All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

ABC-LHS #085-4   John Christian Bullitt... ...was a native Kentuckian who was pro-slavery, but who made his career as a Philadelphia lawyer. His constitutional knowledge and skills led to him rewriting the City's Charter, which immediately became known as The Bullitt Bill. He also helped clear Fitz John Porter of his court martial charges 15 years after the fact. His statue has stood at the northw...

ABC:LHS #085-3   John McArthur, Jr.... ...was a Scottish immigrant who specialized in huge buildings that were meant to last a long time. When his massive Philadelphia City Hall was finished, it was the largest building in the Western Hemisphere. Sculptor Alexander Milne Calder honored him with a representation as SCIENCE in the eastern portico. He is naked ... and buff. 

ABC:LHS #085-2  Matthias Baldwin... ...was always good with his hands. He started as a jeweler and progressed to bookbinding before he built one of the first steam engines in the nation. When the Age of Steam emerged, Baldwin became the foremost manufacturer of reliable locomotives that were also works of art. 

ABC-LHS #085-1   Statues Outside City Hall... ... are eight. I talked about the 250 statues inside and attached to Philadelphia's City Hall in ABC:LHS #018-1. Outside at ground level are eight named statues, including two Civil War generals, a martyred US president, a civil rights hero, a merchant king, and two others. Industrialist / capitalist / philanthropist Matthias Baldwin and John Christian...

ABC:LHS #085-0   Philadelphia's City Hall... ...doubles as an art gallery and sculpture garden. More than 250 of Alexander Milne Calder's statues grace the massive walls of the building. But at ground level on the plaza outside the building there are seven more statues, two of them equestrian.  Matthias William Baldwin was a precision jeweler turned locomotive manufacturer who gave away most of hi...

BBB:LHWS #054   Sophie Hutchinson Drinker... ...came from one Philadelphia blueblood family and married into another. I told of the singing parties she and her husband Harry led in their Merion home for 30 years in ABC:LHS 041-1. When Sophie started a woman's choir, she was frustrated when she looked for music by, for, and about women. She made it her life's work to discover how woman had been shu...

ABC-LHS #084-4   Emmy Lou "Clare" Linford Wofford... ...was present at the creation of the United States Peace Corps, along with her husband Harris Wofford, one of John Kennedy's "Best and Brightest." While Harris served as college president and United States Senator, Clare served in the background at three Philadelphia Universities. 

ABC:LHS #084-3 Florence Cowanova... ...was born Cowan, but on the suggestion of dancer Anna Pavlova, she adopted the surname Cowanova. Florence was immersed in dance: father specialized in kinesiology, while her mother handled publicity. She ran a popular studio that staged large recitals at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music, featuring hundreds of students. Thousands of Philadelphia girls fondly rem...

ABC:LHS #084-2   Matilda "Tillie May" Forney... ...gained newspaper experience as her publisher father’s secretary and became a writer known for her “Fashionable Luncheon and Tea Toilets” column, which focused on high society fashion and etiquette. She catered to an affluent audience and discussed topics like French fabrics and social customs.

ABC:LHS #084-1   Emily Elizabeth "E.E." Holman... ...started as a desk clerk in an architect's office but quickly showed her talent in design. She blossomed into a sought-after architect who practiced independently and designed homes, theaters, and institutional buildings over a career of about twenty years.

ABC:LHS #084   Women's History Month 2026 Emily Elizabeth Holman was an accomplished architect who preferred using her initials so as not to disclose her gender. Matilda “Tillie May” Forney followed in the steps of her newspaper publisher father John Forney. She made newspaper work her career at a time when women were barely tolerated in the newsroom. Florence Cowanova was the ballet teacher all t...

BBB:LHWS #053   Walter Livingston, Jr. ... ...is considered Philadelphia's top Black Post-War architect; his masterwork is the Zion Baptist Church on North Broad Street.  A Black architect not buried at Laurel Hil is Julian Abele, whose boss Horace Trumbauer (ABC:LHS 005) employed him as his firm's primary designer.

