All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

54:42

Stephen Duncan: Owning 2200 Human Beings

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/08/04

ABC:LHS 089-3 Stephen Duncan... ...was a Pennsylvanian who became a Natchez planter. Over a 50-year career, he accumulated tens of thousands of acres of land and more than 2200 enslaved human beings. But he firmly believed that slavery worked best under the US legal system and would only be destroyed by secession.

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22:26

Germany, Slavery, and John Bohlen

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/08/03

ABC:LHS 089-2 John Bohlen... ...and his brother Bohl made a world for themselves in the colonies as merchants whose offerings including liquor and people. German-speaking immigrants were common in the colonies, but especially in Pennsylvania.

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202:57

Slavery and Laurel Hill

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/08/01

ABC:LHS #089 ...slavery was an essential part of the colonial economy. The enslaved people of President George Washington have been in the news recently. John and Bohl Despite Philadelphia's northern location...Bohlen were German immigrants who made their fortunes in the New World dealing with "gin and slaves," according to their relatives. Stephen Duncan was simultaneously a Pennsylvania businessman and a Natchez nabob, the owner of more than 2000 enslaved human beings. Robert Stewart Ralston

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32:17

Colonial Philadelphia and Slavery EARLY RELEASE

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/07/22

ABC:LHS 089-1 is scheduled for release as an individual episode on August 2. This EARLY RELEASE is because much of it is relevant to what is currently happening at the President's House on Market Street. More than 1500 enslaved people... ...lived in Philadelphia at the time the colonies declared their independence from England. Enslaved people shared the streets with indentured servants, freed Blacks, immigrants, visitors, and more than 50 signers of the Declaration of Independence. Slavery was

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65:29

Seo Jae-Pil, aka Philip Jaisohn, MD: The Room Where...

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/07/05

BBB:LHWS #058 Seo Jae-pil, aka Philip Jaisohn... ...was the first Korean to become a US citizen, but he never gave up on his lifelong dream to return Korea to its own independence. In 1919, he chaired a Philadelphia meeting that ended with a march through the rain to the room where it happened at Independence Hall and the reading of a new Declaration of Independence.

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27:22

LTG John C Pemberton: The Loss of Vicksburg

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/07/03

ABC:LHS #088-2 GEN John Clifford Pemberton ... ... was a Philadelphian who threw his lot with the Confederacy, despite his graduation from the US Military Academy, where he had briefly roomed with George Gordon Meade. Jefferson Davis put him in charge at Vicksburg, where he was forced to surrender to Ulysses S. Grant after a 47-day siege.

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39:45

MG George Gordon Meade: The Man Who Saved the Union

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/07/02

ABC:LHS #088-1 Major General George Gordon Meade... ...took command of the Army of the Potomac with almost no warning and promptly led it to victory at Gettysburg. But instead of being remembered simply as the general who stopped Robert E. Lee, he spent much of his life defending what he did next. This is the story of Meade’s command, his caution, and his contested legacy.

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79:46

July 4, 1863

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/07/01

ABC:LHS #088 July 4, 1863... ...is the day that the Confederacy knew their days were numbered. At Gettysburg, Philadelphian General George Gordon Meade stopped Pickett's charge and sent Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back south licking their wounds. On the same day, Philadelphian and Confederate General John Clifford Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg to Ulysses S. Grant after a 47-day siege. The two men, who had briefly roomed together at West Point, will always be remembered for that

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27:57

The 1851 Christiana Riots and Laurel Hill

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/06/19

ABC:LHS 089-5 Early Release for JuneteenthResearch and script by Marty Foley; narrated by Joe Lex

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14:05

Jeff Lee Johnson: Never "Just a Session Man"

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/06/18

BBB:LHWS #057-3 Jef Lee Johnson... ...played with everyone from Aretha Franklin to McCoy Tyner, primarily because he sounded like no one - except for the comparisons to Lonnie Johnson and Jimi Hendrix.

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25:42

Winston Samuels: Israelites

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/06/17

BBB:LHWS #057-2 Winston Samuels McGinnis... ...was a Jamaican singer with a moderately successful career until he backed Desmond Dekker on the worldwide hit "Israelites." He became an accountant in New York City while the reggae that he had helped create took over the music world.

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18:42

Rudolph Hennig: There's Always Room for Cello

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/06/16

BBB:LHWS #057-1 Rudolph Hennig... ...was a German born master of the cello who was the Philaldelphia Orchestra's first cello soloist after he had already been painted by Thomas Eakins. A century after his death, his portrait was again in the news.

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67:14

Three More Musicians from Laurel Hill West

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/06/15

BBB:LHWS #057 Three More LHW Musicians Rudolph Hennig was the first cello soloist for the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1901; a few years earlier, Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins had represented him in oils as The Cello Player, which was used as a bargaining chip more than a century later. Winston Samuels McGinnis was a moderately successful Jamaican ska and rocksteady performer who sang backup in one of reggae's first worldwide hits "Israelites" by Desmond Dekker. Jeffrey Lee Johnson, or simply

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27:42

Rev William Smith: Penn's Forgotten Founder

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/06/06

ABC:LHS #087-5 Rev. William Smith......was a Scottish-born Anglican who impressed Benjamin Franklin with his ideas about higher education and set up the skeleton and backbone of what became the University of Pennsylvania today, but he made few friends and is little remembered today

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26:11

Hilery Baker: Philadelphia's First "Officer Down"

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/06/05

ABC:LHS #087-4 Hilery Baker... ...was a German immigrant who became two-term mayor during the time when the city was also the nation's capital. He established the first city police force and was the first "Officer Down" in the city's history.

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21:49

Alexander Murray: A Forgotten Commodore

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/06/04

ABC:LHS #087-3 Alexander Murray... ... came from a family that was part of the Scottish diaspora to the New World after the Jacobite Rebellion in the early 1700s. Born in Maryland, he was a ship's captain before he was out of his teens and rose to become a Commodore in the Navy. By the time he retired, he was a battle-hardened veteran with years at sea.

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24:54

Thomas Godfrey: A New Way to See the Horizon

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/06/03

ABC:LHS #087-2 Thomas Godfrey... ...was one of the New World's first native inventors. While working as a glazier, he was intrigued by the reflection and refraction of light through a shard of glass. This led to his invention that made life on the seas easier and safer, and saved thousands of lives in the process.

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18:52

Invitation to an Exhumation

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/06/02

ABC:LHS #087-1 The concept of "celebrity corpses" to attract customers to a cemetery was nothing new. People had been digging up other people for years for legal, political, religious, scientific, and other reasons, so why not for commerce? Many transportable cadavers have made interesting journeys to their final resting places.

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141:43

Mobile Corpses from the 18th Century

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/06/01

ABC:LHS #087 Even in death, some people don’t rest easy. Someone always wants to dig them up and move them. Though Laurel Hill East opened in 1836, several of its 18th-century dead were buried elsewhere first. First, I trace the many reasons people exhume the dead. And there are plenty. Thomas Godfrey invented a lifesaving navigational instrument. Buried first on a Germantown farm, he was later pursued by Laurel Hill as one of its earliest celebrity corpses. Commodore Alexander Murray was as

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78:00

George Gerbner: The Man Who Counted Fear

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2026/05/29

BBB:LHWS #056 George Gerbner... ...was a Hungarian refugee and combat survivor who grew up through the start of European Fascism during the 1930s. His discovered that the power lay with those who controlled the narrative and tell the stories. He used violence as an example to spread his message, but a deeper reading shows that his concerns were that American media were starting to resemble the prefascist state he had known in his youth. Needless to say, he was a controversial figure for many

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