All Episodes

ABC:LHS #051-2   George Montgomery Harris...
...died of wounds that he received in the Lava Beds of northern California while battling Captain Jack and the Modoc tribe in 1873. 

ABC:LHWS #051-1   Indigenous peoples...
...had been part of the Philadelphia landscape since the pre-Colonial days.  Their dealings with William Penn and his family left them wondering if they had made the right decisions.

ABC:LHS #051   Killed by Indians
George Montgomery Harris died of wounds received in the Lava Beds of northern California while battling Captain Jack and the Modoc tribe in 1873.
Benjamin Hubert Hodgson was killed during the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn in Montana against Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors. Fellow Laurel Hill tour guide Tom Keels tells his story.
Jonathan Williams Biddle had lost his father Henry Biddle in the Civil War. Jonathan went west and lost his life at the Battle of Bear Paw against Chief Joseph in 1877.
James Hansell French was killed in the San Mateo Mountains of New Mexico territory in 1880 as his Buffalo Soldier troops pursued the great Apache chief Victorio and his warriors.
Note: I acknowledge that many indigenous peoples reject the name "Indian", but most of what I tell you in this podcast occurred at least 140 years ago when the term was used universally and even respectfully.

BBB:LHWS #020   Charles Benjamin Dudley...
...changed the world we live in when he helped establish the American Society for Testing and Materials. Dudley convinced the world that science combined with ingenuity is what all industries needed.  Since its founding, ASTM has established more than 13,000 standards across hundreds of companies in dozens of countries. Fellow volunteer guide Rich Wilhelm tells his story. 

ABC 050:LHS-2   William Welsh Harrison...
...was a moneyed man due to America’s sweet tooth – he made a fortune as a sugar manufacturer.  Part of his wealth went to build the family home, Grey Towers Castle in Glenside.  His former home now serves as administrative offices for Arcadia University, but his presence is still felt on the property.  Apparently, the castle and other campus buildings are haunted. 

ABC:LHS #050-1   George Gordon Meade Easby... 
...was a wealthy and eccentric character named after his great grandfather; he lived in a Chestnut Hill mansion called Baleroy for most of his 87 years.  He didn’t mind sharing the space with phantom apparitions, which included his younger brother, his mother, Thomas Jefferson, and a malevolent spirit named “Amanda”, along with several others.  

ABC:LHS #050   Two Laurel Hill residents...
...owned haunted houses.
George Gordon Meade Easby was a wealthy and eccentric character named after his great grandfather. He lived in a Chestnut Hill mansion called "Baleroy" for most of his 87 years.  He didn’t mind sharing the space with phantom apparitions, including his younger brother, his mother, Thomas Jefferson, and a malevolent spirit named “Amanda” along with several others. 
William Welsh Harrison was a moneyed man due to America’s sweet tooth – he made a fortune as a sugar manufacturer.  Part of his wealth went to build the family home, Grey Towers Castle in Glenside.  His former home now serves as administrative offices for Arcadia University, but his presence is still felt on the property.  Apparently, the castle and other campus buildings are haunted.

BBB:LHWS #019   John Carbutt...
...is the forgotten pioneer of Philadelphia photography.  After he spent the first years of his career as a railroad photographer in Canada and the American West, he settled in Mount Airy. Carbutt was the first person in the country to commercially produce dry photographic plates, the first to produce sheets of celluloid coated with photographic emulsion for making celluloid film, and the first to make commercially available dry plates for x-rays.
 

ABC:LHS #049-3   Joseph Miller Huston...
...was an up-and-coming architect who got the plum job of designing Pennsylvania’s State Capitol; instead of leading him to even bigger jobs, it became his professional downfall.

ABC:LHS #049-2   Samuel "Stars and Stripes" Ashbridge...
...could give a patriotic speech at the drop of a hat and was elected Philadelphia’s mayor in 1899; he left office four years later a rich man. Fellow tour guide and Philadelphia author and historian Thomas Keels tells you his story. 

ABC:LHS #049-1   J. Edward "Gas" Addicks...
...made his fortune in the gas industry, but decided he wanted to be a United States Senator; he spent much of his wealth in a fruitless attempt at achieving his goal.

ABC:LHS #049   White Collar Criminals include...
J. Edward "Gas" Addicks, who made his fortune in the gas industry, but decided he wanted to be a United States Senator; he spent much of his wealth in a fruitless attempt at achieving his goal.
Samuel "Stars and Stripes" Ashbridge who could give a patriotic speech at the drop of a hat and was elected Philadelphia’s mayor in 1899; he left office four years later a rich man. Fellow tour guide and Philadelphia author and historian Tom Keels tells you his story.
Joseph Miller Huston was an up-and-coming architect who got the plum job of designing Pennsylvania’s State Capitol; instead of leading him to even bigger jobs, it became his professional downfall.
Three men interred at Laurel Hill are remembered today for their graft and dishonesty in a city that muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens called "corrupt but content."  Learn about their crimes and punishments. 

BBB:LHWS #018   Hannah, Elizabeth, and Katharine Shipley...
decided to start a school for girls.  Not another finishing school, but a rigorous academic school specifically to train girls in languages and the sciences so they could get into Bryn Mawr and other colleges that were springing up for women in the late 19th century.
 

ABC:LHS #048-3   Elizabeth Head Fetter...
...was older sister to maverick inventor Howard Head;  using the pen name of Hannah Lees, she wrote about topics like masturbation and women’s extra-marital affairs in the prudish 1940s, several years before the Kinsey Report was released.

ABC:LHS #048-2   Sara Yorke Stevenson... (by Pat Rose)
...was a self-trained Egyptologist, a co-founder of the Penn Museum, a leader in women’s rights, and a popular newspaper columnist who gained respect from colleagues around the world.