Lectures
1:00 PM
American Philatelic Society
PHILIP RUTH
Seeking Sanctuary: How Centre County Figured in Fallout from the Harpers Ferry Raid
John Brown’s ill-fated 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry sent a handful of surviving raiders escaping northward along Underground Railroad pathways long traveled by Black freedom seekers. This illustrated lecture follows Brown’s son Owen and his companions as they elude capture by scrambling “like hunted beasts” through the wilds of south-central Pennsylvania into Juniata, Huntingdon, and Centre Counties, hoping to reach Bellefonte and find refuge there among “our friends [the] Quakers, being great antislavery people.” Built around Owen Brown’s vivid reminiscences—including his accounts of stealthy visits to Quaker farms in the Kishacoquillas and Halfmoon Valleys—the presentation draws on historic maps, photographs, illustrations, and other firsthand testimony to recreate the turbulent cultural and geographic landscape of central Pennsylvania and particularly Centre County in the build-up to the Civil War.
3:00 PM
American Philatelic Society
JON MICHAEL NESE
Weather and the Gettysburg Campaign
This presentation unveils the first attempt to quantify the weather during the entire Gettysburg Campaign, June 3 to July 14, 1863. New findings about the Battle of Gettysburg will be presented, but attention is also given to an historic heat wave in mid-June as the armies moved northward through Virginia as well as the heavy rains that trapped Robert E. Lee's retreating army at Williamsport, Maryland for a week.
6:00 PM
St. John’s Episcopal Church
WILSON OKELLO
Frederick Douglass Speech
Description
Union Cemetery Tour
6:00 PM
CHUCK YOUNG
Union Cemetery Tour
The 2026 Union Cemetery tour during Bellefonte’s Civil War weekend will include about a dozen of the Civil War soldiers buried on its grounds. The only repeats from last year’s tour will be Governor Andrew G. Curtin, General James A. Beaver and Medal of Honor recipient George W. Harris. The tour will last about one hour and will be the same each day of the weekend. Wear comfortable walking shoes and dress for the weather as we will go rain or shine. If the weather is very hot, please bring your own water and stay hydrated.