Pocono Living Magazine Dec 2021/Jan 2022

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

The Pocono Mountains' Magazine

Complimentary

Pocono Living M A G A Z I N E

The Art of Cullen Yates Early Railroads in the Poconos The Travels of the Shawnee Indians

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Pocono Living Magazine© & Pocono Family Magazine© 1929 North 5th Street Stroudsburg, PA 18360 570-424-1000 pmags@ptd.net www.poconomagazines.com PUBLISHER/EDITOR Larry R. Sebring larry@poconomagazines.com ASSISTANT EDITOR Suzanne McCool ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES larry@poconomagazines.com MAGAZINE & WEB DESIGN Smart Blonde Creative Food & Wine Editor Jamie Marra PHOTOGRAPHY & ART John Anzivino Barbara Lewis Gayle C. Brooke Marie Liu Ray Caswell Harry Loud Pat Coyle Regina Matarazzo Randall FitzGerald Janet Mishkin Ashley Hall John L. Moore Maurice Harmon Michael Murphy Susan Hartman Justine Nearhood Marlana Holsten Roseanna Santaniello Ann H. LeFevre Tom Stone CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Kimberly Blaker Jamie Marra Roseanne Bottone Suzanne McCool Kathy Dubin-Uhler Janet Mishkin Brian Hardiman John L. Moore Amanda Kuhn Allison Mowatt Amy Leiser Jim Werkheiser Marie Liu William M. Williams Marty Wilson ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANTS Kristen Sebring Linda Spalluto

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What’s Inside December 2021/January 2022 FE ATURES 6

he Travels of the Shawnee Indians T of the Poconos

18

T he Early Railroads of the Poconos — Who Were the Players?

26

ullen Yates — Impressionist Painter of C Shawnee-On-Delaware

42 Hikes and Outdoor Adventures with Pocono Living — Promised Land State Park 46

P ocono Heritage Land Trust — Preserving Natural Places and Open Spaces in Monroe County

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G reen Winter Living — for the Holidays and the Winter Through

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A Christmas Memory

60

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DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 5

6 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

THE TRAVELS OF THE SHAWNEE INDIANS OF THE POCONOS

By John L. Moore

T

he distance from Shawnee-on-Delaware in eastern Pennsylvania to Wyandotte, Okla., is nearly 1,220 miles. In terms of time, the distance is much greater.

The Shawnee people once had a village at Shawnee-onDelaware. They left more than two centuries ago and headed west. Today, the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma has its headquarters near Wyandotte, Okla., a small village near the Oklahoma-Missouri state line. That’s also where the tribe owns and operates the Indigo Sky Casino, just off Interstate 60.

The Shawnee didn’t leave the Upper Delaware Valley for the express purpose of moving to Oklahoma. The history of these people is much more complicated than that. Their travels took them to Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, and even Texas.

When the French and Indian War began in the mid-1750s, many Shawnees sided with the French. By war’s end, they had moved west of the Appalachian Mountains. They were soon joined by other eastern tribes such as the Delawares, who were originally known as the Lenni Lenape.

The Shawnees sided with the British during the American Revolutionary War. In June 1782, they fought alongside Delaware warriors and a detachment of British Rangers during a battle along the Sandusky River in northwest Ohio. The

battle ended with the defeat of an invading force of nearly 500 Pennsylvania militia soldiers. During the Revolution, the Shawnee also fought vigorously against white settlers who settled in Kentucky.

The Revolution temporarily slowed the westward migration of would-be pioneers in the new United States. When the war ended, white pioneers surged across the mountains and into Indian territory.

“The history of these people is much more complicated than that. Their travels took them to Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, and even Texas.”

This influx pushed the Native Americans farther west. By 1815, an estimated 1,200 Shawnees had settled west of the Mississippi River in eastern Missouri, according to author Carol A. Lipscomb.

“They were joined by a large band of Delawares, and the two tribes became closely associated. In 1822 a band of the Missouri Shawnees, numbering about 270 families, migrated south into

← Tecumseh was a Shawnee leader in the Midwest. Killed in battle during the War of 1812, he sided with the British and opposed the western expansion of the U.S.

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 7

↑ Recreation on and along the Delaware River has become a popular pastime at Shawnee on Delaware, the site of a Shawnee Indian village during the 1700s.

Texas, which was then a part of Mexico,” Lipscomb said in an article posted on “The Handbook of Texas” website.

Mexican authorities gave the Shawnee permission to live along the Red River. “The Shawnees became allies of the Cherokees and other immigrant tribes living in Texas, and all enjoyed a generally peaceful relationship with Mexican officials and a growing number of Anglo-American settlers,” Lipscomb said.

When Mexicans waged war against the Comanche Indians, Shawnee warriors fought alongside them. “In 1832 a party of Shawnees, led by Chief John Linney, defeated a band of Penateka Comanches at Bandera Pass, west of San Antonio,” Lipscomb said.

After Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1835, the new republic pressured Native American residents to leave.

“The government agreed to provide transportation and supplies for the relocation,” Lipscomb reported. “… By early 1840 most of the Texas Shawnees had moved north of the Red River into Indian Territory.”

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In time, Indian Territory became the state of Oklahoma.

Today, there are three federally recognized Shawnee tribes in Oklahoma. They are: the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, with headquarters at Wyandotte; the Shawnee Tribe, with headquarters at Miami; and the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, with headquarters at Shawnee.

“The Shawnees became allies of the Cherokees and other immigrant tribes living in Texas, and all enjoyed a generally peaceful relationship with Mexican officials and a growing number of Anglo-American settlers,” These tribes are separate political entities.

The name Shawnee is a modern form of Shawanos or Shawanese, according to the Rev. John Heckewelder, a

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Moravian missionary who spent many years among the Indians in Ohio and other mid-western regions during the late 1700s.

The Lenape was a related tribe. “Shawaneu, in the Lenape language, means the south,” the missionary said. “We commonly call them the Shawanese.”

Traditions that elderly Indians told Heckewelder about the origins of the Shawnee placed the tribe in Georgia and Florida.

In time some migrated north to Ohio and were eventually invited by the Lenape to move to eastern Pennsylvania.

Heckewelder said that Shawnees who came to Pennsylvania “settled principally at and about the forks of Delaware,” where the Lehigh River joins the Delaware at Easton. As time passed, many Shawnee moved “to Wyoming on the Susquehanna, where they resided for a great number of years.”

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In his 1928 book, “Indian Villages and Place Names in Pennsylvania,” George P. Donehoo reported that "although the

Shawnee from the south came into the province in 1698,” some of the Shawnee from Ohio had settled on the Upper Delaware “before the arrival of those from the south at the mouth of Pequea Creek" on the lower Susquehanna River.

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 9

“An age-old difficulty in writing about the history of Native Americans is that much of the information about them was reported and interpreted by non-Indians who didn’t understand or appreciate their culture and their past.”

↑ Texas blogger Joe Herring Jr. says the dirt road shown in the photo is a wagon trail that leads through Bandera Pass west of San Antonio in Texas. Shawnee warriors fought Comanche Indians here in 1832.

