All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

Rudolph Hennig: There's Always Room for Cello

BBB:LHWS #057-1   Rudolph Hennig...
...was a German born master of the cello who was the Philaldelphia Orchestra's first cello soloist after he had already been painted by Thomas Eakins. A century after his death, his portrait was again in the news. 

Three More Musicians from Laurel Hill West

BBB:LHWS #057    Three More LHW Musicians
Rudolph Hennig was the first cello soloist for the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1901; a few years earlier, Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins had represented him in oils as The Cello Player, which was used as a bargaining chip more than a century later.
Winston Samuels McGinnis was a moderately successful Jamaican ska and rocksteady performer who sang backup in one of reggae's first worldwide hits "Israelites" by Desmond Dekker.
Jeffrey Lee Johnson, or simply JEF was the session guitarist who could apparently sound like anyone but was at his best when he sounded like Jef Johnson. The two usual comparisons are Lonnie Johnson ... and Jimi Hendrix. 

Rev William Smith: Penn's Forgotten Founder

ABC:LHS #087-5   Rev. William Smith...
...was a Scottish-born Anglican who impressed Benjamin Franklin with his ideas about higher education and set up the skeleton and backbone of what became the University of Pennsylvania today, but he made few friends and is little remembered today

Hilery Baker: Philadelphia's First "Officer Down"

ABC:LHS #087-4  Hilery Baker...
...was a German immigrant who became two-term mayor during the time when the city was also the nation's capital. He established the first city police force and was the first "Officer Down" in the city's history.

Alexander Murray: A Forgotten Commodore

ABC:LHS #087-3 Alexander Murray...
... came from a family that was part of the Scottish diaspora to the New World after the Jacobite Rebellion in the early 1700s. Born in Maryland, he was a ship's captain before he was out of his teens and rose to become a Commodore in the Navy. By the time he retired, he was a battle-hardened veteran with years at sea.

Thomas Godfrey: A New Way to See the Horizon

ABC:LHS #087-2 Thomas Godfrey...
...was one of the New World's first native inventors. While working as a glazier, he was intrigued by the reflection and refraction of light through a shard of glass. This led to his invention that made life on the seas easier and safer, and saved thousands of lives in the process. 

Invitation to an Exhumation

ABC:LHS #087-1
The concept of "celebrity corpses" to attract customers to a cemetery was nothing new. People had been digging up other people for years for legal, political, religious, scientific, and other reasons, so why not for commerce? Many transportable cadavers have made interesting journeys to their final resting places. 
 

Mobile Corpses from the 18th Century

ABC:LHS #087
Even in death, some people don’t rest easy. Someone always wants to dig them up and move them. Though Laurel Hill East opened in 1836, several of its 18th-century dead were buried elsewhere first.
First, I trace the many reasons people exhume the dead. And there are plenty.
Thomas Godfrey invented a lifesaving navigational instrument. Buried first on a Germantown farm, he was later pursued by Laurel Hill as one of its earliest celebrity corpses.
Commodore Alexander Murray was as important a sailor as Isaac Hull or Stephen Decatur, but without the headline-grabbing legend.
Mayor Hilary Baker served when Philadelphia was the nation’s capital and crossed paths daily with the signers of the Declaration and Constitution. He died in office.
Rev. William Smith deserves recognition alongside Benjamin Franklin as a cofounder of the University of Pennsylvania, yet Franklin is celebrated while Smith is largely forgotten.
I had a blast making this one. I think you’ll have fun listening.

George Gerbner: The Man Who Counted Fear

BBB:LHWS #056   George Gerbner...
...was a Hungarian refugee and combat survivor who grew up through the start of European Fascism during the 1930s. His discovered that the power lay with those who controlled the narrative and tell the stories. He used violence as an example to spread his message, but a deeper reading shows that his concerns were that American media were starting to resemble the prefascist state he had known in his youth. Needless to say, he was a controversial figure for many years. 

Take Me to the River: A Virtual Tour

River Section starts at the BODE plot 
Join me on an audio guided tour of the River Section of Laurel Hill West, one of the original four segments when the cemetery opened in 1869. You won't miss and of the fancy mausoleums or Tiffany studio stained glass, since they came later.
You will meet the Father of Scientific Management and the Mother of Mother's Day, the man who literally changed two sports and his sister who wrote for The New Yorker, a man who decorated several rooms in City Hall and Masonic Temple, and a woman whose work is primarily at The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the first doctor to take care of Phineas Gage after the tamping bar incident (it wasn't a crowbar), and a bride who wore her dress for the first time in her coffin. Plus ... oh, I don't know, maybe a couple of dozen more. I promise you at least two or three stories you will want to tell others. 

The Drew / Barrymore Clan at Mount Vernon: Laurel Hill's Next-door Neighbors by Thomas Keels

ABC:LHS #086-4   Drews and Barrymores...
...are among the best-known acting families in the United States. Although many of them started in an alternate final resting place, Louisa Lane Drew, owner-manager of the Arch Street Theater found a final resting place at Mount Vernon. Several years later she was joined by the ashes of her grandson John Barrymore, aka "The Great Profile." Thomas Keels tells their story.

BARMOUTH to PENCOYD

With the warm weather here, you can take advantage of Laurel Hill's location as part of the Trails System that connect the Cynwyd Heritage Trail to the Wissahickon trail system. If you have walked or ridden your bike through West Laurel Hill Cemetery from the entrance just off the Cynwyd Trail all the way to the Pencoyd exit on Righter’s Ferry Road, you have probably passed dozens of mausoleums and gravesites that you had questions about.  Now there’s an audio narration to help you quench your curiosity.  It is done by Joe Lex, the same person who researches and narrates Laurel Hill’s twice-monthly podcasts “All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories” and “Biographical Bytes from Bala: West Laurel Hill Stories.”  Find out about William Luden, inventor of the mentholated cough drop; Charles Harrah, who made his fortune in Brazil; Eldridge Reeves Johnson, inventor of the Victrola, and many more.  And at long last, you can discover the mystery of “Cocktails at Six.”  The tour covers only people interred on the right-hand side of the road and takes about 40 minutes.  Look for its companion audio covering the other side from Pencoyd back to Barmouth in a few months. 

