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PODCAST

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

Brief biographies of permanent residents of Laurel Hill East in Philadelphia and Laurel Hill West in Bala Cywnyd, Pennsylvania. Often educational, always entertaining.

history

All Episodes

13:34

Philadelphia College of Pharmacy: In the Beginning

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2024/01/01

ABC #058 - Part 1 Philadelphia became the pharmaceutical capital of the country primarily because of the College of Pharmacy, which has trained thousands of pharmacists over the past two centuries.

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01:37:31

ABC#058: Laurel Hill & Big Pharma

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2024/01/01

Several multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies got their starts in Philadelphia as neighborhood drug stores. Weightman, Powers, and Rosengarten made their money by selling quinine to the US government. James Smith and Clayton French did not know each and both started as neighborhood druggists; but family and business partners kept their businesses going and their names prominent long after their deaths. The Wyeth Brothers invented a machine that standardized the size of pills and tablets,

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29:51

BONUS: Anna Weightman Penfield and the Fioretta Follies

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/12/27

Anna Weightman Penfield, the only daughter of quinine king William Weightman, became the richest woman in the world when her father died. In 1929 when she was in her 80s, she decided that she wanted to produce a Broadway musical featuring songs by two young friends. She even managed to convince impresario Earl Carroll, the so-called “troubadour of the nude”, to write the book and produce it. He called it “Fioretta”. Carroll used it as a vehicle for his current girlfriend Dorothy Knapp, a chorus

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41:02

BBB#027: An Old Soul Guitarist - Jack Rose

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/12/15

Jack Rose was an old soul guitarist who took John Fahey and other fingerpickers as role models. Born in Virginia in 1971, Rose moved to Philadelphia in 1998, where he became part of the alternative music scene. As he taught himself the primitive styles of Blind Blake, Charlie Patton, and others, he took on the name “Dr. Ragtime”. His album “Raag Manifesto” was named one of the top 50 records of the year by British music magazine “The Wire”. Davendra Banhart included one of his songs in the

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13:36

C Morgan Knight: Death of a Good Samaritan

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/12/05

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #057 - Murder Most Foul, Part 5 C Morgan Knight was a very successful Chestnut Hill businessman who stopped at Wanamaker's for a quick shopping trip before he headed home after work. He tried to stop a robbery and was shot; his murderer got the chair.

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19:35

Archibald McCurdy: Death of a Night Watchman

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/12/04

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #057 - Murder Most Foul, Part 4 Archibald McCurdy was the least gregarious of the McCurdy brothers, he found his niche in the family's store as night watchman. A botched robbery attempt took his life.

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17:01

George Haas: Shot by a Disgruntled Employee

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/12/03

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #057 - Murder Most Foul, Part 3 Almost everyone thought that George Haas was an excellent boss, but one employee felt otherwise and shot him as he left work.

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29:55

Mahlon Hutchinson Heberton, Singleton Mercer, and The...

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/12/02

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #057 - Murder Most Foul, Part 2 Historian and fellow volunteer tour guide Thomas Keels reads from his book Wicked Philadelphia about an honor killing of Mahlon Hutchinson Heberton by Singleton Mercer that author George Lippard turned into a best-selling novel.

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13:50

George K Smith & The Molly Maguires

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/12/02

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #057 - Murder Most Foul, Part 1 George K. Smith was a mine supervisor at a time when secret societies were rampant. His death at the hand of home invaders was blamed on the Molly Maguires, but the details aren't as specific.

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01:59:55

ABC#057: Murder Most Foul, Part 1

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/12/01

There are hundreds of people buried at Laurel Hill East and Laurel Hill West who were the victims of personal violence – accidental, intentional, and self-inflicted. This month’s episode tells you of nine people who were killed by others. Author / historian Tom Keels will read you a chapter from his book “Wicked Philadelphia” that tells the amazing story of Singleton Mercer and Mahlon Hutchinson Heberton. I will tell you of * Mine supervisor George K. Smith who was purportedly killed by the

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50:50

BBB#026: The Surgeon Is a General - I.S. Ravdin

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/11/15

Isidor Schwaner Ravdin was a second-generation American and a fourth-generation physician who combined research with surgery and completely changed the fields of both. During his 40+ years at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Ravdin rose to become Chief of Surgery and Director of Research. During World War II, he ran what Vinegar Joe Stillwell called “the best g**d*** hospital in the Army” during the China Burma India campaign. When President Eisenhower was struck with a bowel

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46:50

The Pew Family & Sun Oil

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/11/03

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #056, Philadelphia and Oil, Part 2 Joseph Newton Pew grew up in a large, impoverished family in upstate Pennsylvania, but he was able to start a petroleum firm. His sons J. Howard Pew and Joseph N. Pew Jr. eventually took over and grew Sun Oil into the international juggernaut it is today. But the Pew family has always been involved in giving back and supporting the community.

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31:33

Pennsylvania and Oil

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/11/02

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #056, Philadelphia and Oil, Part 1 While we tend to think of "oil" and "Texas" as synonymous, it was Pennsylvania where the first big oil strikes were made, and major refineries greeted visitors as they came from the airport. Only recently has the Point Breeze section of the city been reclaimed and is undergoing a total makeover.

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11:52

Powers & Weightman - Making Millions in Quinine

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/11/01

ABC #056 - Part 2 William Weightman, with his partner Thomas Powers made millions by selling quinine to the US government. He spent it wisely.

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01:37:12

ABC#056: Philadelphia and Oil

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/11/01

We don’t normally think of Philadelphia as being an oil town, but the Point Breeze refinery in South Philadelphia, easily visible from the Pratt Bridge on your ride to the airport, dominated the skyline for many decades with its storage tanks and distilling towers. Born in the middle of Pennsylvania’s Titusville oil boom in the northwest corner of the state, J. Newton Pew established Sun Oil in 1890. After its move to Philadelphia, Newton’s sons Howard and Joe Jr. ran the company for decades

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50:40

BBB#025: Free Science for All - William Wagner

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/10/15

William Wagner was a self-taught naturalist and a very rich man who believed in giving free education to anyone who wanted it. He opened his Wagner Free Institute of Science in 1855 and used his own collection as teaching aids – flora and fauna from around the world, fossils, rocks, bones – tens of thousands of items. When Wagner died in 1885, his museum was improved by Joseph Leidy, “the last man who knew everything,” and further expanded. Now a visit to the Wagner in North Philadelphia is a

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16:41

William Schaffer: A Five O'Clock Club Stalwart

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/10/05

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #055, The Supremes, Part 4 William Schaffer wrote the majority opinion in the 1927 case which decided that Sunday baseball was in violation of the state's 1794 "blue laws." He spent 20 years on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

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14:57

James Tyndale Mitchell: An Ideal Judge

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/10/04

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #055, The Supremes, Part 3 James T. Mitchell served as Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court from 1903 to 1910 and was considered an ideal judge. He also amassed a world-class collection of historical engraved portraits.

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24:36

George Sharswood: Blocking Women's Suffrage

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/10/03

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #055, The Supremes, Part 2 George Sharswood served as Dean of the Law School at Penn from 1852 to 1868. He served on the State Supreme Court for many years and as Chief Justice; in 1871 he and a majority ruled against suffragette Carrie Burnham, which denied the vote to women for an additional 48 years.

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32:02

Robert C. Grier & Dred Scott: "I concur"

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2023/10/02

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #055, The Supremes, Part 1 Robert C. Grier spent 24 years on the US Supreme Court at a critical time (1846-1870) in the country's history. Today we cringe at some of his decisions.

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