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↑ H istorical marker at Bandera Pass, west of San Antonio (Photo courtesy of Larry D. Moore)

Some of these Shawnee eventually left Pequea Creek and moved upriver, relocating in the Wyoming Valley on the Susquehanna’s North Branch.

Donehoo identified one of the Shawnee chiefs who moved to the Delaware as Ohio-born Paxinosa. "He was probably among the Shawnee who came from the Ohio at an early date to trade on the Upper Delaware and finally settled in the Minisink country," Donehoo said.

Paxinosa was living in the Wyoming Valley when the French and Indian War began in 1754. The elderly man returned to Ohio several years later, Donehoo said.

At least four place-names reflect the Shawnee’s fleeting presence in Pennsylvania: Shawnee on Delaware and Shawnee Mountain Ski Area in Monroe County, the village of Paxinos in DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 11

19th

century artist George Catlin came upon these Shawnee Indians living west of the Mississippi River in 1831.

He identified them as, from left, Káy-te-qua (“The Female Eagle”), a young girl who was daughter of the chief; Pa-te-cóo-saw (“The Straight Man”), a celebrated hunter; Lay-law-she-káw (“He who goes up the river”); an aged chief; and Ten-squa-tá-way, the Shawnee Prophet. a. — Lay-law-she-káw (He who goes up the river); an aged chief, having the rims of his ears separated and elongated. b. — Káy-te-qua (The Female Eagle); a young girl, daughter of the chief. c. — Pa-te-cóo-saw (The Straight Man); a celebrated hunter. d. — Ten-squa-tá-way (The Open Door); the celebrated “Shawnee Prophet,” brother of Tecumseh; he is blind in his right eye, and represented with his “sacred string of beans” in one hand and his “miraculous fire” in the other.

The remains of a once numerous and powerful tribe, many times removed, and now living west of the Mississippi. 1831.

Catlin was a Pennsylvania native, born in Wilkes-Barre in 1796.

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During the 1830s, the artist traveled throughout the American West in search of Native Americans to draw and paint.

Traveling to the American West five times during the 1830s, Catlin wrote about and painted portraits that depicted the life of the Plains Indians. His early work included engravings, drawn from nature, of sites along the route of the Erie Canal in New York State. Several of his renderings were published in one of the first printed books to use lithography, Cadwallader D. Colden's Memoir, Prepared at the Request of a Committee of the Common Council of the City of New York, and Presented to the Mayor of the City, at the Celebration of the Completion of the New York Canals, published in 1825, with early images of the City of Buffalo By 1800, most Delaware Indians had left Pennsylvania, headed for western territories that include the present-day state of Oklahoma.

Descendants of the Lenni Lenape Indians who had welcomed William Penn and sold land to him in the 1680s, these Indians found themselves forced to relocate many times.

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↑ Taken around 1900, photo shows a group of Shawnee hunters. (Courtesy of U.S. Library of Congress.)

Northumberland County, and Shawnee State Park in Bedford County. The state park is close to a place that was known in the 1700s as the Shawnee Cabins. Shawnee people stopped there as they migrated from South Carolina to Ohio, Donehoo said.

An age-old difficulty in writing about the history of Native Americans is that much of the information about them was reported and interpreted by non-Indians who didn’t understand or appreciate their culture and their past.

The Oklahoma Shawnee tribes use their websites to post their own version of American history.

“The Shawnees are an Eastern Woodlands tribe pushed west by white encroachment,” declares the Shawnee Tribe.

In part, the Absentee Shawnee Tribe uses its website to explain its name: “The Absentee Shawnee Tribe gained their ‘absentee’ distinction because their groups were not present at the signing of the 1854 treaty for a Kansas Reservation. Instead of settling on surplus lands in Kansas, these Absentee Shawnees had opted to migrate into Indian Territory (Oklahoma) or Mexico territory (Texas).”

The Eastern Shawnee Tribe has the most elaborate historical account: “The areas of their occupation centered around today’s states of Alabama, the Carolinas, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, & the Virginias. Their historic geographical territories were mountainous regions, dense forests, and scattered prairies. … Their loss of their homeland has given the Shawnee the reputation of being wanderers, but this was by necessity, not choice.”

The website describes the Shawnees as “a highly mobile, wideranging, nomadic people who lived in traditional dwellings of the Shawnee called ‘Wigiiwa.’ Their men were known as hunters and warriors and their women as planters and gatherers.

“During the summer the Shawnee gathered into villages of bark-covered long houses, with each village usually having a large council house for meetings and religious ceremonies.

In the fall they separated to small hunting camps of extended families. Many important Shawnee ceremonies were tied to the agricultural cycle: the spring bread dance at planting time; the green corn dance when crops ripened; and the autumn bread dance to celebrate harvest.”

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↑ The Shawnee Presbyterian Church at Shawnee on

Delaware retains the name of a Native American tribe that left the Poconos more than two centuries ago.

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↑ Catahecassa was a principal chief of the Shawnees

in Ohio during the early 19th century. Also known as Black Hoof, he encouraged hundreds of Shawnees to migrate to Kansas from Ohio.

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John L. Moore continues to pursue his lifelong interests in Pennsylvania’s colonial history and archaeology. The Northumberland writer has published 13 nonfiction books about Pennsylvania during the 17th and 18th centuries. His most recent book, “Murder of Killbuck Island,” is the fifth volume in his ongoing Revolutionary Pennsylvania Series. It is available in bookstores and online at the Sunbury Press Bookstore.

Over the years John has participated in archaeological excavations of Native American sites along the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers.

A professional storyteller, he specializes in telling historically-accurate stories about real people and actual events in Pennsylvania history.

These include the true story of Frances Slocum, a 5-year-old girl who lived as a Native American after being kidnapped by Indians during the American Revolution. Frances Slocum State Park near Wilkes-Barre was named for her.

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 15

THE SHAWNEES DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

By John L. Moore he Shawnee Indians and other pro-British tribes living along the Sandusky River in northwest Ohio –the Delawares, Mingoes, and Wyandots–knew the Pennsylvania militia was coming. They intended to stop them.

T

Later in the morning, the militia leaders decided to strike the Indians, “but our intentions were frustrated by the arrival of a large body of mounted rangers and 200 Shawnees in the afternoon,” Lieutenant Rose said.

The date was June 4, 1782, which quickly became a significant date in the history of the western theater of the American Revolutionary War.

According to Lieutenant Turney, the Shawnees numbered significantly fewer than 200, but their arrival had strategic importance. “About 12 o’clock, we were joined by 140 Shawnees, and had got the enemy surrounded,” he said.

The 465 militia soldiers didn’t know it yet, but as they crossed the prairie, a detachment of British Rangers from distant Fort Detroit arrived to reinforce the Indians.

The fighting began during the afternoon and continued until dark. Both sides kept their positions throughout the night.

In the morning, neither side mounted a full-scale attack. At daybreak, the Indians and the rangers “commenced firing, which we kept up pretty briskly till we found the enemy did not wish to oppose us again,” said Lieutenant John Turney, a British officer. “However, we kept firing at them whenever they dared show themselves.”

