5 Historic Sites You’ll Want to Check Out

Built in 1843, the former home of United States Supreme Court Justice Henry Baldwin, who served on the bench from 1830-44 after spending time in Congress and helping elect Andrew Jackson as President, is preserved as a house museum, run by the Crawford County Historical Society. Here, you will discover beautiful grounds, antiques, artwork and of course, the house once called the “Mount Vernon of Meadville.”

Before television and radio, people of the past had to find amusement differently. In 1892, the Keystone View Company brought three-dimensional imagery to American homes through the stereoscope – a contraption that would become today’s “View Master.” From the world’s leading manufacturer of stereoscopic technology to the world’s leading museum of stereoscopic photography, take a trip around the world without leaving the museum.

Serving as the main graveyard for the City of Meadville since 1852, Greendale Cemetery is more than a cemetery, it’s a park and outdoor art museum. Herman Munz, the head architect who planted thousands of rhododendrons on the property, designed the cemetery. These blossoms are enjoyed each spring. Walking trails near a waterfall and the final resting places of the zipper inventors, abolitionists and more are waiting to be discovered.

John Brown, the abolitionist responsible for Bleeding Kansas and the Raid on Harper’s Ferry, built a tannery here in 1825 and worked on the property for a decade. It was an active stop on the Underground Railroad. The tannery site today serves as a historic site and tourist attraction in a great state of preservation. The address is 17620 John Brown Road, Guys Mills, PA.

Just as with Greendale, Woodlawn Cemetery is as breathtakingly beautiful as it is utilitarian. The cemetery boasts acres of grounds with paths and final resting places for Ida Tarbell, Col. Edwin Drake and more. View “The Driller,” a larger-than-life monument to Drake and oil history, mausoleums dedicated to major players in our nation’s oil heritage and the 1907 statue “Memory,” by Evelyn Beatrice Longman. The cemetery is at 892 West Spring Street, Titusville, PA.