Maps of Freeland from 1895

Take a look at these early maps of Freeland, made about 20 years after the town was incorporated. If you compare them to the 1873 Freehold map, you can see how fast the town was growing at the time. Also, while the 1873 map looks strange to those of us who know the town now, the view of town that you get from the 1895 maps will look very familiar.

I wish that we had maps like these for the other small towns near Freeland. It's exciting to see such detailed views from such a long time ago, preserved in these maps. Transporation would have been by train, carriage, wagon, horse, or walking. Think of that when you look at the streets and buildings on these drawings, and imagine those 1895 citizens going to the stores, going to work, going to church, to school, to watch baseball games, to visit family and friends. The pace of life as it was lived in that long ago town was very different from what we know today.

A new historical society for Freeland!

Meetings are held monthly, and are usually organized around a theme (such as sports). People are encouraged to bring memorabilia to the meeting to display that evening. A long-term goal of the society is to find a home for the storage, preservation and display of photos, documents and other memorabilia on Freeland's history.

Are you interested in becoming a member? Contact Tom Landers at 545 Front Street, Freeland, PA, 18224. Donations are also welcome and can be directed to him at that address. If you have ideas about saving Freeland's history, please share them.

I am a corresponding member of the Freeland historical society and will continue to make information available through this web site. I would welcome copies of photos, business letterheads, or other such items for inclusion in both the web site and my growing collection of Freeland images and information, which will eventually be shared with the society. I should also say that I have a LARGE number of updates to make to my site, especially to the Freeland businesses section, incorporating information and photos received from many correspondents. My apologies for the delay in getting that material online, and I hope to be able to get a greatly revised and expanded version of that businesses list online soon! Meanwhile, please consider supporting Freeland's new historical society in any way you can.

Pearl Jubilee booklet

In August 2006 I produced a small booklet to commemorate the 1906 Pearl Jubilee that was held on the occasion of Freeland's 30th anniversary. The booklet is a small, home-made production of 16 pages, photocopied at Kinko's with a cardstock cover. Much of the text is excerpted from The Freeland Tribune of August and September of 1906, to which I've added background information about how much Freeland had grown between the time of its founding as Freehold in 1873 and the Pearl Jubiliee in 1906. It's really interesting to read the newspaper coverage of the way that this large-scale celebration was put together and realized on what seems like an extremely short lead time, especially given the state of communications and commercial distribution mechanisms at the time. Also somewhat mind-boggling are the numbers of people that reportedly attended the celebration, which lasted over several days and nights and included many events, open houses, and types of entertainment.

The booklets are being sold for $3.00, with proceeds going to benefit the Freeland Chamber of Commerce and its work in the community. They are available at The Corner Market on the corner of Ridge and Main Streets in Freeland, and I think they may also be available at Videomania on Centre Street. I still have a few copies as well, in case someone is interested in getting a copy but isn't able to get to Freeland.

Call for memories!

Freeland - the highest borough in Pennsylvania - celebrated its 130th anniversary as a borough on September 11, 2006. The history of Freeland is important to the people who lived it, those who remember its stories, and those who are just learning about it for the first time. Since these pages have been on the Web, many people with Freeland connections have written to me, sharing information about their memories of Freeland, asking where they might find information about their families, and offering copies of photos and other information to share with others.

MAKE THE CONNECTION FOR YOURSELF - As time goes by, it becomes more urgent for all of us to collect information from older family, friends and neighbors so that their memories are not lost. I regret not having asked more questions of my grandparents when they were alive, and I've tried not to repeat that mistake with my parents and their generation, who are now getting to be up in years!

I'd like to encourage all of you who visit this site to take some time to talk or correspond with older relatives, to gather information from them, and to learn about their life experiences. It will help you to understand more about your family and where they came from, how they lived, and some of the events and circumstances that led to where you are today. Ask not only about their own lives, but about what they know or remember about their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents. Write down what you learn so that you can share it with others in your family. Capture these memories for the future while you still can.

SAVING INFORMATION AND ARTIFACTS - Years pass, things change, and lots of pieces of our lives' passing are lost. That's only normal, but it's great when we can save some things from past times to remind us of what life was like in earlier times than our own, or in different points in our own lives. Pictures, documents, advertisements, newspapers, even such things as product labels or containers can sometimes provide evocative reminders of families, businesses, organizations, events. Sometimes this stuff looks like junk, and yet there might be a few items in those attic boxes that could actually be valuable remnants of Freeland's past. Freeland doesn't have a local history museum at present, but there might be enough interest to have one someday. Meanwhile, if you think you have interesting Freeland memorabilia, don't throw it away! Once it's gone, it's gone -- maybe someone else saved another item like it, but then again, maybe not.

HISTORY OF FREELAND BOOKLETS - Local historian Charles Stumpf published a booklet on the history of Freeland in the mid-1990s, and it's still available locally for about $10, a bargain considering the wealth of information it contains. Charlie has given me his files so that I could work on a follow-up booklet or series of booklets. I've been adding more material to the files from other sources, pulling together as much information about Freeland as I can. It's been exciting to be able to learn from Charlie Stumpf, Charlie Reczkowski and others as I work on this project. These web pages will make available some of the information I've been collecting, while more of it will go into the booklets that I'm working on.

SHARING INFORMATION - It was my research on my own family history that led me into this Freeland history project. Much of the material on these webpages comes from early maps, city directories, newspapers and other sources, but increasingly I'm adding information and photos contributed by readers of these pages. I'm grateful to all the folks who have contacted me by e-mail -- often from other parts of the country -- to let me know about their families, family businesses or other Freeland connections. I would very much welcome additional information. If you have more information about something you see on this website, or about something that might be a good addition to it, I'd be grateful to know about it.

Printed sources such as old phone books, directories and yearbooks, memorial booklets from churches and events, photographs, and other such resources are important records. If you have anything like that and would consider allowing me to borrow it long enough to take notes or copy it -- or if you would consider copying it for me and letting me reimburse you -- please contact me, and thanks. Also, additions and corrections to these pages are always welcome; please send e-mail, and I hope you enjoy these webpages.

Credits: Thank you to Tom Lavinka for the great photograph of the Freeland basketball team of 1917-1918. He has also sent another one, which I'll use when I put together a Sports page, hopefully sometime soon. Thank you to Tony Sutherland for the cover image of the 1912 Kalendar Bratstvo which, although not a Freeland publication, contains information on several Freeland churches.