In turn, Lieutenant John Rose, an officer in the Continental Army who accompanied the militia, speculated that “the enemy’s intention was evidently to cause us to waste our ammunition.” As the day progressed, “they kept maneuvering …, trying to make small numbers look large.”

At one point, the Pennsylvanians “made two attempts to sally, but were repulsed with loss,” said Turney, the British officer.

According to Rose, although “the firing began early on the 5th,” the rangers and the Indians “did not venture an attack.” This was because “the enemy had received so severe a blow the preceding evening that he … contented himself to annoy us at a distance.

We were so much encumbered with our wounded and sick that the whole day was spent in their care and in preparing for a general attack the next night.”

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“We were so much encumbered with our wounded and sick that the whole day was spent in their care and in preparing for a general attack the next night.”

At one point during the day, the militia commander decided to attack. The plan called for “a party of 150 men mounted on the best horses” to strike the Indians’ left flank at the same time as 50 foot soldiers charged the warriors in front of a small strip of woods. But when Colonel William Crawford, the commander, explained the plan to his field officers, “the proposal was laid aside,” Rose said.

Throughout the afternoon, Rose noted that he saw “the number of horsemen among the enemy increase visibly.”

As the militia soldiers prepared to spend a second night on the battlefield, the warriors and rangers suddenly discharged their weapons in a way that terrified the Pennsylvanians. “At sunset, the enemy fired off their guns all round by way of (a rifle salute known as) a feu de joie,” Rose said.

The Indians and British taking part in this salute discharged their firearms one at a time but in rapid succession so the firing ran up and down the line. Since the Pennsylvania camp was nearly surrounded, the shots were fired all around it. Militia troops

THE SHAWNEE CASINOS

By John L. Moore All three federally recognized tribes of the Oklahoma Shawnee have casinos.

The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma owns and operates the Indigo Sky Casino & Resort, located near Wyandotte, Okla.

“The net income from Indigo Sky Casino and all other Eastern Shawnee businesses helps to provide essential services such as health and social care, education, housing, career and other programs to the citizens of Eastern Shawnee Nation,” the tribe says on its website.

In partnership with the Chickasaw Tribe, the Shawnee Tribe opened the Golden Mesa Casino in the Oklahoma Panhandle in 2019.

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The Absentee Shawnee Tribe has two: the Thunderbird Casino at Norman and the Thunderbird Casino at Shawnee. Each is described as “an enterprise of the Absentee Shawnee.”

The casinos all offer slot machines and table games.

found the experience unnerving. “This political stroke of theirs had that effect it was intended for,” Rose remarked.

In early evening, “a body of 150 Shawnees advanced quite openly … on the common road in our rear,” and camped “to the south in the rear upon our left,” Rose said.

So many warriors had arrived to reinforce the Indians that the militia officers realized the Indians had become “vastly superior to us in numbers,” Rose said. When they “kept pouring in hourly from all quarters … prudence dictated a retreat.”

The American withdrawal, which quickly became a rout, gave the victory to the Indians.

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↑ Left: J.P. Morgan, Right: John Jacob Aster IV

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THE EARLY RAILROADS OF THE POCONOS — WHO WERE THE PLAYERS?

By Kim Williams

T

o become knowledgeable about Pocono history in general, a good starting point is to focus on the five railroads that were built locally. This approach is likely to introduce you to many other bygone aspects of the Pocono scene, such as commerce, geography, human activity, etc.

The ‘railroad years’ in the Poconos started in 1856, when the first of the major players1 – the Delaware-Lackawanna & Western Railroad - followed a route which included 37 still-used miles in Monroe County. The mainline of DL&W was eventually between Hoboken, NJ, and Buffalo, NY. Transport farther west could be arranged with other railroads servicing the central U. S. Next was New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad, which, began local operations in 1882, by going through Stroudsburg to get anthracite coal brought by DL&W to an interchange point known as Gravel Place, on the northwestern outskirts of East Stroudsburg. Like DL&W, NYS&W’s eastern terminus was in New Jersey (Jersey City). 11 years later NYS&W built a subsidiary, the Wilkes-Barre & Eastern Railroad because of the attraction of coal.

← L &NE’s Ross Common Station DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 19

↑ Kunkletown Station of Chestnut Ridge Railway

↑ Chestnut Ridge Railroad in the Kunkletown area (1918)

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A railroad that was almost entirely in Monroe County was nicknamed “The Dinkey” or “The Colonial Route”. The Delaware Valley Railway began operating in 1901 between East Stroudsburg and Bushkill — a distance of 11 miles.

The original dream included three additional segments of this route – all the way to Port Jervis, NY — to connect with Erie Railroad.

The shortest routes using “standard gauge” rails in Monroe County were those of two additional carriers: the Lehigh and New England Railroad, which had a fivemile-long branch from Wind Gap, Northampton County, to Saylorsburg; and the Chestnut Ridge Railway, which went 11 miles between Palmerton, Carbon County, and Kunkletown.

The section to Saylorsburg was built in the late 1880s, was first leased by the Central Railroad of New Jersey and was close to where Rt. 33 is today. For approximately 40 years prior to its abandonment in 1938, the branch belonged to L&NE, which folded 23 years later. During the final decade of the branch’s existence, the tracks were almost never used.

The original dream included three additional segments of

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↑ H omemade steam engine helped with lumbering; Pocono Lake area, late 1800s

this route – all the way to Port Jervis, NY — to connect with Erie Railroad. But the final outcome was that sections between Saylorsburg and East Stroudsburg, and between Bushkill and Port Jervis were never built. A promising start gave way to motorized travel by vacationers to Lake Poponoming (later known as Saylor’s Lake) and for deliveries to local coal and lumber yards. The invention of refrigerators caused the decrease of ice-hauling from the lake. And around 1910, a large customer - the Blue Ridge Brick Co., in Saylorsburg closed. The two stops along the branch were at Ross Common and Saylorsburg. Photographic evidence of the Saylorsburg station has not been found, but the station is outlined on a 1905 insurance map that also shows the track layout around the brick company. A gem in the archives of the Monroe County Historical Association is a picture of the tiny, unstaffed Ross Common “station”. A modern-day connection to L&NE is a 4-wheeled caboose (“bobber”) on the grounds of Memortyown Resort in Paradise Township.

