-boiled eggs. Put it all in a sealed container and let it marinate in the refrigerator for three days.
Individually wrapped snack cakes from Philadelphia's Tastykake company have attracted a cultlike following. Devotees live for favorites like Butterscotch Krimpets, Cream-Filled Buttercream Iced Chocolate Cupcakes, and Lemon Pie turnovers. The name comes from cofounder Herbert Morris's wife who, when she tried the bakery's early samples, proclaimed them “tasty.”
For years the treats were on sale only in Pennsylvania. But as the company grew, so did its distribution, and today, Tastykake addicts worldwide can order their favorites on the Internet.
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10 cents: Cost of the first Tastykakes.
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150 feet: Length of the company's oven.
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2,000: Number of cakes an actress dressed as Marie Antoinette tossed from the tower of Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary to celebrate Bastille Day in 2008. She shouted, “Let them eat Tastykake!” as the desserts fell. (The prison
closed in 1970 and is now a tourist attraction.)
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14,080: Number of Tastykake pies that, when laid end-to-end, would stretch for one mile.
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135,000 pounds: Amount of sugar the company's bakers use every day.
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4.8 million: Number of treats that Tastykake bakers make daily.
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In the late 1760s, British immigrants established a series of settlements in the West Branch Susquehanna River valley in what is now Lycoming County. But the British government recognized the land as belonging to the local American Indians, so the Crown didn't govern the areaâwhich meant that the settlers essentially had no government. So in 1773, they created their own. Every year, they elected three “fair-play men” to oversee all legal matters and to make sure everyone was treated fairly. The fair-play men's word was the law, and the system worked well. It didn't last long, though: the tiny enclave remained operational only until 1785. After the Revolutionary War, the settlers' land became part of the newly independent United States, and the state of Pennsylvania dissolved the fair-play system.
While we were researching the Keystone State, we ran across these interesting numbers. (The “odds” are on
page 146
.)
Pennsylvania has 2 . . .
of the United States' most prestigious orchestras: the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
Pennsylvania has 4 . . .
lighthouses on Lake Erie, but only two are officially considered “historic,” meaning they're on the National Park Service's “Inventory of Historic Light Stations.” The oldest of the two is the Erie Land (Old Presque Isle) Light, first lit in 1867.
Pennsylvania has 6 . . .
international airports: Lehigh Valley, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Harrisburg, and Erie.
Pennsylvania has 22 . . .
species of snakes.
Pennsylvania has 40 . . .
miles of shoreline along Lake Erie.
Pennsylvania has 116 . . .
state parks.
Pennsylvania has 130 . . .
four-year colleges and universities that enroll more than 590,000 students.
Pennsylvania has more than 5,100 . . .
miles of railway.
Two decades before the American Revolution, George Washington lost a battle at a makeshift fort in the Pennsylvania woods . . . and accidentally started an international incident
.
In the mid-1700s, the French and British were still embroiled in a dispute over which empire would control the Ohio Valley, a vast tract of land encompassing modern-day Ohio and parts of West Virginia, Indiana, and southwest Pennsylvania. Virginia's lieutenant governor Robert Dinwiddie saw a chance to make money from furs and real estate in the Ohio Valley.
So in 1749, the English government gave Dinwiddie and his business partners 200,000 acres of land near present-day Pittsburgh to settle in the name of Britain and on which to build a fort to protect the territory. This would give Britain control of important trade routes through the heart of the new frontier, and the Virginians would prosper from the new business opportunities. There was only one problem: the French military. The French had already laid claim to the Ohio Valleyâthey'd established trade relations with the American Indians and built several forts.
But in the winter of 1753, Governor Dinwiddie hired a young surveyor named George Washington to act as his ensign. He sent the man to the French fort Le Boeuf (at what is now Waterford, Pennsylvania) to inform the French commander, Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, that the English were ordering the French to leave the Ohio Valley at once. Saint-Pierre politely declined, and when Washington returned to Virginia, he
gave Dinwiddie more bad news: Washington had scouted out a strong French military presence in the valley and learned of plans for reinforcements in the spring. Concerned, Dinwiddie sent Washington back to the Ohio Valley, this time with orders to defend British interests.
On May 24, 1754, Washington and his men were busy building a wagon road from Alexandria, Virginia, through the forest into the Ohio Valley to make it easier for Virginia to send settlers and soldiers into the frontier. They made camp in the Great Meadows, where there was freshwater from streams and enough grass for their animals.