ABC:LHS #083-4   Mpozi Mshale Tolbert... ...was a West Philadelphia native who became a beloved photojournalist and DJ in Indianapolis. Despite his 6'6" frame and waist-length dreadlocks, he was described by all who knew him as a gentle giant. Two murals of Mpozi exist in Indianapolis’s Broad Ripple and Fountain Square neighborhoods to celebrate his life and work.

ABC:LHS #083-3   Julia Komai ...and her husband Reverend John Komai, son of a Krahn chief, fled their homeland of Liberia during the 1989 coup. John became a community leader for Liberian refugees in the U.S. Julia was a political activist who had been jailed in 1979 for her opposition to human rights abuses; she later served as Assistant Director of the African Unity Conference Center.  

ABC:LHS #083-2   Reverend Leonard Leland Smalls... ...was a Baptist minister who dedicated much of his life to prison ministry and community development. In 1956, he became the first Black minister certified as a prison chaplain in Pennsylvania. His political activism included a 1967 mayoral candidacy focused on consumer fraud issues.

ABC:LHS #083-1   Frances “Mom” Williams... ...was a dedicated neighborhood leader and advocate for seniors and the disabled in Philadelphia. Despite an unsuccessful run for City Council in 1979, her influence extended through her family and her activism, and she left a lasting impact on her city and community.

ABC:LHS #083-0 Black History 2026 Frances “Mom” Williams was a dedicated Philadelphia community leader and activist who ran for City Council in 1979 with a focus on seniors and neighborhood safety. Her son Hardy and grandson Anthony both became State Senators.   Rev. Leonard Leland Smalls became the first Black minister certified as a prison chaplain in Pennsylvania. Smalls associated with Martin...

BBB:LHWS #052   Mary Scarpone Costanza... ...was raised Roman Catholic and claimed she never met a Jew until she went to Temple University. She developed an interest in art that had been produced by victims of the Nazi Holocaust. It turned into her life work.

ABC:LHS #082-5  Samuel Patch Frankenfield... ...apprenticed as a cabinetmaker and then used his skills as a coffin manufacturer to become an undertaker with a thriving practice. Care of the dead had been in the hands of women for centuries before men realized that money could be made in the field. 

ABC:LHS #082-4  Thomas Hewson Bache... ...co-founded CHOP, the first children’s hospital in the United States. But he also served as a Major in the Medical Corps involved in the Gettysburg Campaign when he was taken as a prisoner of war. He also served as curator of the Mütter Museum and oversaw significant acquisitions like the Joseph Hyrtl skull collection. Script by Russell Dodge, narration by...

ABC:LHS #082-1   Daniel Pabst... ...was a prominent 19th-century Philadelphia cabinetmaker known for his exceptional craftsmanship and distinctive designs. His work served affluent and much has been preserved at PMA. His partnership with Frank Furness was a boon to both.   

ABC:LHS #082-2 Henry Hagert...  ...was the Philadelphia lawyer who unsuccessfully prosecuted the accused killer of pioneering African American leader Octavius Valentine Catto, who was assassinated in 1871 during violent election-day riots. The whole story is told here. 

ABC:LHS #082-1  Martha Coston... ...significantly advanced maritime communication when she developed pyrotechnic signal flares that could be seen day and night. Her invention vastly improved naval operations and safety at sea.

ABC:LHS #082-0   Happy 2026 200th birthday to... ...Martha Coston, who used her husband's notes and reputation to invent airborne signal flares that saved thousands of lives. ...Henry Hagert, assistant District Attorney when he unsuccessfully prosecuted a man for the murder of Civil Rights Activist Octavius V. Catto. ...Daniel Pabst, the finest cabinetmaker in town; people waited years for him to...

BBB:LHWS #051-4   James "Jimmy" Bland... ...is NOT buried at Laurel Hill, but he serves as a logical link between minstrelsy and mummery. Many people called him the "Black Stephen Foster," and songs he wrote like "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" and "Hand me down My Walking Cane" have become standards. One of his more popular tunes, "Oh Dem Golden Slippers" became the theme song for Philadelphia Mu...