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↑ Less remembered are segments of railroads in western Monroe County

The line to Kunkletown was the Chestnut Ridge Railway, which first operated in 1900. In Monroe County it was parallel to Kunkletown Road but south of Buckwa Creek. Like the Saylorsburg branch early in its history, Chestnut Ridge also linked to Jersey Central; and those tracks are still used by Norfolk-Southern Railway. The last train on the easternmost four-and-a-half miles of CRR ran in 1973, although tracks in the Kunkletown area were not torn up until 1987. The founders of the Chestnut Ridge Railway envisioned building resorts near Kunkletown. They also thought that unique bricks could

↑ L &NE Caboose (“Bobber”) on display at Memorytown Resort; Paradise Township

↑ Chestnut Ridge Railway caboose on grounds of Kunkletown Post Office, Eldred Township

↑ Mountain Ice Company swithcher at Stillwater Lake

↑ Blue Ridge Enameled Brick Factory, Saylorsburg

↑ Narrow-guage Bark Railroad in wester Barrett Township on 1872 map be made at a nearby factory using rare, white clay mined near Kunkletown. The “Millionaires’ Road” was a nickname for the CRR because its investors included J. P. Morgan and John Jacob Astor. However, the resorts were never built. And the "white brick" venture did not live up to expectations, although mining was still occurring into the early 1940s. As of 1907, Chestnut Ridge Railway was ripe for ownership change and was then bought by New Jersey Zinc Company because it provided a convenient connection to Jersey Central. Plus, a couple B lue Ridge Enameled Brick Factory, hundred passengers – company employees and otherSaylorsburg travelers – commuted daily from a station in Kunkletown. But activity on the railroad eventually became concentrated at the Palmerton end and in 1935 CRR stopped offering passenger service. A modern-day connection to the Chestnut Ridge Railway is a caboose next to the Kunkletown Post Office in Eldred Township.

↑

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Even less remembered than the rail lines to Saylorsburg and Kunkletown were a couple of businesses that had their own locomotives; and the importance of “narrow gauge” railroading in Monroe County. “Narrow gauge” describes rails that are closer together than “standard gauge”, which is 4’ 8½” between rails.

Narrow-gauge railroading locally occurred mostly in the lumbering industry which was intense in in the Poconos during the late 1800s, one operation being in the Pocono Lake area. Some rails were even wooden, some locomotives were homemade, but this was a vital means of transport over a short distance. From western Barrett Township, the narrow-gauge Bark Railroad was helped by gravity and mules to bring lumber to Mountainhome and then to DL&W. Elsewhere in the Poconos, contemporary explorers from Coolbaugh Historical Association are attempting to map narrow-gauge routes established 140 years ago by tree-cutters in that area.

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↑ Mountain Ice Company swithcher at Stillwater Lake A business which had its own “standard gauge” steam engine was Mountain Ice Company, which took loads from Stillwater Lake to DL&W two miles away in the Pocono Summit area.

Fast-forward to the present: In use today at Ardent Mills, Mt. Pocono, is a company switcher which jockeys loads and empties to appropriate places on the mill’s property.

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Editor’s Note: Each “Major Player” will be featured in future articles of Pocono Living Magazine.

Kim Williams is a lifelong resident of Monroe County, an amateur photographer and president of a local historical group. “The Flood” and the County’s railroad history are of particular interest to him. Kim’s two daughters — a doctor & a teacher — are sources of pride.

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> F irst Snow

Courtesy of the Thomas Kirkwood Collection

26 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

CULLEN YATES

IMPRESSIONIST PAINTER OF SHAWNEE-ON-DELAWARE

By Marie Liu

T

oward the end of the 19th century, American art and culture was very much influenced by French styles. Inspired by Claude Monet, a new and revolutionary movement in painting, called Impressionism, became popular in France. With an emphasis on plein-air painting and less concerned by realistic representation, Impressionism would allow objects to dissolve into atmospheric effects of light and color by employing a technique of small brush strokes and dabs of color which would be translated by the viewers eye. Soon adopted by American artists, our own version of Impressionism arose which tended to be more solid, forceful, and energetic than the delicate and subdued European style. Many groups formed around the country that practiced, taught, and promoted this new style.

The New Hope School, located in an historic mill town on the Delaware River in Bucks County Pennsylvania, headed by William Lathrop, was one such of great repute and significance, producing some of the most dynamic landscape paintings of the Delaware valley, in a style which is still popular and employed by many contemporary painters.

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 27

Living further upriver at Shawnee-on-Delaware was artist Cullen Yates. Although not formally associated with the New Hope School, his landscape paintings were of the American Impressionist style and demonstrated a mastery that would rival the best of his time. His renditions of the Delaware Water Gap and scenes of the Shawnee and Stroudsburg areas are wonderful examples of both the beauty of the Delaware river valley and an historic art movement, brought together through the life he lived here. Cullen left us with a legacy of paintings of great accomplishment and beauty, which are highly valued today and have become woven into the fabric of the Pocono community.

“Owen Cullen Yates was born in Byram, Ohio in 1866. As a young artist he went to New York City to study under renowned American painter William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League, Shinnecock Art Colony in Long Island, and the National Academy of Design.”

Owen Cullen Yates was born in Byram, Ohio in 1866. As a young artist he went to New York City to study under renowned American painter William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League, Shinnecock Art Colony in Long Island, and the National Academy of Design. He then traveled to Paris to continue his education (as was the custom for aspiring artists of the time) where he would be introduced to Impressionism. Returning to New York City he would take up residence at what was popular in that era, the studio building. These buildings were designed to accommodate artists whose apartments would serve as both living and studio spaces. This suited the lifestyle of artists very well, as it facilitated networking and sharing of ideas, plus some of the more practical considerations like economy, proximity to galleries, museums, and art clubs in what was the nexus of the American art scene.

Often providing housekeeping and cooking for the artist residents which were mostly unmarried men. Cullen progressed well in that environment, becoming a member of the most renowned art clubs, including Salmagundi Club, National Academy of Design, National Arts Club, New York Society of Artists, and American Watercolor Society, to name a few. These memberships allowed him to exhibit alongside the top artists of the era and his work won many awards throughout America and abroad.

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> M anwalamink Island Bennekill on the Delaware Courtesy of the Thomas Kirkwood Collection

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> E lkdom

Courtesy of the East Stroudsburg Elks Lodge

30 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

> S hawnee Inn

Courtesy of the Thomas Kirkwood Collection

In 1900, joining some fellow artists on a painting trip to Old Lyme Connecticut, Yates would become an unsuspecting pioneer of what was to become known as the Old Lyme Art Colony, spending two summers there. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, numerous painting colonies or schools developed across the country in such places as Laguna Beach California, New Hope Pennsylvania, Provincetown Rhode Island, and Hudson Valley New York. The terms school or colony refers to a group of artists assembled around a particular place, teacher, genre, technique, or style of art. Not meaning a school in the formal sense, but more of an organic occurrence of likeminded artists who influenced and supported one another, while traveling, working, and exhibiting together.

Having relatives in Saylorsburg, PA, around 1905 Cullen began visiting the Poconos in the summer to paint the landscape of the Delaware valley, spending time at the nearby town of Delaware Water Gap to capture the popular image of the Gap. While in the area he met industrialist and entrepreneur Charles C. Worthington, a wealthy and successful pump manufacturer who owned land and a small hotel in nearby Shawnee-on-Delaware.

“During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, numerous painting colonies or schools developed across the country in such places as Laguna Beach California, New Hope Pennsylvania, Provincetown Rhode Island, and Hudson Valley New York.”

Impressed by Yates’ talent, Worthington invited him to be the resident artist of the hotel, as he was planning to build a much larger resort there named the Buckwood Inn. A popular resort feature was to have artists living and working on the premises for the enjoyment of the visitors, who attended art receptions and purchased paintings as souvenirs of their stay. Sometime around 1910, Worthington and Yates traded a painting of the valley for land and a cottage overlooking the resort and river.