PENCOYD to BARMOUTH

With the warm weather here, you can take advantage of Laurel Hill's location as part of the Trails System that connect the Cynwyd Heritage Trail to the Wissahickon trail system. Your walk or ride from the Righters Ferry entrance to the Barmouth entrance at the Cynwyd Heritage Trail is less than a mile, but you pass scores of grave markers and dozens of mausoleums, most with stained glass.  This 47-minute narration gives you mini-biographies of more than 50 people who have resting places you pass along the route.  They are captains of industry, philanthropists, teachers, physicians, artists, and others who helped shaped the history of Philadelphia. 
This narrative is a complement to another recording that guides you from the Barmouth Entrance back to the Righters Ferry entrance, also available wherever you find your podcasts. 

The Potter - Vanuxem Clan

ABC:LHS #086-3 William Potter & Frederick Vanuxem... 
... were brothers-in-law and best friends. Potter served as President of Thomas Jefferson University for many years despite the lack of a college degree. Vanuxem left a legacy for Princeton which is still celebrated. 

Charles & William Kindred: Go West, Young Men

ABC:LHS #086-2   Charles & William Kindred...
...became rich men in railroad land speculation. There is a town named for them in North Dakota. They broke quite a few rules along the way. 

Francis Sully Darley: The Best Organist in the City

ABC:LHS #086-1   Francis Thomas Lilly Sully Darley...
...was the grandson of the famed portrait painter and married the daughter of locomotive manufacturer Matthias Baldwin. He wrote operas, played the organ, conducted choirs, but his art collection was staggering. 

A Few Loose Ends: Cleaning Out Some Old Files

ABC:LHS #086 for May 1, 2026
I was tied up with preparing some new tours and could not finish the podcast on the Bible Riots of 1844. I scrounged around and found a few scripts I had written and never used. And then I remembered a segment that Thomas Keels recorded for me for an abandoned project. 
Francis Lilly Sully Darley was the grandson of a great portrait painter who married the daughter of Matthias Baldwin and became the most sought-after organist and choir director in the city.
The Kindred Brothers went west to Minnesota and North Dakota and became fabulously wealthy with their shady railroad real estate deals. One served as mayor of Fargo. 
William Potter and Louis Clark Vanuxem were best friends and brothers in law. Through years of dedication, Potter's name is inextricably tied with Thomas Jefferson University, while Louis's name is preserved at Princeton.
Fellow guide and amateur historian Thomas Keels tells the story of how the Great Profile Shakespearean actor John Barrymore ended up without a marker in a nearly abandoned cemetery decades after his demise. 
 

Samuel Perkins and the City Hall Cats

ABC:LHS #085-5   Samuel Perkins...
...was the driving force behind getting the job done at City Hall. He established a close relationship with architect John McArthur, Jr., and sculptor Alexander Milne Calder, who honored him with a series of playful marble cats tucked away in the south entrance vestibule. 

John Christian Bullitt: Philadelphia and the Bullitt Bill

ABC-LHS #085-4   John Christian Bullitt...
...was a native Kentuckian who was pro-slavery, but who made his career as a Philadelphia lawyer. His constitutional knowledge and skills led to him rewriting the City's Charter, which immediately became known as The Bullitt Bill. He also helped clear Fitz John Porter of his court martial charges 15 years after the fact. His statue has stood at the northwest corner of City Hall for more than a century. 

John McArthur, Jr.: Nude Defending a Staircase

ABC:LHS #085-3   John McArthur, Jr....
...was a Scottish immigrant who specialized in huge buildings that were meant to last a long time. When his massive Philadelphia City Hall was finished, it was the largest building in the Western Hemisphere. Sculptor Alexander Milne Calder honored him with a representation as SCIENCE in the eastern portico. He is naked ... and buff. 

Matthias Baldwin: Taking Pleasure in Perfection

ABC:LHS #085-2  Matthias Baldwin...
...was always good with his hands. He started as a jeweler and progressed to bookbinding before he built one of the first steam engines in the nation. When the Age of Steam emerged, Baldwin became the foremost manufacturer of reliable locomotives that were also works of art. 

Re-introduction to City Hall Statues, This Time Outside

ABC-LHS #085-1   Statues Outside City Hall...
... are eight. I talked about the 250 statues inside and attached to Philadelphia's City Hall in ABC:LHS #018-1. Outside at ground level are eight named statues, including two Civil War generals, a martyred US president, a civil rights hero, a merchant king, and two others. Industrialist / capitalist / philanthropist Matthias Baldwin and John Christian Bullitt, the lawyer who rewrote the city's charter are at Laurel Hill East. It's their stories and two others you'll here about in this episode.

Four Statues Outside City Hall: Baldwin, Bullitt, McArthur, Perkins

ABC:LHS #085-0   Philadelphia's City Hall...
...doubles as an art gallery and sculpture garden. More than 250 of Alexander Milne Calder's statues grace the massive walls of the building. But at ground level on the plaza outside the building there are seven more statues, two of them equestrian. 
Matthias William Baldwin was a precision jeweler turned locomotive manufacturer who gave away most of his wealth. His factory manufactured 75,000 railroad engines before it closed down.
John McArthur, Jr., was a Scottish architect who specialized in massive buildings. City Hall in its time was the largest building in the Western Hemisphere. 
William Bullitt was a transplanted southern lawyer who believed in both slavery and secession, yet he was chosen to rewrite the city's constitution in the 1870s. 
Samuel Perkins was the Director of the Public Buildings who ruled over the proceedings with an iron fist and was rewarded with a private joke in the south entry portico. 

Sophie Hutchinson Drinker: Smashing the Patriarchy with Music

BBB:LHWS #054   Sophie Hutchinson Drinker...
...came from one Philadelphia blueblood family and married into another. I told of the singing parties she and her husband Harry led in their Merion home for 30 years in ABC:LHS 041-1. When Sophie started a woman's choir, she was frustrated when she looked for music by, for, and about women. She made it her life's work to discover how woman had been shut out from their early roles in religion, medicine, and music. Her 1948 book Music & Women is a feminist classic. The Sophie Drinker Institute of Bremen Germany carries on women's music studies in her name and tradition. 

