Mary Jane Tryon’s Intriguing Quilt

Mary Jane Tryon

Somewhere in the 1840's, Mary Jane Tryon made a quilt. As she sat piecing together the small, intricate blocks, she could never have imagined the impact her quilt would have 168 years later.

Mary Jane Tryon married late in life, she was 27. She married Warner Waid, had two little girls and was dead by 36. She rests peacefully in the Waid family plot in the little cemetery in Tryonville. Her husband lived another nine years, leaving their two daughters, Christina and Alice, to be raised by maiden aunts. While this is an interesting bit of family history, our tale doesn't start here. It does not begin until 2008.

Meadville is a quaint town nestled among the rolling hills of Pennsylvania. Like most of Pennsylvania, it has long historical roots that date back to early settlements in the 1700's. The Crawford County Historical Society takes an active role in the community, part of which is preserving and protecting one of its most valuable assets, the Baldwin Reynolds House Museum. This three-story, 23 room mansion was built in 1843 by US Supreme Court Justice, Henry Baldwin. Our story starts in a closet within this stately home.

Origins of the Crawford County Fair

Ohio race horses helped bring about the county fair

With the excitement of the Crawford County Fair upon us, it’s worth taking a belated look at the origins of the what arguably is the county’s largest and most popular annual event. The fair of as we know it today is nearing 75 years of continuous operation, but in actuality, the county fair—or fairs as it turns out—traces back much farther than this, and not without a little drama along the way either.

The Curious of Life of Phil Miller and his Friend Mark Twain

1865 map showing the site off Miller's home

Of the names associated with the history of Conneaut Lake, none carries the intrigue of Phil Miller. Philip W. Miller was a boat builder and expert outdoorsman with contradictory love for public oratory and quiet eccentricity. The facts surrounding Miller are as hazy as the morning mist rising above the waters of the lake he would become synonymous with. Even his arrival in the newly incorporated town of Evansburg in the 1850’s is clouded with vagaries and rumors. Some claimed he showed up with his wife Annie, along with a Negro man, and another woman. Wilder tales have Miller appearing in prison garb, on the run from the law for killing a man.

Whatever the case, Miller, we do know, took up residence along the west side of the lake on Hotchkiss Island, a piece of high ground cut off from the mainland by the dammed up waters feeding the Beaver and Erie Canal system. Once here, he soon ingratiated himself into the community becoming a member of the congregation at the Methodist church which he and Annie attended regularly.

Marion County was the Home of the World's First Oil Boom

Proposed boundaries of Marion County and Titusville as the seat

Everybody knows that the northwest corner of Pennsylvania is made up of Crawford, Erie, Warren and Marion counties: The last named after the Revolutionary War hero, Francis "Swamp Fox" Marion, whose guerrilla tactics in South Carolina made him a thorn in the side of any British commander who opposed him.

Marion County is justifiably called "the home of the world's first oil boom." The money generated by the petroleum industry there led to the development of not only a rich history and solid infrastructure, but one of the grandest courthouses in the state.

Whoa... Wait… Hold on there a second… Marion County? Yep. Absolutely.

The Underground Railroad's Secret Operations in Crawford County

As we reflect on this country's African American heritage, it’s worth noting Crawford County’s role as a branch of the Underground Railroad. In the years leading up to the Civil War, area residents, like much of the state, predominantly held to anti-slavery views, even though the Census of 1810 shows that 32 slaves were registered by owners in the northwestern counties including Crawford. Pennsylvania, however, was among the first states that attempted to legislate the abolition of slavery beginning with the 1780 Act which prohibited residents from importing new slaves into the Commonwealth. This was further reinforced in 1788 by an amendment closing loopholes in the original Act that slave owners had been using to their advantage. 

While Pennsylvania may have chartered an anti-slavery course, at the Federal level the stance was much different. Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 which, in effect, gave teeth to the Constitution’s provision under Article 4, Section 2, protecting the rights of slave owners to recover their property in the form of escaped slaves. When Pennsylvania attempted to extend freedoms to these escaped slaves in 1826, it sparked a legal debate concerning state versus federal authority on the matter.  With Prigg v. Pennsylvania, the issue reached the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Court deemed the escaped slave law unconstitutional as well the previous Acts of 1780 and 1788. The harsher penalties imposed by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 only aggravated Northern states which by then, were already teaming with slave owners, agents, and spies relentlessly hunting down escaped slaves without recourse.