Along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River

There is something enticing about water. People flock to it, whether it's a river, a lake or the ocean. In Central Pennsylvania, the small town of Clearfield lies along the west banks of the Susquehanna River. Flowing 228 miles from Cherry Tree to Sunbury, the West Branch forms the lifeblood linking what is now known as the Lumber Heritage region.

 

It is also the setting for my latest book, "Willie, My Love."  My heroine, Wilhelmina Wydcliffe, and her father own a large logging operation in the area in the 1800s. And the hero? Well, of course, Jonathan Wain is a ship captain who owns the clipper ships in the Chesapeake Bay and who sells the Pennsylvania lumber.

Throughout the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, virgin timber—among it the celebrated great white pine—was harvested to supply to supply lumber for shipbuilding, construction and coal mine props. Much of this lumber was rafted down the West Branch to markets on or near the Chesapeake Bay. Today, the West Branch flows through a northern hardwood forest of oak, cherry, maple and remnants of white pine and hemlock forests of early settlers' times.

The West Branch of the Susquehanna is actually part of the main “North Branch” of Susquehanna River which is the longest river on the East Coast of the United States. At 444 miles long, it drains into the Atlantic Ocean via the Chesapeake Bay and is the 16^th largest river as well. The headwaters start in Cooperstown, New York, and join the “West Branch” near Northumberland in Central Pennsylvania.

Before European conquest, the Susquehannock, an Iroquoian tribe lived along the river and gave the Susquehanna its name. In the 17th century, it was inhabited largely by the Lenape. In the 18th century, William Penn, the founder of the Pennsylvania Colony, negotiated with the Lenape to allow white settlements in the colony between the Delaware River and the Susquehanna.

Local legend claims that the name of the river comes from an Indian phrase meaning "mile wide, foot deep," referring to the Susquehanna's unusual dimensions, but while the word is Algonquian, it simply means "muddy current" or "winding current". Additionally, hanna, is an Algonquin word that means stream or river, and that Susquehanna is up for interpretation as meaning long reach river to long crooked river. It has also been said that the Susquehanna River was also called “Oyster River” by the Lenape because of the numerous oyster beds at the mouth of the river where historians found mounds of oyster shells.

Although there are mysteries surrounding the river and how its name originated, there is one constant. The Susquehanna is the main life-sustaining river of the state of Pennsylvania. Its waters allowed settlements to spring up along its banks and businesses and farms to survive and thrive—and Pennsylvania to become the 9^th most densely populated of our fifty states.

Remembering Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder

Born February 7, 1867

Died February 10, 1957

Long before Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books became part of the Little House on the Prairie television series, the Little House books were a favorite of mine as a child, starting with the Little House in the Big Woods, published by Harper in 1932. It was Wilder’s first book and was based on memories of her early childhood in the big woods near Pepin, Wisconsin, in the early 1870s. It propelled her Little House series consisting of eight more books which recorded pioneer life late in the 19^th century based on her family’s experiences on the American frontier.

I was an avid reader of all the Little House books. I remember taking one of them outside on my swing during the summer and devouring it as quickly as possible. There was something magical about the big woods, the prairie, the unsettled Dakota Territory, the farm, the banks of a Plum Creek and life during a blizzard.

Laura Ingalls was the second child of five children to Charles and Caroline Ingalls. During her childhood, her father moved the family many times, but over the winter of 1879-1880, he filed for a formal homestead in De Smet, South Dakota, which became her parents’ and her older sister’s (Mary) home for the remainder of their lives.

Two months before her 16^th birthday, Laura Ingalls accepted her first teaching position. In order to help her family financially, she taught three terms in one-room school houses between 1883 and 1885, worked for the local dressmaker, and attend high school in De Smet, although she didn’t graduate. Her teaching career and studies ended when Laura married 28-year-old Almanzo Wilder on August 25, 1885. She was eighteen years old.

Wilder House in De Smet, SD

Although there is much controversy over some works, which Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter, Rose, supposedly claimed to collaborate on with her mother, the brilliance and importance of the books far outweigh second guessing what might be truthful or false claims.

Laura Ingalls Wilder is considered a literary legend. School-age children have been enthralled with the series for decades. I was one of them.