Attention, history buffs!

Two writers who specialize in Pennsylvania historical themes will give a free public talk about 18^th century travelers who left detailed written accounts of trips that took them through the confluence of the Susquehanna River.

Journalist RB Swift will talk about the 1743 journey of three colonial Pennsylvanians – naturalist John Bartram, frontier diplomat Conrad Weiser and mapmaker Lewis Evans – along with Iroquois viceroy Shikellamy along the Tulpehocken Path to Shamokin at modern Sunbury/Northumberland and on to Onondaga, the Iroquois capital at present-day Syracuse N.Y.

Storyteller/author John L. Moore will portray Thomas Cooper, a lawyer from London, who traveled through Central Pennsylvania in late 1793, and visited Sunbury and Northumberland in mid-December. “Some Information Respecting America,” a book he published in 1794, offers detailed descriptions of the isolated villages and the people that he met there.

Gretchen Walberg will give a brief overview of the restoration of the 1790s log house located at 96 King Street at Sheetz Avenue, where the Saturday, May 12, program will take place. The cabin is across from the Priestley-Forsythe Memorial Library, Northumberland.

Weather permitting, the hour-long presentation, which will begin at 2 p.m., will take place in front of the house.

Cooper liked the region so well that later in 1794, he returned to live there, along with his friend, Joseph Priestley. Moore will give a dramatic reading of selected passages from Cooper’s little-known book.

The trio of Pennsylvanians on this quasi-diplomatic, quasi intelligence-gathering mission were Indian negotiator Conrad Weiser, botanist John Bartram and mapmaker Lewis Evans.

Swift is the author of "The Mid-Appalachian Frontier: A Guide to Historic Sites of the French and Indian War."

Moore has self-published five books about the Pennsylvania frontier. They include “Traders, Travelers & Tomahawks.”

More information is available  by calling (570) 473-9803