That painting, suspected to have been the trade, hangs in the lobby of the Shawnee Inn to this day.

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 31

> S hawnee Island

Courtesy of the Thomas Kirkwood Collection

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> Yates portrait by DeWitt M. Lockman, 1822 Courtesy of the Antoine Duton Museum

34 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

The friendship and support of Worthington provided Cullen and his new wife Mabel with a financial security and comfortable lifestyle that would surely be a dream come true to any artist.

It seems apparent that Cullen was highly contented with his situation and environs and was integrated into the community.

Living in this small agrarian river town seems to have suited him just fine, while the additional company of city visitors and friendship with Worthington would have provided him a wide-ranging diversity of relationships. Although he divided his time between Maine (where he would paint seascapes) and Pennsylvania, he would call Shawnee-on-Delaware his home until his death in 1945. He is buried in the Shawnee Presbyterian Church cemetery near his home, overlooking the river valley that he painted so frequently and portrayed so lovingly.

Yates’ paintings now reside in many museum collections throughout the country, such as the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Brooklyn Museum, and Montclair Art Museum.

Charles and Virginia Kirkwood purchased the Shawnee Inn in 1977. It is one of the last remaining examples of the great Pocono resort era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Thomas and Kathleen Kirkwood proudly possess the largest single collection of Yates paintings in the world. Thomas, who plays a large role in running the resort alongside his parents, is an avid enthusiast of all things related to the area, particularly art. The Shawnee Inn was host to the largest exhibit of Yates’ paintings since the artists death in the 1970’s, and in 2011 hosted an exhibit titled “Artists of the Middle Delaware” featuring the works of Yates, Frank Schoonover and Sterling Strauser, where an art auction was held to benefit the Monroe County Historical Association.

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Yates’ paintings now reside in many museum collections throughout the country, such as the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Brooklyn Museum, and Montclair Art Museum. Equally, many of his paintings remain in local establishments such as the Elks Lodge #319 in East Stroudsburg, PNC Bank, Pocono Medical Center, Shawnee Inn, Monroe County Historical Association, Buck Hill Arts Association, and many private collections.

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 35

36 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

> R ailway Bridge below Shawnee Golf Island Courtesy of the Thomas Kirkwood Collection

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> D elaware Water Gap in the Autumn Courtesy of the Thomas Kirkwood Collection

38 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 38

Buck Hill Art Association was formed in 1933 to arrange exhibits of paintings in the public rooms of the prestigious Buck Hill Inn, a longtime Quaker retreat established in 1901 in Cresco, Pennsylvania. They acknowledged the importance of both nature and art to the human experience by developing a collection of paintings of some distinction. One of the art association’s first acquisitions was a Yates painting and his was one of the first exhibits held there. Their mission statement reads: BHAA enhances meaning of its wild landscape and built environment. We engage our immediate community and beyond, acknowledging core values of family, serenity, and the tenants of simplicity held by our Quaker founders, to foster an understanding and respect for the Buck Hill Falls’ forests, waterways and built environment through the work of artists and their art.

East Stroudsburg Elks Lodge #319 was chartered in 1895. Cullen Yates joined the B.P.O.E. in 1926 and was a member for nearly 20 years, until his death. He painted a large canvas depicting a herd of Elk in the moonlight, which he donated to the Lodge for the occasion of the Grand Opening of their stately new building on Washington St. in 1927. It hangs there to this day and has a significant ritual tied to it, as relayed to me by member Carol Huston. At the eleventh-hour, members and guests of the Lodge stand and all lights are extinguished. The chimes ring eleven times and everyone faces the painting (which in fact has eleven elk) depicting the hour of recollection.

After a member states “It is the hour of recollection” or “The hour of eleven has arrived”, another member recites the Eleven O’clock Toast.

“BHAA enhances meaning of its wild landscape and built environment. We engage our immediate community and beyond, acknowledging core values of family, serenity, and the tenants of simplicity held by our Quaker founders, to foster an understanding and respect for the Buck Hill Falls’ forests, waterways and built environment through the work of artists and their art.”

“You have heard the tolling of eleven strokes. This is to remind us that with the Elks the hour of eleven has a tender significance. Wherever Elks may roam, whatever their lot in life may be, when hour falls upon the dial of night the great heart of Elkdom swells and throbs. It is the golden hour of recollection, the homecoming of those who wander, the mystic roll call of those who will come no more. Living or dead, Elks are never forgotten, never forsaken. Morning and noon may pass them by the light of day sink heedlessly in the West, but ere the shadows of midnight shall fall, the chimes of memory will be peeling forth the friendly message: DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 39

> B uttermilk Falls

Courtesy of the Thomas Kirkwood Collection

40 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

> L ingering Snow

Courtesy of the Thomas Kirkwood Collection

“TO OUR ABSENT MEMBERS”

Cullens’ oil paintings reflect a sensitivity to the weather, seasons, and moods of the area, many are of solemn gray winter days, but equally of sunny golden autumn afternoons along the river, all executed in the new style of art called Impressionism. These paintings can seemingly possess a delicate touch, but upon inperson viewing one would notice the significant build-up and layering of paint, often applied with a palette knife, like frosting on a cake. One would also notice dashes of bright colors where one might not expect, such as in his winter painting Lingering Snow, where the artist uses bright neon blue in the shadows.

The absence of any solid lines or shapes, there is instead a thick build-up of directional brushstrokes resulting in a very textured surface. The convincingly icy cold waters of the river are almost sculptural in its thick application. Although popularized and now familiar to us, this modern style would seem radical at the time and be a significant departure from the prevailing manner of painting. Cullen Yates was an important contributor to this American art movement and also to the history of this region.

He embodied the beauty, culture and diversity that has prevailed here and made the Poconos a uniquely special place.

Marie Liu moved to Milford from New York State in 2009. Her work since then has been entirely focused on elements of the region that she seeks to reveal through her paintings.

She was honored to be the Resident Artist of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area for one year, from 2015 - 16. Focusing her creative energies on exploring and interpreting the Park through all four seasons, researching the history, and engaging with visitors was a highpoint of her professional life; culminating in exhibits at Kittatinny and Dingmans visitors centers. She not only portrayed the beauty of the Park, but was also cognizant of it’s unique history, and strove to portray that in her paintings.

Her work can be seen at the ARTery Gallery in Milford, a cooperative that is owned and operated by artists. Visit her website at https://mliuart.com and view videos about her experience as Resident Artist and her affinity for Pinchot and Grey Towers on her You Tube channel: Marie Liu Art.

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 41

By Amanda Kuhn

42 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

Photo Courtesy of Friends of Delaware State Forest and Promised Land State Park

PROMISED LAND STATE PARK

Photos courtesy of PMVB

W

hether you’re planning for spring or brave enough to face the frozen temps, Promised Land State Park is primed for exploration all year long. Located in Pike County, approximately 10 miles north of Canadensis, Promised Land is aptly named for it’s abundance of wildlife, dense forest and remarkable scenery. Spanning almost 3,000 acre, the park is surrounded by 12,464 acres of Pennsylvania’s Delaware State Forest. As you meander along Route 390 on your drive to Promised Land, you’ll quickly note the beech, oak, maple and hemlock trees closing in around you. Two lakes and several streams are also tucked into these rich woodlands, adding more beauty to your exploration and activities to experience during your visit.

