All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #079

This episode tells of Laurel Hill residents remembered today for their involvement with organized crime in the 1930s and 1940s. After the full podcast today, each segment will be released individually.

Petito "Little Petey" Bisciotti was a wannabe numbers man killed in what has become known as the Flag Day Massacre.

Willie Lanzetti was one of six notorious brothers in constant legal ...

Biographical Bytes from Bala #048

Today, I shine a spotlight on an all-but-forgotten Philadelphia politician John Henry Fow, known as “Foghorn” for his stentorian voice and “Ducky” for his quirky walk.

Fow was a tough lawyer with an uncanny knack for finding what was unconstitutional. He wasn’t afraid to challenge accepted knowledge, and debunked the story behind the famous “Washington Crosses the Delaware” painting and seriously c...

Part 4 of All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #078

Despite his very French name, Jacques Louis Francine was from a well-established Philadelphia family. HIs grandfather was a Union general, his father was the world's expert on tuberculosis. Jacques was the ultimate outdoorsman, collecting specimens for the Academy of Natural Sciences in northern Canada and starting a canoe camp. But he was also a decorated fighter pilot and...

Part 3 of All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #078

In 1924, Danish-born Holger Hoiriis moved to the United States and bought an airplane. After barnstorming for a few years, he hitched up with German American photographer Otto Hillig who wanted to cross the ocean. Holgier thus became the first pilot to carry a paying customer across the Atlantic. He was also the first pilot to complete night airmail delivery for the US Post...

Part 2 of All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #078

Beer heir Grover Cleveland Bergdoll was an early adaptor to flight and it is his Wright Brothers biplane that suspends from the ceiling of the Franklin Institute. He was also the most notorious American Draft Dodger during the Great War.

You met Hobart Amory Hare "Hobey" Baker in an earlier podcast when fellow guide Paul Sookiasian and I talked about his athletic prowess; I r...

Part 1 of All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #078

The first American balloon flight took place from Philadelphia, as did the great balloon riot of 1819. Thaddeus Lowe, who has relatives at Laurel Hill East, was the man who introduced the balloon to American warfare when he helped guide Union troops from 500 feet above the earth during the Battle of Fair Oaks. Until replaced by spy planes in the 20th century, balloons were on...

Thaddeus Lowe is not buried at Laurel Hill, but has many connections there. He was an balloon aeronaut during the Civil War, thus father of the United States Air Force. 

Grover Cleveland Bergdoll's family is in a huge mausoleum at Laurel Hill West. An early student of the Wright brothers, he became a poster child for privilege when he dodged the draft during the Great War. Hobey Baker's athletic gifts made him a natural pilot, but ...

From All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #077, Part 4

Antoinette Westphal was Drexel through and through. While a student there in the late 1950s, she captained both the field hockey and lacrosse teams, and wrote the newspaper's gossip column. She married fellow grad Ray Westphal and they started a family as Ray turned an idea into a successful business. Antoinette started her own spa, and took an interest in Drexel's art c...

From All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #077, part 3

Joseph Wharton was a Quaker businessman and philanthropist whose work is still felt throughout the city and the world. He was the primary founder of Swarthmore College. His business acumen allowed the US Mint to make a healthy profit in the years he was involved. Fisher Park in northeast Philadelphia was his gift to the city. The Wharton State Forest in New Jersey is the...

From All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #077, part 2

Captain Henry Biddle was wounded in the Battle of Glendale and died a few weeks later after having befriended his treating physician. His wife donated money in his name to found Biddle College in North Carolina, which has since changed its name to Johnson C. Smith University. His son Spencer Fullerton Baird Biddle was a Navy man who became a cattle rancher and introduced t...

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #077, Part 1

Charles Macalester established the town of Torresdale, founded Presbyterian Hospital, financially advised eight US presidents, and may have been the richest man in the world. A codicil in his will provided for the beginning of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, one of the top-ranked liberal arts schools in the country. The river mansion Glen Foerd stands as another of h...

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #077 - College Namesakes

Several Laurel Hill residents have institutions of higher learning named in their honor. Charles Macalester made a contribution that helped to turn a small liberal arts school into one of the finest small colleges in the land. Joseph Wharton made fortunes several times over, but is best remembered for starting what has become one of the top business schools in the c...

Biographical Bytes from Bala: Laurel Hill West Stories #046

For about 30 years in the middle of the 20th century, medical wisdom had declared that destroying organically healthy brain tissue was a legitimate treatment for varying psychiatric disorders. The concept of psychosurgery dates back to the Neolithic period but became more prominent in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

The champion for destroying healthy brain tissue was a Phil...