Clare Wofford: Emerging from the Shadow of Harris

ABC-LHS #084-4   Emmy Lou "Clare" Linford Wofford...
...was present at the creation of the United States Peace Corps, along with her husband Harris Wofford, one of John Kennedy's "Best and Brightest." While Harris served as college president and United States Senator, Clare served in the background at three Philadelphia Universities. 

Florence Cowanova: Teaching Dance and Elegance

ABC:LHS #084-3 Florence Cowanova...
...was born Cowan, but on the suggestion of dancer Anna Pavlova, she adopted the surname Cowanova. Florence was immersed in dance: father specialized in kinesiology, while her mother handled publicity. She ran a popular studio that staged large recitals at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music, featuring hundreds of students. Thousands of Philadelphia girls fondly remember their sessions with Mme. Cowanova, who made them all feel like princesses. 
 

Tillie May Forney: Getting the Scoop from the Woman’s Perspective

ABC:LHS #084-2   Matilda "Tillie May" Forney...
...gained newspaper experience as her publisher father’s secretary and became a writer known for her “Fashionable Luncheon and Tea Toilets” column, which focused on high society fashion and etiquette. She catered to an affluent audience and discussed topics like French fabrics and social customs.

Emily Elizabeth Holman: Philadelphia's Leading Woman Architect

ABC:LHS #084-1   Emily Elizabeth "E.E." Holman...
...started as a desk clerk in an architect's office but quickly showed her talent in design. She blossomed into a sought-after architect who practiced independently and designed homes, theaters, and institutional buildings over a career of about twenty years.

Women's History Month 2026

ABC:LHS #084   Women's History Month 2026
Emily Elizabeth Holman was an accomplished architect who preferred using her initials so as not to disclose her gender.
Matilda “Tillie May” Forney followed in the steps of her newspaper publisher father John Forney. She made newspaper work her career at a time when women were barely tolerated in the newsroom.
Florence Cowanova was the ballet teacher all the little girls loved. Among her famed students: Zelda Fitzgerald, Imogene Coca, and Princess Grace.
While Harris Wofford became one of JFK’s “Best and Brightest,” his wife Clare Wofford became a lynchpin in the successful formation of the Peace Corps.

Walter R. Livingston, Jr.: Building with a Black Esthetic

BBB:LHWS #053   Walter Livingston, Jr. ...
...is considered Philadelphia's top Black Post-War architect; his masterwork is the Zion Baptist Church on North Broad Street. 
A Black architect not buried at Laurel Hil is Julian Abele, whose boss Horace Trumbauer (ABC:LHS 005) employed him as his firm's primary designer.

Mpozi Tolbert: Mpozitivity in Naptown

ABC:LHS #083-4   Mpozi Mshale Tolbert...
...was a West Philadelphia native who became a beloved photojournalist and DJ in Indianapolis. Despite his 6'6" frame and waist-length dreadlocks, he was described by all who knew him as a gentle giant. Two murals of Mpozi exist in Indianapolis’s Broad Ripple and Fountain Square neighborhoods to celebrate his life and work.

Julia Komai: Freedom for Liberia

ABC:LHS #083-3   Julia Komai
...and her husband Reverend John Komai, son of a Krahn chief, fled their homeland of Liberia during the 1989 coup. John became a community leader for Liberian refugees in the U.S. Julia was a political activist who had been jailed in 1979 for her opposition to human rights abuses; she later served as Assistant Director of the African Unity Conference Center.
 

Rev. Leonard Smalls: A Parish of Prisoners

ABC:LHS #083-2   Reverend Leonard Leland Smalls...
...was a Baptist minister who dedicated much of his life to prison ministry and community development. In 1956, he became the first Black minister certified as a prison chaplain in Pennsylvania. His political activism included a 1967 mayoral candidacy focused on consumer fraud issues.

Frances "Mom" Williams: "Get Off Your Rocker and Vote!"

ABC:LHS #083-1   Frances “Mom” Williams...
...was a dedicated neighborhood leader and advocate for seniors and the disabled in Philadelphia. Despite an unsuccessful run for City Council in 1979, her influence extended through her family and her activism, and she left a lasting impact on her city and community.

Black History 2026

ABC:LHS #083-0 Black History 2026
Frances “Mom” Williams was a dedicated Philadelphia community leader and activist who ran for City Council in 1979 with a focus on seniors and neighborhood safety. Her son Hardy and grandson Anthony both became State Senators.
 
Rev. Leonard Leland Smalls became the first Black minister certified as a prison chaplain in Pennsylvania. Smalls associated with Martin Luther King Jr. and local activists, though he described himself as not nonviolent. Released as separate podcast on February 3rd. 
 
Liberian native Julia Komai was a political activist who became an outspoken advocate for human rights and had been imprisoned before escaping to the United States. She died in a car crash, along with a former Vice President of her native land. Separate podcast on February 4th. 
 
Mpozi Mshade Tolbert was deeply admired in two cities: in Philadelphia, he captured iconic images of the hip-hop scene, while in Indianapolis he became a beloved photojournalist and DJ, known for his genial spirit, generosity, and influence on the arts community. Separate podcast on February 5th.
 

Mary S. Costanza: Finding a Glimmer of Light in the Darkness

BBB:LHWS #052   Mary Scarpone Costanza...
...was raised Roman Catholic and claimed she never met a Jew until she went to Temple University. She developed an interest in art that had been produced by victims of the Nazi Holocaust. It turned into her life work.

Samuel Patch Frankenfield: Laying Out the Dead

ABC:LHS #082-5  Samuel Patch Frankenfield...
...apprenticed as a cabinetmaker and then used his skills as a coffin manufacturer to become an undertaker with a thriving practice. Care of the dead had been in the hands of women for centuries before men realized that money could be made in the field. 