It’s hard to imagine that by 1903, the area now known as Promised Land State Park was almost completely treeless after being repeatedly clear-cut by early settlers who erected sawmills to process the large stand of conifer and hardwood trees. The loss of trees resulted in the loss of wildlife as well. In 1902 - 1904 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania purchased the land and in 1905 the land became the fourth official PA state park. From there, the commonwealth planted over 370,000 trees. In 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), created by President Roosevelt to relieve unemployment during the Great Depression, transformed the area in and around the park and established many landmarks that still exist today. Every August the legacy of the CCC is celebrated at the park.

TOP ACTIVITIES AT PROMISED LAND STATE PARK 1. Take a hike on Little Falls Trail 2. View the eagles’ nest from the Wildlife Observation Station.

3. Visit the Masker Museum 4. Paddle your kayak on Promised Land Lake.

5. Explore the Delaware State Forest.

6. When it’s hot, cool off at the beach!

*Top activities provided by the PA Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources

Hiking throughout the park remains one of the most popular activities regardless of the season. There are roughly 50 miles of trails including Bruce Lake Trail which leads to a natural glacial lake, and Little Falls Trail. The trails lead through areas of historic and scenic interest. Certain trails can also be used for biking, horseback riding, even snowmobiling in the winter months.

Swimming, boating, picnicking, fishing, and geocaching are just a few more activities you can enjoy at the park.

During the months of April through October, interpretive and recreational programs are offered on Friday and Saturdays and from June through early September weekly nature arts and crafts are available for children of all ages courtesy of the conservation volunteers. Families can also join in a family fishing program designed to develop fishing skills.

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 43

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44 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

The Masker Museum, open early May through mid-October, includes a natural history section featuring mounted animals (including a large black bear), interactive displays of natural features found in the area, children’s books, field guides, and a bird observation area. The Civilian Conservation Corps section of the museum features interactive stories, displays, and artifacts that tell the story of the CCC in Promised Land. It is the largest state park museum in Pennsylvania.

With so much to do at Promised Land State Park you just might decide to camp there instead. Offering seven camping areas that vary from rustic to full hookup, camping at Promised Land is very popular during the warmer months so be sure to call ahead. For more information on Promised Land State Park and all the extensive information and opportunities you can find there, visit the DCNR website.

PROMISED LAND STATE PARK 100 Lower Lake Road, Greentown, PA 18426-9735 570.676.3428 • dcnr.pa.gov

Photos courtesy of PMVB

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585 Main Street Stroudsburg PA 570-421-7950 DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 45

POCONO HERITAGE LAND TRUST PRESERVING NATURAL PLACES AND OPEN SPACES IN MONROE COUNTY

By Amanda Kuhn

This is Pocono Living Magazine’s sixth article in our conservation series.

T

he struggle between conservation and the commercialization of our natural landscape is a tale as old as time, a tale that’s not unique to the Poconos. The exploitation of our natural resources in the name of growth and financial gain dates back to the late 1700s and early 1800s when early settlers discovered how rich the area was with natural resources - timber, ice, wildlife and anthracite. Accelerated by railroads, the population grew, industries grew, and the need to conserve our precious natural resources grew as well.

Pocono Heritage Land Trust was founded in 1984 in an effort to protect our natural places and open spaces. Today, this locally-based organization remains “dedicated to protecting the natural heritage of our Pocono Mountains region.

These areas include important lands, waters, natural places, open spaces and agricultural landscapes.” Overseen by a board of directors who live and work locally, PHLT is committed to the natural legacy of the Poconos.

46 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

“Today, this locally-based organization remains “dedicated to protecting the natural heritage of our Pocono Mountains region.”

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 47

“Resources like clean air and water, wildlife, and forestry benefit everyone including future generations.”

As described in PHLT’s blog, “balancing the need for both human-protected wild places and human-supported altered landscapes is summed up best in the Five ‘Cs’ — conversation, cooperation, compromise, compassion, and conservation.”

PHLT’s position it to work cooperatively with landowners and the local government to preserve land that offers an environmental, scenic, or recreational value. Whether through donation, purchase, or conservation easements, PHLT acquires land and accepts the responsibility of the management and protection of that land. While our area demands places to live and work, this demand also increases the need to protect our natural resources. Resources like clean air and water, wildlife, and forestry benefit everyone including future generations.

PHLT encourages residents and visitors to get outdoors! The organization has many nature preserves through the area, each offering unique sights and opportunities. Their latest

48 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

addition, the Rail Gap Pocono Creek Nature Preserve located in Stroudsburg, was acquired in 2020. This preserve includes some interesting landmarks like a path of the Wilkes-Barre & Eastern Railroad which ran between Wilkes-Barre and Stroudsburg from 1893 to the 1930s carrying passengers, coal and ice. Not only is the history interesting, the beautiful landscape is eye-catching as well. You can learn more about PHLT’s preserves, including directions and other pertinent information, on their website.

While maintaining the land they protect is a priority, engaging and educating residents is also a goal. Throughout the year PHLT hosts events to learn and have fun. Guest speakers, educational sessions like “Living with Black Bears” and “Introduction to Fly Fishing” are scheduled as well as opportunities to Paint and Sip or help with restoration projects. Follow PHLT on Facebook for all upcoming events and opportunities to enjoy.

If you enjoy spending time outdoors and share PHLT’s mission

Photo courtesy of Marlana Holsten

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of preserving our natural places and open spaces, consider becoming a volunteer. From managing invasive plants, leading walks, helping with office needs, photography, fundraising and more - volunteers are always needed and always greatly appreciated. You can learn more about the types of volunteer jobs available on the PHLT website.

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To learn more about PHLT, upcoming events, and the organization’s nature preserves, check out their website at phlt. org. Sign up for the PHLT monthly newsletter to stay up-to-date on all initiatives, activities, and events. You can also find PHLT on social media.

POCONO HERITAGE LAND TRUST

Brodhead Creek Heritage Center 1539 Cherry Lane Road East Stroudsburg, PA 18301 P (570) 424-1514 phlt.org facebook.com/PoconoHeritageLandTrust/

Casual Dining In A Friendly Atmosphere (570) 620-1880 cookscornerrestaurant.com 3150 Rt. 715, Henryville, PA 18332

Wedn. - Sat. • 11am-8pm | Sun. • 7am-8pm | Closed Mon. & Tues.

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 49

GIFTING A PUPPY THIS HOLIDAY SEASON? READ THESE TIPS FIRST Courtesy of StatePoint • Photo by Jacob Owens — Unsplash

T

hinking of surprising a friend or family member with a puppy this holiday season?

“Before gifting someone with a commitment that lasts well beyond the holidays, make sure you’ve made your list and checked it twice,” says Claire Komorowski, chief executive officer of

50 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

PuppySpot, a USDA-licensed company whose mission is to make lives better by placing healthy puppies into happy homes.

