Carly Plesic is currently an Early American History: Quakers intern for Pleasant Hill Historians for the Spring of 2021 cohort. Carly’s hometown is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She is working towards his Master of Arts in History at Duquesne University.
Our mission in the Spring of 2021 is to continue research into the history of Quakertown from its humble beginnings in 1798 to its eventual downfall in 1930. In addition to research, we began to look towards Dr. John White’s archaeological excavation for more information about the site. This investigation led us to contacting former students of Dr. White who may have dug at the site that could provide us with their experiences at the site. We also contacted the current archaeology professor at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio, Dr. Matt O’Mansky, to see if he had any field notes Dr. White may have left behind at the University. This led to a visit to Youngstown, where Dr. O’Mansky showed us photo negatives that were taken at the site of former students excavating at Quakertown and gave us scanned copies of the photos. Three columns of shelving full of artifacts that were found during Dr. White’s excavations are still within the holdings at YSU.
Stone formation discovered during Quakertown excavations. 
Quakertown Artifacts Sample.
Other important resources for those interested in learning more about Quakertown will be our annotated bibliography/source material and Quakertown Residents spreadsheet. Over the past few months, our interns myself (Carly) and Aidan have been working to create a comprehensive list of all available primary and secondary source material on the site. This will provide community members with one website to learn more about different aspects of Quakertown including topics such as its beginnings, the underground railroad/abolitionist movement, and industrial growth. Our Quaker Residents spreadsheet will also be useful for community members who may have ancestors who lived in Quakertown. The goal of this spreadsheet is to list everyone who has lived in Quakertown including dates of their arrival and exit. Not only useful for genealogical searches this spreadsheet has potential to provide researchers easy access to demographic information on residents which they can use to run analyses on birth/death rates, population increase/decrease, and ethnicity.
Another project we have completed this spring is mapping out the locations of the gravestones we discovered over the summer by our Summer 2020 Cohort. Aidan utilized Microsoft Word to graph out the relative location of each grave to one another and matched the graves with photographs taken in the field. As we learn more about the residents of Quakertown through our research, we will be able to better identify who was buried there. The cemetery could also benefit from ground penetrating radar analysis to further identify those buried there whose headstones are no longer present at the site. This additional project could be done through partnership with a local college/university.
Quakertown Cemetery 2020 stakes were placed near possible gravestones. 
Quakertown gravestone locations graphed via Microsoft Word.
We look forward to further investigations and analysis of the artifacts that are currently housed at YSU. Should anyone have assisted with the previous digs, please contact Pleasant Hill Historians and we would love to include your knowledge of the site in our research thus far.
Images:
Header Image: Postcard of “Quaker Falls” posted in News Castle News Article 2017
YSU Quakertown Collection, Photo Negatives
Artifact Photo taken by intern Carly Plesic
Quakertown Cemetery taken by Andrew Henley