Dr. Thomas Hewson Bache: Cofounder of Children's Hospital

ABC:LHS #082-4  Thomas Hewson Bache...
...co-founded CHOP, the first children’s hospital in the United States. But he also served as a Major in the Medical Corps involved in the Gettysburg Campaign when he was taken as a prisoner of war. He also served as curator of the Mütter Museum and oversaw significant acquisitions like the Joseph Hyrtl skull collection.
Script by Russell Dodge, narration by Joe Lex

Daniel Pabst: Philadelphia's Top Cabinet Maker

ABC:LHS #082-1   Daniel Pabst...
...was a prominent 19th-century Philadelphia cabinetmaker known for his exceptional craftsmanship and distinctive designs. His work served affluent and much has been preserved at PMA. His partnership with Frank Furness was a boon to both. 
 

Henry Hagert: Prosecuting Catto's Accused Killer

ABC:LHS #082-2 Henry Hagert... 
...was the Philadelphia lawyer who unsuccessfully prosecuted the accused killer of pioneering African American leader Octavius Valentine Catto, who was assassinated in 1871 during violent election-day riots. The whole story is told here. 

Martha Coston: She Had a Certain Flare (encore episode from 2020)

ABC:LHS #082-1  Martha Coston...
...significantly advanced maritime communication when she developed pyrotechnic signal flares that could be seen day and night. Her invention vastly improved naval operations and safety at sea.

Happy 200th Birthday to Five Laurel Hill Residents

ABC:LHS #082-0   Happy 2026 200th birthday to...
...Martha Coston, who used her husband's notes and reputation to invent airborne signal flares that saved thousands of lives.
...Henry Hagert, assistant District Attorney when he unsuccessfully prosecuted a man for the murder of Civil Rights Activist Octavius V. Catto.
...Daniel Pabst, the finest cabinetmaker in town; people waited years for him to create their household masterpieces, many of which are today in museums. 
...Dr. Thomas Hewson Bache, co-founder of Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania, curator at the Mütter Museum, and battlefield surgeon at Gettysburg.
...Samuel Frankenfield, German immigrant carpenter who discovered there was money to be made as a coffin builder and successfully switched professions from carpenter to mortician.

James "Jimmy" Bland: From Minstrelsy to Mummery

BBB:LHWS #051-4   James "Jimmy" Bland...
...is NOT buried at Laurel Hill, but he serves as a logical link between minstrelsy and mummery. Many people called him the "Black Stephen Foster," and songs he wrote like "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" and "Hand me down My Walking Cane" have become standards. One of his more popular tunes, "Oh Dem Golden Slippers" became the theme song for Philadelphia Mummers. 

Frank Dumont: "Gentlemen Be Seated" - Standardizing Minstrelsy

BBB:LHWS #051-3   Frank Dumont...
...was a seminal figure in minstrel culture. He began as a performer in a troupe that set the enduring standard format for minstrel shows. Dumont introduced popular songs such as “Silver Threads Among the Gold” and “When You and I Were Young, Maggie."

Carncross & Dixey: Two Fathers of Modern Minstrelsy

BBB:LHWS #051-2   E.F. Dixey & John Carncross...
...were the bedrock of Philadelphia minstrelsy for more than 20 years. Many people did not feel a trip to the Quaker City was complete if they didn't make a stop at the 11th Street Burnt Cork Opera House. I also discuss pigmentocracy, historical nonracial uses of blackface, scientific racism, Black Philadelphia society in the mid-19th century, and much more. 

A Brief History of Performance

BBB:LHWS #051-1   Human performance...
...has ancient roots in ritual, storytelling, music, and dance, evolving from prehistoric communal activities to formalized theater. Mumming originated in pre-Christian seasonal rites that involved masked performances which symbolized death and rebirth.
In the 19th century, minstrel shows featured white performers in blackface who caricatured African Americans through music and comedy, and popularized certain instruments and songs but perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Minstrelsy influenced American entertainment forms but reinforced racist myths, using exaggerated dialects, stereotypical characters, and appropriated dances, with complex legacies acknowledged by modern scholarship.

Mummers, Minstrels, and Laurel Hill

BBB:LHWS #051-0   Mummery & Minstrelsy in the City of Brotherly Love
Philadelphia has been the home of Mummers for centuries and you can still see their antics every New Year's Day. For the latter part of the 19th century, Philadelphia was also the place to see a minstrel show.
The Carncross & Dixey company made both of its owners rich men and provided entertainment for thousands of Philadelphians for mere pennies.
Frank Dumont literally wrote the book on how to perform a minstrel show.
James A. Bland is not buried at Laurel Hill, his music is still beloved by millions of people around the world, and one of his songs has been adopted by the Mummers as their theme. 

Benjamin Richards: Merchant, Mayor and Cemetery Cheerleader

ABC:LHS #041-4   Benjamin Wood Richards...
...was mayor during a time with challenges like public health crises, infrastructure needs, and social tensions in Philadelphia. Richards helped found the Girard Trust Company in 1835 and served as its president. He was inspired by Paris’s Père Lachaise Cemetery on a European trip, and the helped found Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Nathan Dunn and His 10,000 Chinese Things

ABC:LHS #081-3   Nathan Dunn...
...sailed as a merchant to China around 1818 and gained respect by avoiding the opium trade, rather engaging in tea, silks, porcelain, and other goods. He returned with a massive artifact collection and opened his wildly successful Chinese Museum in Philadelphia. Late in life, he was accused of illegal homosexual activity and put on trial for the crime of sodomy.

John Jay Smith: A Founder's Non-Cemetery Life

ABC:LHS #081-2   John Jay Smith served diverse roles as librarian, editor, cemetery founder, and member of the Society of Friends. He introduced paper made from straw, and invented something that sounds suspiciously like the Book of the Month club a century before the real thing. 

The First 20 Years of Laurel Hill

ABC:LHS #081-1 In the Beginning...Inspired by the allegory of Old Mortality, Laurel Hill was founded in 1836 by John Jay Smith, Benjamin Richards, Nathan Dunn, and Frederick Brown as response to overcrowded urban graveyards and changing attitudes toward death and memorialization.

