Future topics in the series of history talks that Tony Brooks is giving include architecture, Revolutionary War veterans, leading women, and the Agnes Flood of 1972.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader Photo
With the image of a portrait projected on the wall behind him, historian Tony Brooks shares insight about area residents of the past with a crowd at the Friedman Jewish Community Center on Tuesday
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader Photo
With a portrait of George Catlin projected on the screen, historian Tony Brooks talks about how the artist, born in Wilkes-Barre, showed hundreds of portraits of Native Americans in London and then in Paris.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader Photo
Why did Charles Stegmaier dig into a hillside in the Heights section of Wilkes-Barre to build his brewery in the 1800s?
Why, to keep the beer at a steady temperature, historian Tony Brooks told an appreciative crowd at the Friedman Jewish Community Center on Tuesday afternoon.
How did Mayor Dan Hart, a Democrat in a staunchly Republican town like 1920s Wilkes-Barre, manage to be elected three times?
The speakeasy on the third floor of his family’s mansion may have had something to do with it, Brooks suggested.
Stegmaier and Hart were just two of dozens of historic area residents whose lives Brooks discussed — and whose portraits he projected onto a wall — during the first in a series of five history talks scheduled for Tuesday afternoons from 1 to 2:30 p.m. through Aug. 4.
“OK, next week it’s architecture,” Brooks said at the conclusion, reminding the approximately 70 people in his audience about the July 14 topic.
If you would like to sign up for the remainder of the series, JCC president Jane Messinger said, you are welcome to join the group. The $50 cost for the series goes toward the Sara’s Table food pantry, which operates out of the JCC, and will also benefit the Wilkes-Barré Preservation Society, which Brooks founded.
Tuesday’s session was titled “History of Wilkes-Barre and the Wyoming Valley Through Portraiture Art,” and Brooks showed more than 40 images of portraits, some of which hang on the walls of local libraries or are in private collections.
The portrait of one George Matson Hollenback had been painted by a Philadelphia artist named Samuel DuBois in the 1840s, Brooks said, adding DuBois used to advertise in newspapers that he would paint your likeness for $15.
George Matson Hollenback was a wealthy landowner and served in the state legislature. “He was the Eddie Day of his times,” Brooks said, adding that Hollenback’s father, Matthias, was a merchant who owned more than one store along the Susquehanna River. “He was the Al Boscov of his day.”
George Hollenback’s middle name may have indicated that he was “Matthias’ son,” Brooks said, and nowadays, “you can find his entire name” on signs in the Parsons section of Wilkes-Barre, where busy George Avenue and quieter Matson Avenue are near Hollenback Park.
Other family names are reflected in the street names of other neighborhoods, Brooks said, mentioning Reynolds and Butler, Chester and James, Rutter and Parrish, Conyngham and Dorrance and Nesbitt.
One of wealthy Abram Nesbitt’s accomplishments was to buy Charles Dorrance’s homestead in the early 1900s, and establish the Nesbitt Memorial Hospital on the Kingston site.
Earlier, John Welles Hollenback had donated the land along River Street in Wilkes-Barre for what was to become Wilkes-Barre General Hospital.
John Welles Hollenback, incidentally, wasn’t the son of George Matson Hollenback, but he did become his heir, Brooks said, after the elder Hollenback interviewed each of six nephews to decide which one deserved his fortune. The younger man then began to use his mother’s maiden name as his last name.
The elder Hollenback hoped the family surname would continue, but John Welles Hollenback never had any sons with any of his three wives. So the name didn’t continue into subsequent generations after all.
Brooks shared many other stories — from King Louis-Phillippe of France telling Wilkes-Barre artist George Catlin that he was familiar with this part of Pennsylvania, having visited French Azilum as a young man, to Charles Miner of Wilkes-Barre introducing legislation in Congress in 1828 to abolish slavery. “It didn’t pass,” Brooks said. “Daniel Webster told him, ‘You are going to set this country on fire.’ It happened, but not until 33 years later.”
On Tuesday, JCC president Jane Messinger introduced Brooks as a master storyteller, and members of the audience agreed with that assessment.
“I loved it,” said Barb Deitrick of Wilkes-Barre. “I was so impressed with the amount of knowledge he spouted.”
Remembering with a laugh that she had not done well in fifth-grade history, Rose Geiser of Mountain Top said, “Now I can’t get enough of it.”
The series will continue on Tuesday afternoons at the JCC, 613 S.J. Strauss Lane in Kingston.
Future topics include:
• July 14, Building Wilkes-Barre: 250 Years of Architecture
• July 21, Revolutionary War Veterans of Wilkes-Barre
• July 28, Leading Women: Emily Post, Dorothy Dickson, Ellen Webster Palmer, and More
• Aug. 4, Agnes 50 — A Documentary on the Flood of 1972
For more information or to register, visit: tinyurl.com/jcc-tony-brooks.
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