County Chronicles: A Vivid Collection of Pennsylvania Histories, Volume II
2006 by Ceane O'Hanlon-Lincoln

If you haven't yet read Ceane O'Hanlon-Lincoln's award-winning COUNTY CHRONICLES series, you haven't discovered how much fun reading history can be! This second book in the series embraces a varied collection of 20 short stories--true stories from Pennsylvania's thrilling past! The Keystone of the birth of our nation, Pennsylvania has much to relate to each and every American. Each story is meticulously researched and short enough to read in one sitting.

This volume touches on events, people and places from all across Pennsylvania. Each story, written in conversational style and backed by meticulous research, is pure pleasure to read. The author has visited each site in Pennsylvania about which she has written, and has added information crucial to today's traveler--a perfect travel guide.

Everyone loves a good story well-told. This book will not disappoint! This author is a master storyteller, who captures the reader's interest from the first page and holds it till the final page-turn. She breathes life into historical figures and events with language that captivates all the senses. Her readers don't just read history--they experience it!

Ceane (pronounced "Shawn") explains, "History is a collection of true stories, the most significant stories that ever unfolded. I tell history in a story-telling way because that is what history is--a story; and If an author relates history the way it really unfolded, it is compelling, thrilling--and unforgettable!"

THE READING LEVEL IS 5TH GRADE THROUGH ADULT.

SEE "CONTENTS" SECTION FOR MORE INFORMATION.

• Ceane O’Hanlon-Lincoln is a native of Connellsville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, though she resided in neighboring Westmoreland County’s Ligonier Valley for 18 years, where she taught high school French. Already engaged in commercial writing, she immediately began pursuing a career in writing history, as well as historical fiction. In 1987, O’Hanlon-Lincoln won honors at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, when two of her screenplays made the “top 25,” chosen from thousands of nationwide entries. In 1994, she optioned one of those scripts to Kevin Costner; the other screenplay, A Toast to Destiny, she adapted, with a fellow teacher, to a compelling mystery novel of the same title.

  Ceane has also had a poem published in Great Poems of Our Time. Winner of the Editor’s Choice Award, “The Man Who Holds the Reins” appears in County Chronicles II and in the fore of her anthology, Autumn Song.

  From 2000 to 2002, Ceane authored in her hometown newspaper, The Daily Courier, her own bimonthly column, “County Chronicles,” in which she focused on local history. County Chronicles– the series– is the result of the numerous requests for a compilation and continuation of her exciting Chronicles.

  In 2004, O’Hanlon-Lincoln won the prestigious Athena, an award presented to professional “women of spirit” on local, national and international levels. The talented author also won for her County Chronicles series two Citation/Special Recognition Awards from both the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and the Senate of Pennsylvania.

  Ceane shares “Tara,” her restored, century-old Victorian home, with her husband Phillip and their champion Bombay cats, Black Jade and Black Jack O’Lantern. Her hobbies include travel, nature walks, theater, film, antiques, and reading. Her latest book writing venture is a fictional series, The Sleuth Sisters.

The second of five volumes in this award-winning series of fascinating chronicles touches on stories from all across Pennsylvania. Meticulously researched, yet written in conversational style, each compelling chapter is a vibrant selection from this state's rich, layered past. Not a chronological history, COUNTY CHRONICLES: A VIVID COLLECTION OF PENNSYLVANIA HISTORIES, VOLUME II, like the first and subsequent volumes, is rather a bright tapestry of assorted people, places and events that affected and shaped Pennsylvania's exciting story. The author not only reveals the true history, but takes you there. She has visited each site in Pennsylvania about which she has written, and has added information crucial to today's traveler. Within each of the chronicles in this second volume, O'Hanlon-Lincoln takes us back to the inventive days of Ben Franklin in Philadelphia, as well as to the perilous Colonial frontier when the Indians captured James Smith near Bedford and Mary Jemison near Gettysburg. This talented author captures the heroism of "Captain Molly" Margaret Corbin, who took over the firing of her dead husband's cannon during the Revolutionary War, and the untold heroics of the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) during WWII. In her unique narrative style, the author recounts the volatile summer of 1892 in Homestead and writes with passion of the "infamous" Irish coal miners, the Molly Maguires. She relates the romantic tale of Mrs. Katherine Soffel, who joined the Biddle Boys in their flight from the Allegheny County Prison in Pittsburgh through Butler County to a shoot-out near Prospect. She portrays the bitter-sweet life of pilot Charles Lindbergh (whose connection to her home area is noteworthy), as well as the inspiring lives of Pennsylvania luminaries: actor and pilot Jimmy Stewart, greatest-athlete-of-the-twentieth-century Jim Thorpe, Eastern frontier artist extraordinaire Robert Griffing, Pulitzer-prize-winning author David McCullough, as well as tycoons Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon. The author delineates the destruction of Hanna's Town near present-day Greensburg and the horrors of the catastrophic Johnstown floods. She tells the stories of the Overholt Gristmill and Distillery in West Overton and of three historic churches located in Philadelphia and Uniontown. With her great gift for bringing history alive, O'Hanlon-Lincoln, as she did in all of the series' volumes, has even included a few chilling tales of Pennsylvania's haunted sites. You will be amazed to discover what "Firsts" Pennsylvania has contributed to our nation's history. COUNTY CHRONICLES, with their self-contained chronicles, are the perfect bedside/fireside readers, ideal for today's busy people who like to read. We feel certain that by the conclusion of this second volume, those of you who live in Pennsylvania will see home with new eyes, to wit with appreciation and admiration; and those readers from afar will have become cognizant of a "magical land", once known as "Penn's Woods". Printed on archival quality, acid-free paper, each volume in this set of five is hand-sewn (Smyth-sewn), ensuring strength and durability throughout the years. The covers feature the beautiful artwork of award-winning artist Helen Alt, and are printed in a rainbow of colors - a handsome set in anyone's library. 288 pages, 7½ x 10½ hard cover ISBN-13: 978-0-9760563-4-8 LOC: 2005937779. Be sure to check out the other four volumes.