Some Laurel Hill Founders: The First 20 Years

ABC:LHS #081-0   The First 20 Years of Laurel Hill Cemetery
Laurel Hill Cemetery was founded opened in 1836 to give the people of Philadelphia a final resting place worthy of the "Athens of America." 
John Jay Smith was a polymath librarian / horticulturalist who had a rather unpleasant experience in seeking the grave of a recently deceased daughter and vowed to change the way people commemorated their dead.
Nathan Dunn was initially a failed merchant who regained his fortunes in the Chinese trade and became the financial backing for the cemetery corporation.
Benjamin Richards was ex-mayor and a business partner of Smith's who on a trip to Europe was inspired by the revolutionary Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris to provide something similar in Philadelphia..
Druggist Frederick Brown was covered in a prior podcast
You will also learn about Sir Walter Scott, varying splinter sects of Christianity like the Swedenborgians, what the Opium Wars were really about, the history and significance of The Library Company of Philadelphia, with a brief look at Chinese male-male love as commemorated in the legend of the Cut Sleeve. 

Lon Jourdet: The Face of Early Quaker Basket Ball

BBB:LHWS #052-1   Lon Jourdet...
...was an All-American footballer who also excelled at basketball. He spent 23 years as coach at Penn and captured more than 200 victories, but he left in 1943 with a bitter taste in his mouth for the University, which has come close to forgetting him. He ended his own life in 1959. 

Basket Ball and Laurel Hill

BBB:LHWS #050   Basket Ball started...
...on the day James Naismith nailed 13 rules to a gymnasium door in Springfield Massachusetts. The game spread quickly, especially among college men (and women). University of Pennsylvania was an early adapter, and four Penn grads made their names in basketball.
Ellwood Rutschman was a decent player but found his niche as the first professional basketball referee. He set the standards for fairness and ethics in the sport.
"Kid" Keinath was the Quakers' second coach after serving as captain. He was followed by his good friend "Artie" Kiefaber, namesake of the MVP award.
Lon Jourdet won more games in the 20th century than any other Penn basketball coach and was an inventor of the zone defense. But the game passed him by, and his firing in 1943 left him an embittered man. 

Hugh Craig, Jr.: The Glue That Held It All Together

ABC:LHS #080-5   Hugh Craig, Jr. ...
...was a successful businessman whose life became the Troop, where he served both as treasurer and as quartermaster. The men loved him, and they still hold a "Hughie's Breakfast" at the conclusion of every deployment. 

Joseph Lapsley Wilson: The Trooper as Horticulturalist

ABC:LHS #080-4   Joseph Lapsley Wilson...
...is better remembered today for his arboretum than his troop membership. It still exists today as the Barnes Arboretum at St. Joseph's University. He introduced several species of Asian trees to the United States. His portrait by Thomas Eakins hangs in the Armory Museum. 

A. Loudon Snowden: The Man Who Did Everything

ABC:LHS #080-3   Archibald Loudon Snowden...
...was a polymath who served as Captain of the Troop, as well as postmaster for the city, supervisor of the Philadelphia mint, ambassador to Spain, along with numerous other roles. His portrait is in the armory dining room, and his descendants entertain millions of people. 

Fairman Rogers: Horseman Extraordinaire

ABC:LHS #080-2   Fairman Rogers...
...lived a life of elegant wealth but made himself useful as an expert in many aspects of science, especially civil engineering. He served briefly as captain of the Troop. He excelled as a coachman, especially when he took his magnificent black and red four-in-hand through Fairmount Park. Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins captured Rogers in a painting that is the first to accurately demonstrate motion in animals. 

1st City Troop: The First 150 Years

ABC:LHS #080-1   The First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry...
...or "First City Troop", was organized in 1774 as the Light Horse of the City of Philadelphia, one of the first patriotic military organizations established in the American Revolution. Although part of the National Guard system, it is a free-standing unit with its own uniforms and armory. It has served in virtually every war and skirmish ever entered by the United States. After a quarter century of service, it still proudly serves the American populace and the people of Philadelphia. 

Happy 250th to the First City Troop

ABC:LHS #080   First City Troop, Philadelphia...
...celebrated its semiquincentennial before the country did.
Part 1: brief history of the Troop's First 150 years
Part 2: Fairman Rogers, the finest coach driver in the land, was painted by Thomas Eakins
Part 3: Archibald Loudon Snowden was a late-19th century polymath, an expert in coin minting, the postal service, fire insurance, and Fairmount Park in addition to his years as a captain of the troop
Part 4: Joseph Lapsley Wilson quietly developed one of the finest arboretums in the country which continued under the care of Dr. Albert C. Barnes
Part 5: Hugh Craig, Jr. was the grease that kept the troop moving and the glue that kept it together for more than 30 years, yet he lay in an unmarked grave at Laurel Hill East for more than a century. 

Hell Hath No Fury

BBB:LHWS #049-4  Oscar Rosier...
...had married the prettiest salesgirl in town, who soon bore him a child. But Oscar had a roving eye which was apparently set on his secretary, another beauty and purported friend of his wife. It did not end well for anyone. 

The Viper and the Vampire

BBB:LHWS #049-3   Captain Clayton Erb...
...decided to marry and produce an heir at age 50 and selected a young divorcee to serve as mistress of his Red Gables estate in Delaware County. When the woman's sister got involved, things went sour in a hurry. The court case revealed the mansion had been a house of horrors. 

John Hobbs: Victim of an Obsession

BBB:LHWS #049-2   John Hobbs...
...knew he was being stalked and told his brother that if he didn't leave town soon, he would be a dead man. He was proven right when the woman he was avoiding caught up with him at the train station. 

Wives Who Kill, Edwardian Edition

BBB:LHWS #049-1   Intimate Partner Violence...
...dates to pre-biblical times and violence against women was sanctioned by laws until only recently. Up to 40% of all homicides involve a domestic partner. Men tend not to report abuse when it happens, although attitudes are changing. The adage that “Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them" is sometimes reversed. Here are three women who killed their intimate partner; their stories are anything but simple and straightforward. 

