The first record of Baha'i members in the West Chester area dates from around World War I. That was a time when many people in the USA and especially Europe -- which had lost millions of its citizens -- were horrified by the results the first "industrial war" in history. Along with diplomatic efforts like the Versailles Treaty and League of Nations, there were many non- governmental efforts to prevent future wars, such as the creation of the "universal" language of Esperanto. In such an environment, the unifying religion of Baha'i spread easily.

The Baha'i message reached the USA even earlier, however. It was mentioned at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 by a Christian at the Parliament of the World's Religions. From there, it spread to the areas around Chicago and New York, and received a boost from the Hearst newspaper family. In 1911-1912 Abdu'l-Baha toured the United States, and in 1927 the son of Baha'u'bab spoke in New York City at the Baha'i Center led by Mrs. Mary Hanford Ford.

One of the first Baha'i followers in the West Chester area was Dr. Leslie Pinckney Hill, the president of Cheyney State Teachers College (now Cheyney University) and one of the founders of the West Chester Community Center (now known as the Melton Arts & Education Center). Dr. Hill worked with Alain Locke, an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, on the National Baha'i Race Amity Committee.

At the beginning of World War II, a group of Baha'i began to hold regular meetings in West Chester. The instigation appears to have been a visit by Madame Ali Kuli Khan, the wife of the Persian representative to the Versailles Peace Conference, to an apartment at 17 S. Church Street.

The apartment was occupied by Jeannette Sharpless, born Jeannette Lear in 1886 in Snowshoe, Pennsylvania, about ten miles north of State College. She came to the southeastern part of the state to attend the Presbyterian School of Nursing in Philadelphia, and after she graduated, she remained in the area. Ms. Lear married Albert W. Sharpless, a member of the family that owned the Sharpless Creamery and Dairy in West Chester. Her brother Clarence also settled in West Chester and became a partner of Martin Lorgus in the Morris Nurseries located on the present site of Henderson High School.

Sharpless and her husband bought a house on W. Miner Street in 1926, but unfortunately, he died in January 1931 leaving her with two children. Fortunately, he also left an estate worth over $130,000, so she was able to stay in the house, at least at first. But some time before the beginning of 1941, she moved to the apartment at 17 S. Church Street. After the visit by Madame Khan, Sharpless began to hold regular Baha'i meetings.

In that first year, the group met on Sunday evenings for worship service and Tuesday evenings to study the religion. In 1944 they moved down the street to 27 S. Church Street, and after World War II was over, Sharpless organized a program to commemorate the 1819 birth of the "Bab" (a Baha'i prophet) on October 20, 1945.

In the late 1940s, their meeting place moved several times. They met in the Farmers & Mechanics Building (2 W. Market) in 1947, moved a half block east to 22 E. Market in 1948, and met at 154 E. Gay in 1955. Some time after that, Mrs. Sharpless moved to the home of her daughter Massachusetts where she died on June 5, 1960. Her obituary noted that she was "a member of the Baha'i faith."

Today, the Baha'i religion claims more than five million followers in 204 countries. Locally, there are congregations in Tredyffrin, Wilmington and Swarthmore, and members in West Chester. For more information, visit www.bahai.org or bahaibookstore.com.

The Columbia encyclopedia had no listing for "purple martin," but under "martin," it said "see swallow." A swallow is a variety of birds that are found all over the world. They are distinguished by their forked tails and dark blue-black coloring, as well as their practice of feeding on insects while in flight, and their preference for nesting in flocks. The entry also mentioned that "the purple martin is deep violet with black wings and tail." Purple martins were once common throughout Pennsylvania, but the introduction of DDT after World War II seriously depleted their food supply. They suffered a final blow in 1972 when Hurricane Agnes passed through, because it generated a week of nearly continuous rain that kept insects from flying. As a result, the purple martins starved to death.

A quick survey of WCJIM's files showed that Hoopes was an accomplished botanist, but including nothing about any involvement with purple martins. There was, however, an 1893 newspaper clipping that mentioned Hoopes' "collection of mounted birds." A search through the Chester County Historical Society's ornithology records turned up a wealth of information about Hoopes' interest in birds, of which this is merely one sample:

That, plus the absence of references to any other Josiah Hoopes in the Philadelphia area with an interest in birds, suggested that West Chester's man was the one who moved the purple martins. The next step was to learn if he had left behind notes, drawings, photographs ... anything that could show how he did it and if it was ultimately successful. Since Hoopes was such a successful businessman, his life has been studied by others, including one of the archivists at the Chester County Historical Society. All reached the same conclusion that Hoopes' personal papers did not survive in any accessible collection (i.e. library or archive). It is possible that they are still in the hands of one of his descendants, but he married late (at age 66) and fathered only one child before he died. That child, Josiah Morgan Hoopes, grew up in West Chester, but he died in 1972 and efforts to locate his daughters produced no results.

For more information on the Purple Martin Preservation Alliance, visit their web site or write to them at 2322 Buchanan St., Natrona Heights, PA 15065.

