Stories of the Susquehanna Valley

Editors: Alfred Siewers, Bucknell University, asiewers@bucknell.edu and Katherine Faull, Bucknell University, faull@bucknell.edu

This book series, with accompanying online materials, seeks to develop interdisciplinary and multimedia approaches to the concept of region, place, and ethics in environmental studies. While including a range of disciplines, from sciences and social sciences to literature and philosophy, Stories of the Susquehanna Valley articulates narratives of an eco-region that played a formative if often hidden role in the early American republic, and which today provides potential models for more environmentally sustainable approaches to human community.

About the image:
The photo shows a view of the North Branch of the Susquehanna River near Wyalusing, PA along Route 6. The site is known as Prayer Rocks, and the story is that Native Americans used the site as a place for meditation and prayer for generations. Where the river bends in the photo there was a Native American village. Directly across the road from where the picture was taken was the 18th century Moravian Indian refuge village of Friedenshutten, a place the Moravians provided Native Americans fleeing European settlers in NJ, Delaware and SE PA. A document still exists showing the layout of the village and who lived in each dwelling. Prayer Rocks was also the site of the first powwow held in PA in 1963. The site is now owned by the Eastern Delaware Nations of NE PA; they use it for ceremonies and hope to build a culture center on the site some day. Unfortunately this view is no longer intact. The farmer whose field is in the photo leased the land to a fracking operation. The field is now covered with equipment, and the quiet of the site is destroyed by heavy trucks drawing water from the river at this point for tracking.
--David Minderhout

Titles in the series:

Janet MacGaffey. Coal Dust on Your Feet: The Rise, Decline, and Restoration of an Anthracite Mining Town (2013)

David J. Minderhout. Native Americans in the Susquehanna River Valley, Past and Present (2013)