Mariticide for Beginners

BBB:LHWS #049    Wives Kill for varying reasons
John Hobbs was stalked and shot at a railway station in 1891 by a spurned lover.
CPT Clayton Erb was shot and killed, either by his wife or his sister-in-law, during one of many knockdown drag-out battles that had occurred in the brief marriage at the Red Gables mansion in Delaware County.
In 1922, businessman Oscar Rosier and his secretary Jerry were mortally wounded by Rosier’s wife, who was thought to be the prettiest salesgirl in Philadelphia. Oscar lived long enough to write a will, which completely blocked his soon-to-be widow from his modest estate. 

Raymond Pace Alexander & The Arsenic Murders

ABC:LHS 079-5   The tale of the arsenic widows...
...of Philadelphia will never be told fully. Hundreds of men may have died at their hands. Two of the women who looked the guiltiest were saved from a life in prison by brilliant African American defense attorney Raymond Pace Alexander (BBB:LHWS #005).

Victor "Babe" Andreoli: Kill and Be Killed

ABC:LHS #079-4   Victor "Babe" Andreoli...
...was raised in East Falls in a large, hardworking family, but fell in with bad company. After a botched robbery attempt, he was sentenced to life at Eastern State Penitentiary. His escape in a laundry truck did not end well.

Willie Lanzetta & His Infamous Brethren

ABC-079, part 3
 
Willie was one of six brothers in the crime business. They never bothered to affiliate with the Mafia, but three of the six brothers were picked off during gang wars. Willie was one of the victims. 

"Little Petey" Bisciotti & The Flag Day Massacre

ABC:LHS #079-2   Potito "Little Petey" Bisciotti...
...was on the lower rungs of the mob but wanted to move up in the numbers racket. A rendezvous with fellow gangsters in a deserted tea room led to an untimely death by sawed-off shotgun. 

Evolution of Philadelphia Crime

ABC079-1: How Crime Emerged in the Quaker City
In the early 20th century, ethnic groups clashed over control of gambling operations, protection, the numbers racket, prostitution, and eventually bootlegging. These criminal enterprises weren’t just about making money, but were also about gaining power and influence, sometimes even forging ties with local politicians and the police.

Thugs & Gangsters of Laurel Hill

ABC:LHS #079-0 Thugs and Gangsters  
Some Laurel Hill residents are remembered today for their involvement with organized crime in the 1930s and 1940s. 
Petito "Little Petey" Bisciotti was a wannabe numbers man killed in what has become known as the Flag Day Massacre.
Willie Lanzetti was one of six notorious brothers in constant legal troubles; he met his end in a gangland slaying before his body was cremated and the ashes scattered at Laurel Hill West.
East Falls resident Victor “Babe” Andreoli was a cop-killer and Eastern State Penitentiary escapee who was gunned down at a breakfast café in Chester.
You’ll also hear part of the long sordid tale of the arsenic poisoning for insurance ring that took dozens of lives in the late 1930s. Two women who were tried based on the most circumstantial evidence against them were found “not guilty” when they were represented by Raymond Pace Alexander.
 

John Henry Fow: Foghorn for the Talk, Ducky for the Walk

BBB:LHWS #048   John Henry Fow...
...was a lawyer with two nicknames - "Ducky" for the walk and "Foghorn" for the talk. He was tough and had an uncanny knack for figuring out what was unconstitutional. He debunked the supposed story behind the famous “Washington Crosses the Delaware” painting and then seriously challenged the Betsy Ross flag anecdote.

LTC Edgar Loftus: Facing Down a Nazi Ace

ABC:LHS #078-5   LTC Edgar Loftus...
...was a Wharton grad who rose in the Army Air Corps to Lieutenant Colonel. On VE Day, he was ranking officer in charge when a small squadron of German Aces landed and then augured in their aircraft at his air base to end their war. One of them was Hitler's favorite pilot. Yes, this really happened. 

Jacques Louis Francine: "I Bombed Japan"

ABC:LHS #078-4   Jacques Louis Francine...
...from a well-established Philadelphia family was the ultimate outdoorsman who collected specimens for the Academy of Natural Sciences and established a canoe camp. He rarely mentioned that he was also decorated fighter pilot and bomber pilot with more than 30 missions to his name.

Holger "Hold Your Horses" Hoiriis: Fighting Nazis in the Catskills

ABC:LHS #078-3   Holger Hoiriis...
...bought an airplane in 1924 and took up barnstorming. He was the first pilot to carry a paying customer across the Atlantic and the first pilot to complete night airmail delivery for the US Postal service. After the war a story emerged about the time he was hijacked by Nazi agents in the Catskills. 

Philadelphia Fliers: Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, Hobey Baker, Benjamin Lee II

ABC:LHS #078-2   The First Philadelphia Fliers
Beer heir Grover Cleveland Bergdoll took to flight early; it is his Wright Brothers biplane that suspends from the ceiling of the Franklin Institute. He was also the most notorious American Draft Dodger during the Great War.
You met Hobart Amory Hare "Hobey" Baker in ABC:LHS #019 when fellow guide Paul Sookiasian and I talked about his athletic prowess; now I discuss his life as a pilot, and add new information uncovered only last year by ESPN.
Benjamin Lee II eagerly shipped off to be a flier before he finished his college days at Penn. His plane went down and his body never found. He has a cenotaph at Laurel Hill East. 

Lincoln's Air Force: Defying Gravity in the 19th Century

ABC:LHS #078-1   Thaddeus Lowe, who has relatives at Laurel Hill East, was the man who introduced the balloon to American warfare when he helped guide Union troops from 500 feet above the earth during the Battle of Fair Oaks. Until replaced by spy planes in the 20th century, balloons were one of the best surveillance tools in warfare. 