Wind Turbine started out making wind-driven water pumps -- the kind you once saw throughout the American Midwest. By 1948 the company occupied part of the Hoopes Brothers & Darlington wagon wheel plant on E. Market Street, where they made steel towers for a variety of uses, but especially to support radio antennas. Their brand name -- Trylon is still in production today in Canada, but for several decades, Wind Turbine of West Chester was a major player in the steel tower industry.

The article suggested a small mystery -- why did the two West Chester men make such a long trip? There was a market for wind- driven pumps in Nevada where surface water was scarce, while radio antennas supported communication across long, empty stretches, and towers marked airfields for cross-country air routes. None of these uses justified the expense of sending a truck from West Chester to Nevada and then back again empty. It would have made more sense to load the equipment on a train -- the tracks were right next to the Wind Turbine factory -- and ship it across country by railroad. Major rail lines reached stations in both northern and southern Nevada, from whence a local truck could have easily delivered a 10-ton load.

Thanks to a bit of detective work, WCJIM was able to determine the cause. A 1956 profile of the T. E. Smith & Son trucking company described some of the firm's most unusual loads including "special equipment in connection with the government's atomic device tests" at the "U. S. Atomic Proving Grounds" at Frenchman's Flat, Nevada. According to Wikipedia, in January 1951 the US government established the Nevada Proving Ground near Las Vegas and started a series of nuclear tests that lasted for the next forty years. A local man who knew both Knox and Smith recalled the load -- a steel tower that was tested by assembling it at the corner of Market and Worthington Streets, and then disassembled for shipment out West. It is not clear what happened next, but the tower may have been the one used to detonate an H-bomb at a specific altitude on October 22, 1951. Unfortunately, the bomb failed to explode, so after that scientists relied on air drops and underground tests.

As a result, Wind Turbine got no more contracts for nuclear testing towers, although they got plenty of other government contracts for radio antennas, radar antennas and "Bomarc towers" (an early anti-missile system). Wind Turbine eventually moved out of the Borough in the late 1960s to a larger manufacturing site near Elverson. Meanwhile, the Nevada Proving Ground (later called the Nevada Testing Range) eventually hosted more than 900 atomic explosions, but that ended in September 1992.

Using the knowledge they gained from their trip out West, both Knox and Smith continued to operate their trucking companies and offered advice to anyone who wanted em make a trip out West. Eventually, small trucking firms like their's were overtaken by the same forces that did away with mom-n-pop groceries and independent movie theaters. Knox's company -- Knox & Marshman -- and Smith's company were both bought out by the Phoenixville trucking firm of Kulp & Gordon.

The 1870 history was written by Joseph J. Lewis and placed in a hollowed-out cornerstone of "Old Main Hall," the school's first building. It remained there for a century while the school added to is original ten acres, constructed additional buildings, and grew from 600 to over 9,000 students. When Old Main was demolished in 1972, workers searched for the cornerstone without success. Later, it turned out that a worker had carried it off, thinking it might contain money, but when he discovered that all it contained was old papers, he arranged for its return to what was then known as West Chester State College.

You can read the complete text of Lewis' history. His original spelling has been maintained, so be prepared to recognize "scite" as site, read "ameable" as amiable, and ignore missing punctuation marks and irregular capitalization. Using the minutes of the Academy's board plus his own recollections, Lewis described a number of events familiar to fans of West Chester history including the construction of the West Chester Academy Building on Gay Street across from St. Agnes R.C. Church, the appointment of Humpgrey Marshall's son to the board, financial problems at the Academy, and the role played by the namesakes for a number of Borough streets including Charles Miner, Dr. William Darlington, and Anthony Bolmar.

Here's the context for Lewis' history. The concept of a "normal school" was derived from French institutions known as écoles normales which specialized in preparing teachers. Various Pennsylvanians saw a need for such a school, and as Lewis described, West Chester's first "normal school" was a private operation founded by Dr. Franklin Taylor, Dr. Elwood Harvey and Professor Fordyce A. Allen in 1852, which lasted until 1864. Meanwhile, in 1857, the state legislature passed "the Normal School Act" which divided the state into twelve districts and grouped the counties of Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Bucks into the "First District." The legislation provided no money with which to start a normal school, but it guaranteed teaching certificates to graduates as long as the school met certain physical requirements: a minimum of ten acres of ground, at least 300 students, and a hall large enough to accommodate 1000 people. It also had to have at least six professors plus enough tutors and assistants, and a "model school" (in which to practice teaching) that could accommodate 100 students.

The Civil War interrupted everything, but in 1869, a committee of prominent citizens met in March and organized a company to form a normal school in West Chester. A total of 74 investors bought $50,000 in stock subscriptions and raised $28,000 from the sale of the West Chester Academy property. With $15,000 from the state and a loan of $20,000, they raised a total of $113,000 and bought ten acres (at $1000/acre) on a small hill south of town, which ended at Union Street in those days. They paid local contractors Yarnall & Cooper about $80,000 to construct what J. S. Futhey described as "a massive structure, constructed of the beautiful serpentine stone so abundant in this region" using a design by architect Addison Hutton (who also designed the four greenstone mansions on W. Virginia Ave" in the north end of the Borough). Lewis' "History" was read on September 13, 1870 at the ceremony for the laying of the cornerstone, and then sealed within the building until 1972.