The Scribbler

One of the Scribbler’s collateral ancestors, Daniel Gibbons, published “God in Us,’’ a brief book about “Quakerism,’’ in 1928. Gibbons worked as a journalist in New York and Philadelphia. In his youth, he attended Lampeter Quaker Meeting in Bird-in-Hand.

Three hundred years ago, Lancaster County did not exist. Lancaster was part of Chester County. An increasing number of people who lived here did not like having to travel to Chester to conduct government business. So Lancaster County was carved out of Chester County in 1729.

It is unlikely that anyone watching Monday’s presidential inaugural will spend much time thinking about the changing of the guard back in 1861.

Dear Dr. ScribblerRR:

Roberta Strickler wandered by the bronze lion fountain in Reservoir Park and wondered why six Lancaster County men’s signatures are engraved on small bronze plaques around the curved foundation.

On Dec. 14, 1763, the Paxton Boys massacred six Conestoga Indians in their village in Manor Township. Thirteen days later, they returned to murder another 14 Conestogas held by Lancaster County’s government for their “safekeeping’’ in the workhouse at Lancaster.

Susanna Wright, of Wright’s Ferry on the Susquehanna, was one of the most accomplished and versatile Pennsylvanians of the 18th century. She deserves more recognition.

The Scribbler once sported a bumper sticker that read, “I brake for historical markers.’’ The automobile that carried that sticker is long gone, but the Scribbler still stops to read what Pennsylvania’s blue and gold historical markers say about significant people and places.

Reading “The Don: 36 Rules of the Bosses” is a disconcerting experience, almost as if you are entering into the deepest, darkest thoughts of a Mafia boss’s mind.

A prime objective of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, according to its founder and superintendent, Capt. Richard Henry Pratt, was to “kill the Indian ... save the man” by educating and acculturating Indigenous children of various tribes.

Old news can be illuminating!

In 1825, John Quincy Adams was inaugurated as sixth president of the United States. The Erie Canal opened a crucial transportation route from the Hudson River to Lake Erie. And Baer’s Agricultural Almanac printed its first issue.