Look! Up in the Sky! Laurel Hill Pilots (part 1)

ABC:LHS #078-0   Look! Up in the Sky! 
Thaddeus Lowe is not buried at Laurel Hill, but has many connections there. He was an balloon aeronaut during the Civil War, thus father of the United States Air Force. 
Grover Cleveland Bergdoll's family is in a huge mausoleum at Laurel Hill West. An early student of the Wright brothers, he became a poster child for privilege when he dodged the draft during the Great War.
Hobey Baker's athletic gifts made him a natural pilot, but he crashed and died on the day he was scheduled to return stateside. 
Benjamin Lee II eagerly awaited his opportunity for a dogfight, but he was killed during a training accident.
Holger "Hold Your Horses" Hoiriis was a Danish American flyer who made history when he flew across the Atlantic with a paying customer.
Jacques Louis Francine was an All-American boy who used his flying skills to explore wilderness regions of northern Canada. His wartime service was very impressive.
Edgar Loftus was commanding officer at a European Air Base in the final days of the war when Hitler's Iron Eagle made a surprise landing at his base, but then perversely refused to surrender. 
Fold up your tray table, fasten your seatbelt, and get ready as we take off into the world of pilots at Laurel Hill. 

Sara Oberholtzer: Philadelphia Thrift

BBB:LHWS #057   Sara Louisa Oberholtzer...
...was a feminist, an abolitionist, and a temperance advocate who helped establish school bank accounts for millions of American children during the "Thrift" movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her legacy for thrift in Philadelphia is second only to Benjamin Franklin's.
 
 

Antoinette Westphal: Drexel Forever!

ABC:LHS #077-4   Antoinette Westphal...
...was a Dragon through and through. While a student in the late 1950s, she captained both field hockey and lacrosse teams, and wrote the newspaper's gossip column. She and fellow grad Ray Westphal married and started a family as Ray turned an idea into a successful business. After her death, Ray's donation caused creation of the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design.

Joseph Wharton: The Law without Morals Is Useless

ABC:LHS #077-3   Joseph Wharton...
...was a Quaker businessman and philanthropist and the primary founder of Swarthmore College. Fisher Park in northeast Philadelphia was his gift to the city. The Wharton State Forest in New Jersey is the largest mass of land owned by the state. And, of course, the world-famous business school that bears his name has graduated more eventual billionaires than any school in history. 

Henry Biddle: Educating the Freedman

ABC:LHS #077-2   Captain Henry Biddle...
...was wounded in the Battle of Glendale and died a few weeks later after having befriended his treating physician. His wife donated money in his name to found Biddle College in North Carolina, which has since changed its name to Johnson C. Smith University.
His son Spencer Fullerton Baird Biddle was a Navy man who became a cattle rancher and introduced the highland cow to America and was a co-founder of the American Hospital in Paris. 

Charles Macalester: Inventing Glengarry & Torresdale

ABC:LHS #077-1   Charles Macalester...
...established the town of Torresdale, founded Presbyterian Hospital, financially advised eight US presidents, and may have been the richest man in the world. A codicil in his will provided for the beginning of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, one of the top-ranked liberal arts schools in the country. The river mansion Glen Foerd stands as another of his creations.

Some College Namesakes (part 1)

ABC:LHS #077   College Namesakes (part 1)
Charles Macalester made a contribution that helped to turn a small liberal arts school into one of the finest small colleges in the land.
Joseph Wharton made fortunes several times over, but is best remembered for starting what has become one of the top business schools in the country.
Henry Biddle died from wounds received during the Peninsula campaign; his wife donated money to start a college for freedmen in his name in North Carolina. 
Antoinette Passos Westphal was Drexel through and through. She and her husband Ray made numerous contributions to the school. After her death, the university renamed the College of Media and Design in her honor. 

Robert A. Groff, MD: Cutting Brain

BBB:LHWS #046   Psychosurgery...
...dates back to the Neolithic period but became more prominent in the 19th and 20th centuries. For about 30 years in the middle of the 20th century, medical wisdom had declared that destroying organically healthy brain tissue was a legitimate treatment for varying psychiatric disorders. The champion for destroying healthy brain tissue was a Philadelphia born-and trained neurologist Walter Freeman, who performed the procedure several thousand times.
Robert A. Groff, MD, also trained at Penn, as well as under the legendary Harvey Cushing in Boston. Toward the end of his legendary career, he was convinced to perform a lobotomy on a patient who had already failed the procedure once. Groff did it twice, and when the patient and his mother were disappointed by the results they sued. But Dr. Groff died after giving his deposition, but before his case came to trial.

BG Henry Naglee: Civil War Hero, Famed Vintner, Scoundrel

ABC:LHS #076-5   Henry Naglee...
...was a West Point graduate who fought in Mexico, the West, and the Civil War. He took a liking to the West Coast and built the first permanent commercial structure in San Francisco, installed vineyards that produced the finest brandy in the country, and is namesake for the Naglee Park section of San Jose. But he was a scoundrel with women, one of whom repaid him by publishing his love letters and his self-portrait of doing naked pushups on his bathtub. General Naglee is interred in the South segment of Laurel Hill East. 

Louis Bossle: Best Rat Catcher in the Land

ABC:LHS #076-4   Rat Catcher Lou Bossle...
...was proud of his profession - it is even carved onto his Laurel Hill West tombstone. Twice in the 1890s, Philadelphia newspapers sent a reporter to keep him company in rat-infested basements while he was on the job.
I'll tell you about the long relationship between humans and rats, and share some of the methods used by ratcatchers of yore. 
If you're a little squeamish, this one might make you squeam. 

Mabel Tinley, alias Lasca Vega, alias Mrs. John Van Ness Roberts

ABC:LHS #076-3   Mabel Tinley... (by Thomas Keels)
...was a Philadelphia-born con woman with a hypnotizing gaze who worked her way into New York Society with boldness and beauty. Fellow cemetery historian Tom Keels tells her remarkable story and suggests an inscription for her stone - should she ever get one.
Here Lies
MABEL TINLEY
AKA
Mrs. Richard W. Roelofs, Fickle Wife and Inattentive Mother,
Lasca Vega, Vaudeville Vamp,
Louise Vermeule, Serial Shopper,
Mrs. John (Catherine Stuyvesant) Van Ness Roberts, Buddy of Big Apple Bluebloods,
And a host of other aliases, too numerous and transitory to mention.
R.I.P.