Having introduced over 200,000 puppies to loving homes, PuppySpot encourages potential dog owners to make responsible decisions this holiday season and are offering the following Do’s and Don’ts to help:

DON’T:

1. Surprise your friend, partner or spouse unless they’ve openly communicated that they’re ready to take on the commitment and can prepare for the puppy’s arrival.

2. Wait too long to start looking if you know this is something you and your family want for the holidays.

3. Try and cut costs. Healthy, well-bred puppies can be expensive. If you see something that seems too good to be true, it probably is.

4. Expect a puppy to arrive fully-trained and well-behaved.

Puppies can be mischievous and require a lot of time and attention.

“Before gifting someone with a commitment that lasts well beyond the holidays, make sure you’ve made your list and checked it twice.”

DO:

1. Leave plenty of time for the entire process, you don’t want to rush selecting the right pup for you.

2. Realize your puppy may not arrive at the exact moment you had hoped for. These are living, breathing animals that require stops and care along their journey. They are not a warehouse package.

3. Plan to be home for the holidays to acclimate your puppy. Be sure to consider what happens when the holiday excitement dies down. Puppies need a great deal of attention, especially during their first year.

4. Use reputable services, like PuppySpot, which is authorized by the American Kennel Club and has its own independent scientific advisory board that collaborates with the USDA to ensure all national standards are exceeded. To learn more about PuppySpot and its promise to connect the nation’s top breeders to caring, responsible pet owners, visit www.puppyspot.com.

While there is perhaps no more joyful holiday surprise than a puppy, this is one gift that should never be given lightly. By weighing the decision carefully, you can ensure that a puppy’s new home is their fur-ever home.

Creekside

PET CREMATORY

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P&S GARAGE Servicing the Poconos since 1975

Scott Dreisbach owner

570-223-8874

9080 Franklin Hill Road East Stroudsburg, Pa www.psgaragepa.com DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 51

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

GREEN WINTER LIVING — FOR THE HOLIDAYS & THE WINTER THROUGH

By Kimberly Blaker

T

aking steps to reduce our negative impact on the earth is a year-round job. But it can seem much harder during the winter season. Cold weather and long, dark nights, along with holiday celebrations, make it challenging to prioritize planethealthy habits.

Still, there are ways to reduce our impact for a more sustainable planet. So follow these tips to keep your winter — and our world — green!

52 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

WATCH THE THERMOSTAT

One thing people struggle with most during winter is the chilly temperatures. As the weather gets colder, it's tempting to crank up the thermostat. But overusing your heater consumes a lot of energy. Depending on the size of your home, you're likely warming up areas that aren't even being used. Before you turn up the thermostat, add some layers of clothing, socks, and warm fuzzy slippers. It may be enough to keep you warm and comfy. If

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

you're just relaxing, get cozy and cuddle up under a blanket with warm food and a hot drink.

Getting a smart thermostat is also a smart investment, which will pay for itself in a relatively short time. There are many brands available that offer features to help you stay eco-friendly. These include timers to set specific temperatures for when you're at home, away, or sleeping. There are also recommended ecofriendly temperature settings and even the ability to control the thermostat from your phone.

So make a conscious effort to turn off lights when you leave a room (unless you’ll be returning in a reasonably short time), and only use lights you need.

Starting a fire in your fireplace can be a fun heat alternative for winter. It gives off heat in a smaller, concentrated space and uses less energy than a furnace. If you have a wood-burning fireplace, be sure to have your chimney cleaned and inspected annually for fire safety.

BE AWARE OF LIGHT USE

With the sun setting earlier and more grey days, it's tempting to switch on a lot of extra lights. But lights also use a lot of energy.

So make a conscious effort to turn off lights when you leave a room (unless you'll be returning in a reasonably short time), and only use lights you need.

Another way to cut back on energy use from lights is to switch to LED or CFL bulbs, which are more energy-efficient.

Also, consider lights with dimmer switches. There are lights with sensors that turn them off automatically when there's no movement in the room for a set amount of time, as well.

Another fun alternative is to use candles, which also add ambiance. Just make sure they're eco-friendly! Also, if you have pets or young children, they should be kept in a high secure spot to reduce the risk of injury or fire.

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE

THE MOUNTAINS FOR THE HOLIDAYS. Celebrate the holidays surrounded by great company and even better cuisine in the Pocono Mountains. From romantic dinners by candlelight to farm-to-table experiences, our local chefs are serving up something for every palate. Visit PoconoMountains.com to see all of our mouth-watering dining options and make your reservation.

Conserving on electrical lights also goes for outdoor holiday lights. These lights use a lot of energy. So consider more earthfriendly options. Holiday lights with LED bulbs and solar powered outdoor lights are better for the planet and your wallet.

You can also use timers for outdoor decorations, so you don't have to worry about remembering to turn them off.

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 53

Now! ACCESS YOUR FAVORITE

POCONO MAGAZINES ONLINE

Pocono Living Magazine

and Pocono Family Magazine If you have a wood-burning fireplace, be sure to have your chimney cleaned and inspected annually for fire safety.

ECO-FRIENDLY GIFTING

ANY DEVICE, ANYTIME, ANY PLACE go to:

www.PoconoMagazines.com • READ CURRENT & PAST ISSUES • SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE • NEVER MISS ANOTHER ISSUE

54 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

A big highlight of winter is holidays and get-togethers with gift exchanges. But all the gift-giving leads to a lot of waste and overconsumption of goods. The best option is to eliminate gift exchanges. Instead, make the holidays special by focusing more on fun activities and quality time with family and friends.

But there are many ways to go green, even with gifts. Doing so is also an excellent opportunity to share environmentally friendly practices with your loved ones. A few ideas for green gifting include: • Give experiences instead of things • Do a White Elephant or Secret Santa exchange where each person gifts one item • Look for gifts at second hand or thrift stores (if everyone can agree to this, no one will feel like a cheapskate) • Gift eco-friendly products like reusable straws or mugs • Choose wooden toys over plastic • Shop locally from small businesses

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

M

K

inisin hotel

Fruit Pies, Burgers, Pot Pies, Sandwiches, Pastries, Gifts, Jams & Jellies

www.VillageFarmer.com

GREEN GIFT WRAP

Once you’ve found the perfect gifts, get creative with wrapping! Traditional wrapping paper is typically used once then discarded, which consumes more resources. Some alternatives are to: • Reuse old wrapping paper • Repurpose other products like newspaper or paper bags from the grocery store (some stores even have themed bags during the winter) • Look for gift bags that can be reused (nice fabric ones, such as reusable tote bags, can be passed along for years to come)

1/2 mile off of Rt. 80 exit 310 GPS Broad St. Delaware Water Gap 570-476-9440

m -8p m ! a ! n 8 day Ope ever ting!

Sea side k e Cre Hot Dog & Slice of Apple Pie always $2.95!

Over 30 Flavors of pies baked fresh daily No High Fructose Corn Syrup!!!

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Small changes to your winter routines can help you stick to your values and reduce your consumption of the planet’s resources. So look for opportunities to reduce, reuse, and recycle throughout the winter months to help keep our earth evergreen.

