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 PENNSYLVANIA
, which, but for a small stretch on Lake Erie is the only landlocked
state in the northeast, was explored by the Dutch in the early 1600s,
settled by the Swedes forty years later, and claimed by the British in
1664. Charles II of England, who owed a debt to the Penn family, rid
himself of the potentially troublesome young William Penn , an
enthusiastic advocate of religious freedom, by granting him land in the
colony in 1682. Penn Jr. immediately established a "holy experiment" of
"brotherly" love and tolerance, naming the state for his father and
setting a good example by signing a peaceful cohabitation treaty with
the Native Americans. Most of the early agricultural settlers were
religious refugees: Quakers like Penn himself, Mennonites from Germany
and Switzerland, to be joined later by Irish Catholics during the potato
famines of the nineteenth century..
"The keystone state" was crucial in the development of the US.
Politicians and thinkers like Benjamin Franklin congregated in
Philadelphia - home of both the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution - and were prominent in articulating the ideas behind the
Revolution. Later, the battle in Gettysburg, south Pennsylvania - best
remembered for Abraham Lincoln's immortal Gettysburg Address - marked a
turning point in the Civil War. Pennsylvania was also vital industrially:
Pittsburgh, in the west, was the world's leading steel producer in the
nineteenth century, and nearly all the nation's anthracite coal is still
mined here.
The two great urban centers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh , both lively
and vibrant tourist destinations, are at opposite ends of the state. The
three hundred miles between them, though predominantly agricultural, are
topographically diverse. There are over one hundred state parks, with
green rolling countryside in the east, brooding forests in the west, and
in the northeast, the rivers, lakes and valleys of the Poconos.
Lancaster County , home to traditional Amish farmers, and the Gettysburg
battlefield both heave with busloads of day-trippers, while the Hershey
chocolate factory, minutes away from Harrisburg , the capital, draws
thousands of cocoa-loving visitors each year. |
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The focal point of Pennsylvania's forty-mile slice of Lake Erie
waterfront is the pleasant city of ERIE itself. It bears no resemblance
to the major urban centers
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The small town of GETTYSBURG , thirty miles south of Harrisburg near
the Maryland border, gained tragic notoriety in July 1863 for the
cataclysmic
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HARRISBURG , Pennsylvania's capital, lies on the Susquehanna River
thirty or so miles northwest of Lancaster City. It's a surprisingly
attractive small city
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Five miles south of Fallingwater, tiny OHIOPYLE is the most
convenient base from which to enjoy the wilds of Ohiopyle State Park or
activities like whitewater
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The original capital of the nation, PHILADELPHIA was laid out by
William Penn Jr. in 1682, on a grid system that was to provide the
pattern for most American cities
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The vibrant ten-block district known as the Golden Triangle, at the
heart of downtown PITTSBURGH , stands at the confluence of the
Monongahela
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