Delaware Water Gap and Mount Pocono born from tourism

By the late 1880s, the small boroughs of Delaware Water Gap and Mount Pocono were the two largest vacation destinations in Pennsylvania. Visitors descended on these Pocono destination by the thousands each summer, arriving by train from more urban areas. Visitors leaving the local train stations scattered to stay at the many hotels and boarding houses that the area had to offer. Read More...

Graves photographs Delaware Water Gap

Delaware Water Gap, both as a town and a natural geological landmark, has been featured as the subject of numerous pieces of artwork, stories, poems, and photographs. For years, visitors have been drawn to this small mountain community. Jesse A. Graves was no different. Read More...

The Legend of Lover’s Leap

An old tale from Monroe County’s history recounts the legend of a love between and Indian princess and an early Dutch settler. The story, which may or may not be true, was first recorded in Luke W. Brodhead’s 1870 book, The Delaware Water Gap, Its Legends and Early History. As the story goes, Princess Winona was the beloved and only daughter of Chief Wissinoming, the noble leader of the Minisink. While the chief ruled all of the land along the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers to the Atlantic Ocean, the headquarters of the tribe was located near Shawnee Island and present-day Smithfield Township, Monroe County. Read More...

Delaware Water Gap part of 'Peaceable Kingdom'

Pennsylvania artist Edward Hicks used the Delaware Water Gap as a background for some of his well-known Peaceable Kingdom paintings. Hicks was inspired by Isaiah 11:6, “the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the yearling together; and a little child shall lead them.” Read More...

Brodhead Murder: Part II Trial & Punishment

Last month’s article focused on the Delaware Water Gap tragedy in which one man, Theodore Brodhead, was killed and another man, his brother, Thomas Brodhead, was wounded by William Brooks and Charles Orme. After being caught in Cherry Valley a few hours following the murder, Brooks and Orme were escorted to the Stroudsburg jail to await trial. Read More...

Brodhead Murder: Part I The Crime

On September 25, 1868, Monroe County citizens were shocked by a Delaware Water Gap tragedy in which one man, Theodore Brodhead, was killed and another man, his brother, Thomas Brodhead, was wounded. Read More...

William Penn and Lenape Chief Tammany

The Lenni Lenape were the first inhabitants of the Pocono Mountains area. Long before European settlers called Monroe County home, these Native Americans occupied the land. Indeed, the name Lenni Lenape translates into “the original peoples,” and the term Pocono in the native Lenape tongue means “a river between two mountains.” Because the Lenape did not have a written language, their history was passed from generation to generation by story tellers. The ancestors of the Lenape, the true “original peoples,” were said to have come from the great sea in the west thousands of years before Christopher Columbus. Read More...