Kimberly Blaker is a freelance family writer. She’s also founder and director of KB Creative Digital Services, an internet marketing agency, at kbcreativedigital.com

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 55

A CHRISTMAS MEMORY

By Suzanne McCool

M

y memory of Monroe County (The Poconos) more than fifty years ago was of forests and farms and beautiful quiet country roads with very little traffic. Growing up in Paradise Township when my sisters and I were young, there were lots of woods filled with evergreens, birches and a variety of other trees, beautiful mountain laurel and lots of rhododendron. The kids in our neighborhood often played in the woods building forts, picking flowers or greens for wreaths, or just generally running around in them and often seeing deer or other wildlife.

I especially remember one crisp, clear winter’s day.

There had been a snowfall earlier that week. My sister, Paulette, and I headed out for a walk with our dad, John Fretz. Leafless snow-dusted branches made jagged silhouettes against the blue-gray winter sky. We took the sled, my dad with an ax, and headed into the snowy woods behind our house.

We were looking for a Christmas tree. I was probably ten and Paulette was eight years old at the time. Pulling the American Flyer, Daddy broke a trail through the snowy woods with Paulette and me trudging behind. We were probably less than half mile from the house but it seemed really far for our short little legs.

56 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

“Soon we saw what we were looking for — the most perfect Christmas tree on earth and just the right size for our living room, not too big or small — just right.”

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Rudy’s

Your Neighborhood Tavern Established in 1933 90 Washington Street, East Stroudsburg, PA 18301 570-424-1131

Serving fine food & spirits in an elegant setting

owtree Inn Will

(570) 476-0211 • www.thewillowtreeinn.net 601 Ann Street, Stroudsburg, PA

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 57

In my mind’s eye I could already see it adorned and aglow with lights and tinsel and gaily colored balls and a shining star on top.

I recall that all was quiet and almost ethereal that day, the only sounds the plowing of the sled, branches snapping underfoot, and the occasional thump of snow falling from limbs and branches. A rabbit scurried past our track and up ahead in a small clearing stood a doe who somehow avoided the hunters’ guns that year. A ricocheting branch stung Paulette’s cheek and Daddy leaned down and kissed it to make it better.

Soon we saw what we were looking for — the most perfect Christmas tree on earth and just the right size for our living room, not too big or small — just right. In my mind’s eye I could already see it adorned and aglow with lights and tinsel and gaily colored balls and a shining star on top. We would put it in the front window, and it would sit in a big bucket of coal with my mother insisting it be secured with string because of the year our cats climbed the tree and knocked it over. That was when 58 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022

we lived at Airport Inn, my parent’s hotel in Mount Pocono, before we moved to Paradise Township.

My dad quickly cut the tree and put it on the sled while Paulette and I held it on with our mittened hands. I was so excited because Christmas was my favorite time of the year, not just because of the magic of the season, but because December 25, is my birthday as well! Christmas carols from the record player and Mom greeted us as we dragged the tree up the steps, across the front porch and into the house. My mother had hot chocolate waiting for us and the smell of her freshly baked apple tart wafted though the air. Our cheeks were rosy from the cold as we headed to the fireplace where a cheerful fire was burning to warm our little hands and fingers.

Soon the tree trimming would begin!

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

733 Main Street Stroudsburg, PA Cupcake Shop & Nostalgic Candy

Exciting “How-to” Culinary Classes

570-730-4944 ldiemer@ptd.net www.Kitchen-Chemistry.com

Shawnee General Store Since 1859

In the heart of Shawnee on the Delaware!

(570) 421-0956 542 River Road, Shawnee-on-Delaware, PA

I will always remember this one perfect day in my life because within a few years from this day, my father would die from complications from surgery, and my mother would struggle to hold on to our home and to raise my sisters and me. She never remarried, but her youngest sister, our Aunt Audrey, would always be there to help and would always make Christmas special in our lives.

THE POTTING SHED Let us create something beautiful for you EXQUISITE FLORAL • GIFTS • HOME DECOR

(570)424-1174 • 931 Ann Street • Stroudsburg, PA 18360

Suzanne is a native of the Poconos and a former schoolteacher and former Monroe County Commissioner. She has recently published her own book, and lives with her husband Terry in Stroudsburg.

Today, Suzanne enjoys writing, traveling and visiting her grandchildren.

William H. Clark Funeral Home, Inc. The Caring Professionals

1003 Main Street, Stroudsburg, PA 18360 570-421-9000 | www.wmhclarkfuneralhome.com Gary A. Raish, Supervisor

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 59

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.

60 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© DECEMBER 2020/JANUARY 2021

YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS "Is There a Santa Claus?" reprinted from the September 21, 1897, number of The New York Sun.

I

n 1897, Dr. Philip O'Hanlon, a coroner's assistant on Manhattan's Upper West Side, was asked by his then eight-yearold daughter, Virginia O'Hanlon (1889–1971), whether Santa Claus really existed. O'Hanlon suggested she write to The Sun, a prominent New York City newspaper at the time, assuring her that "If you see it in The Sun, it's so."[3] In so doing, Dr. O'Hanlon had unwittingly given one of the paper's editors, Francis Pharcellus Church, an opportunity to rise above the simple question and address the philosophical issues behind it.

Church was a war correspondent during the American Civil War, a time that saw great suffering and a corresponding lack of hope and faith in much of society. Although the paper ran the editorial in the seventh place on the page, below even one on the newly invented "chainless bicycle", it was both noticed and well received by readers. According to an anecdote on the radio program The Rest of the Story, Church was a hardened cynic and an atheist who had little patience for superstitious beliefs, did not want to write the editorial, and refused to allow his name to be attached to the piece.

[4] More than a century later it is the most reprinted editorial in any newspaper in the English language.[1][2]

Dear Editor— I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O'Hanlon 115 West Ninety Fifth Street Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or

children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly

as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.

Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.

There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.

We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight.

The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 61

You May Also Enjoy

Pocono Family Magazine

Barrett Paradise Friendly Library Cresco, PA 570-595-7171 www.barrettlibrary.org

Pocono Mountain Public Library Tobyhanna, PA 570-894-8860 www.poconomountpl.org

Clymer Library Pocono Pines, PA 570-646-0826 www.clymerlibrary.org

Western Pocono Community Library Brodheadsville, PA 570-992-7934 www.wpcl.lib.pa.us

Eastern Monroe Public Library Branches Hughes Library (main branch) Stroudsburg, PA 570-421-0800 www.monroepl.org Pocono Township Branch Tannersville, PA 570-629-5858 Smithfield Branch Marshalls Creek, PA 570-223-1881 Bookmobile 570-421-0880 x49

Available at Local Businesses & by Subscription Pocono Magazines, LLC 1929 North Fifth Street, Stroudsburg, PA 18360 570-424-1000 • pmags@ptd.net

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M A G A Z I N E

DECEMBER 2021/JANUARY 2022 POCONO LIVING MAGAZINE© 63

Your health needs to come first. That’s why the relationship with your primary care doctor is one of the most important you’ll ever have. From identifying risk factors to coordinating specialty care, LVHN partners with you every step of the way. And with virtual and in-person visits, it’s never been easier to put your health at the top of your to-do list.

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