MAJ Wakeman Griffin Gribbel: Unsuccessfully Dealing with the Aftermath of War

ABC:LHS #076-2   Post Traumatic Stress Disorder...
...evolved from nostalgia and soldier's heart to shell shock and battle fatigue and the thousand yard stare. 
W. Griffin Gribbel was a wealthy Chestnut Hill businessman and Great War veteran whose wealth, career, and family could not save him from his post-war nightmares. His behavior often got so out of control that he had to be confined in an asylum. After a minor plane accident in 1929, he threatened everyone in his house with his collection of firearms. When a police officer came to the house to help take him away, Gribbel shot and killed the man, but was acquitted at his trial.
 

Morton McMichael Hoyt: 3rd Time's Not a Charm, Either

ABC:LHS #076-1   Morton McMichael Hoyt...
...was named for his great-grandfather the mayor. His sister, Elinor Wylie, was a famed poet and author. Before he had turned 21, he married Jeanine Bankhead, older sister of up-and-coming actress Tallulah. When the marriage failed, they tried again. And then a third time. And he was captured by the Nazis in 1942 and spent the war in a German concentration camp. His ashes were consigned to earth at Laurel Hill West. 

A Handful of Eccentrics

ABC:LHS #076   Five people who really didn’t fit anywhere else.
Morton McMichael Hoyt married the same woman three times and once jumped off a steamship to impress a 17-year-old girl.
Major Wakeman Griffin Gribbel was gassed and wounded during the Great War; during one of several psychotic breaks, he mortally wounded a police officer, but a jury found him “not guilty.”
Fellow guide and cemetery historian Tom Keels tells the rollicking story of Mabel Tinsley, one of the great con artists of the Gilded Age.
Louis Bossle was the city’s best-known ratcatcher; when he died, his nickname “Ratcatcher Lou” was carved on his obelisk.
Tom Keels returns for a segment on one of our Civil War generals Richard Naglee, whose California vineyards made the finest brandy in the land, but whose amorous ventures got him in deep trouble more than once.
These five people come together under one podcast on July 1st, then each individual gets their own podcast on the 2nd through the 6th.

Milton C. Work: America's Bridge Master

BBB:LHWS #045   Milton C. Work...
...was a Philadelphia lawyer who took up cards - specifically whist and bridge. Bridge clubs formed all over town, but people soon realized the man in the know was Milton C. Work, a Philadelphia lawyer. A scoring system that Work popularized for contract bridge remains the one that most players use today.
Learn about the history of playing cards, the development of bid games, and a lot more on this month's episode. 

Clarence Wiener: Laurel Hill's Baron Munchausen

ABC:LHS #075-5   Baron von Munchausen...
...was a German military man who traveled the country spreading his tales of wonder, which always featured himself in the role of a hero. Clarence Wiener came from a wealthy Philadelphia family.  He started to burnish his reputation during his brief stay at Harvard. Eventually, truth and fiction blended together. His widowed mother married an American-born violin teacher who was also a Baron. When Clarence died, he ended with an unmarked grave in the family plot.

Princess Olga Demidoff Stoever: Princess with Attitude

ABC:LHS #075-4   Princess Olga Demidoff...
...was from one royal family and married into another, the house of Trubetskoy. She eventually married Philadelphia archeologist Edward Stoever, but supported herself as both an escort and as madame in a high-end New York brothel. Her name is on the tombstone, but she is located on an island off of Spain. 

Marquis d'Esken de Frenoys & Baron Michael von Suttka

ABC:LHS #075-3   In Paris before the Great War...
...he was known as Roberto Carles Eskens, but acquired the title of “The Marquis D’Eskens de Frenoys.” 
Baron James Ivan Michael von Suttka was born in Canton, Ohio, and claimed to be an Olympic caliber pistol shot.
Both men married rich American women. It is difficult to prove whether their titles were authentic - but I doubt it. 

Countess Santa Eulalia, aka Libbie Shindler Stetson

ABC:LHS #075-2   Elizabeth "Libby" Shindler...
...was an Indiana farm girl / schoolteacher who caught the eye of philanthropist / hatmaker John B. Stetson and became his third wife. When left a widow with several million dollars, she was pursued and captured by a Portuguese nobleman who was not quite what he claimed. 

The United States and Peerage Titles

ABC:LHS #075-1   In the last quarter of the 19th century...
...there was a surge in marriages between European nobility and American heiresses as families exchanged money for titles. These women became known as "dollar princesses," and soon your east coast soiree was not complete without a contessa or marchioness to add to the flavor. 
 
 

Laurel Hill Nobility (part 1)

ABC:LHS #075   In the late 19th and early 20th century... 
...more than 450 American heiresses traded their fortunes for a European title; they were called "dollar princesses."Elizabeth Shindler Stetson was the hatmaker's third wife who married into a Portuguese title.
Roberto Carles Eskens claimed Belgian nobility as Marquis d'Eskens de Frenoys; or was he a German valet with a good story and a vivid imagination?
James Ivan Michael von Suttka has "Baron" on his headstone and "Olympic medalist" in his obituary; neither was true.
Clarence Wiener was a peripatetic military gadfly who claimed innumerable medals and honors for himself; he was especially upset when his wealthy widowed mother married Baron von Graetner. Wiener was in a category of story tellers as enthralling as the Baron von Munchausen.
Princess Olga Demidoff Troubetzskoy Stoever was from a royal Russian family and married into another. She was married to Philadelphia archeologist Stoever and her name is carved on his stone. Fate had other plans for the princess. 
 

Jack Merriam & Dream Garden

BBB:LHWS #044   John W. “Jack” Merriam...
...made his fortune in real estate development – Oxford Valley Mall, Cedarbrook Apartment Complex, and others. Among his acquisitions was the Curtis Publishing Building on Washington Square, with its magnificent Maxfield Parrish / Louis Comfort Tiffany glass mosaic in the lobby. He was namesake for the Merriam Theater on South Broad Street, and he left tens of millions of dollars in support of local art institutions.

2LT Elisha Kent Kane Wetherill: Gassed!

ABC:LHS #074-5   2LT Elisha Kent Kane Wetherill...
...was a PAFA-trained artist who specialized in landscapes and beach scenes. He joined the Army in 1915 and served during the Battles of Ypres and the Somme. While he survived a gas attack, his lungs were apparently damaged, which led to his premature death in 1929.