PODCAST · history
All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories
by Joe Lex
Tales for taphophiles of permanent residents of Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia and West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cywnyd, Pennsylvania. Often educational, always entertaining.
Episodes
-
From Beagling to Barbaro: Horses, Hounds, the Main Line, and Laurel Hill
BBB:LHWS #061 Horses and foxhunting... ... can be traced from medieval hunting forests to the horse country of Philadelphia’s Main Line. Discover how hounds, riders, breeders, and civic-minded families shaped the Devon Horse Show and the region’s enduring equestrian culture. Along the way, meet…
more -
Frank Whiteside: An Incident on Waverly
ABC:LHS 091-5 Frank Reed Whiteside... ...was an artist and instructor at PAFA who was inexplicably assassinated when he answered his front door one evening. Despite many maddeningly tempting clues, his case remains unsolved nearly a century later.
-
Jacqueline & Emily Powell: When a Mother Kills
ABC:LHS 091-4 Jacqueline Powell... ...was only 10 years old when her mother Emily Lippincott Powell shot her in sleep and then tried to take her own life. Emily spent the rest of her life in Friends Hospital.
-
George Boehm: Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘em
ABC:LHS 091-3 George Boehm... ...was a workman on the Baldwin floor in 1870 when a quarrel with a co-worker led to his own death from a crushed skull and his assailant's trial and imprisonment. This segment walks you through the justice system of 1870s Philadelphia.
-
Roy Wilson White: Three Wrongs Don't Remake Roy White
ABC:LHS #091-2 Roy Wilson White... ...was a gifted young UPenn law instructor who in 1900 was robbed and killed near the campus. Drawing on contemporary newspapers and archival research, the podcast traces how racial panic, sensational reporting, coercive interrogation, and institutional pressure...
-
S. Morris Waln: Red Dog Meets His Maker
ABC:LHS 091-1 Samuel Morris Waln... ...was a wealthy Philadelphian who spent his free time in the "wild west" each summer until he and his companion were murdered in their sleep by their cook and guide. A cross stands in his memory in Wyoming.
-
Murder Most Foul, Part 2; Five More Slain Philadelphians
ABC:LHS #091 Murder was part of the background noise in some areas of Philadelphia. S. Morris Waln, born into one of Philadelphia’s founding families, was murdered by his guide and cook during an annual journey west. His stone at Laurel Hill is melting, while a monument in his honor still rises...
-
(BONUS) A Cabinet of Memory: When a Museum Closes
Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences... ...was open to anyone who wished to meet dinosaurs, birds, shells, fossils and the people who studied them. Now its public doors are closed, and I have come to Laurel Hill East to break that news to more than 50 of the founders, presidents, curators,...
-
From the Silver Streak to Baby Nukes
BBB:LHWS 060 Edward G. Budd and Rupen Eksergian... ...were design and structural engineers who forced the Age of Steam into the Modern Era with their iconic Silver Zephyr Diesel Electric car in 1934. Eksergian took his skills further during the Cold War when he was one of the people behind Atomic...
-
Thomas E. Murphy: A Piece of the 1930s Phillies
ABC:LHS 090-5 Thomas E. Murphy ... ... knew virtually nothing about baseball, but found himself owning hundreds of shares of the Phillies during their horrible years of the 1920s and 1930s. He is remembered more as a yachtsman and a co-founder of Jupiter Island, Florida.
-
OPTIONAL: What's in a (Nick)Name: Casual Othering in Baseball Nicknames
ABC:LHS #090-6 Many early baseball players ... ... were given nicknames that would never be tolerated today. We can never know how these players felt about being saddled with monikers like Chief, Three-Finger, Chico, Dummy, and Richie, based on being "othered."
-
Joseph Howard Berry, Jr.: Penn's Greatest Athlete with a Problematic Nickname
ABC:LHS #90-4 Joseph Howard Berry, Jr. .... ...excelled at baseball, football, track and field, and life. He is in two Halls of Fame. He is little remembered today, partially because of a vile nickname that he carried from his days at Wharton through the rest of his life. His interment location…
more -
Frank Bettger: A Successful Failure
ABC:LHS 090-3 Frank Bettger... (by guest host Rich Wilhelm) ...was a mediocre infielder for the Cardinals who blew out his shoulder and took to selling insurance, at which he was initially less than mediocre. He rebuilt his personality and his life to become one of the best motivational speakers…
more -
Frank Fleer Goes Pink
ABC:LHS #090-2 Frank Fleer... ...did not invent the gum that today carries his name, but his name has become synonymous with the pink chewy glob coveted by children of all ages worldwide.
-
Francis Richter: Voice for Baseball
ABC:LHS #090-1 Francis Richter ... ...was a sportswriter who championed the new game through his newspaper work and the ubiquitous weekly Sporting Life, which was an essential read in the early 20th century. Richter is in the Baseball Hall of Fame ... sort of.
-
Play Ball!, Part 4: The Deep Bench – Oddballs, Owners, and Also-Rans
ABC:LHS #090 We start with three ballpark Franks... ...Francis Richter, whose writing helped to make the game respectable; he is in the Baseball Hall of Hame. ...Frank Fleer, the man who ALMOST invented the pink gum that's accompanied baseball cards for nearly a century. ...Frank Bettger, who…
more -
Jáni Szántó: Violins, Exile, and Hope
BBB 059, part 3 Jáni Szántó... ...was a masterful violinist and instructor who escaped the Nazis with the help of Pope Pius XII and settled in Philadelphia as instructor. One of his old instruments was the "Lord Borwick" Stradivarius, built in 1702.
-
Wilhelm von Wymetal: Opera for Everyone
BBB:LHWS 059-2 Wilhelm von Wymetal ... ... was an Austrian emigree with a dueling scar who took his expertise with opera to Hollywood, where he directed stars like Nelson Eddy & Jeannette McDonald, and to Pittsburgh, where he shepherded the Civic Light Opera through its early days of success.
-
Oscar “Papa” Schwar: Kettledrum Virtuoso
BBB:LHWS 059-1 Oscar "Papa" Schwar ... ... was a German timpanist whom Leopold Stokowski praised as the best in the business. His rumblings and poundings on kettle drums kept the Philadelphia Orchestra on its toes for more than 40 years. You'll hear lots of drumming in this one.
-
Saving Music from the Nazis
BBB:LHWS 059 An estimated 1500 musicians ... ...fled central Europe's political turmoil in the 1930s and 1940s. Tympani player Oscar “Papa” Schwar came from Germany; Leopold Stokowski considered him the best kettledrum player he had ever heard. Wilhelm von Wymetal came from Austro-Hungary…
more -
OPTIONAL COUNTERFACTUAL: USA without Slavery & Immigration
ABC:LHS #089-6 OPTIONAL COUNTERFACTUAL... ...history of the United States when I asked CoPilot to create a country that abolished slavery at its beginning and then limited immigration. It gave me a startling picture of an unrecognizable country. This section is almost exclusively generated by...
-
The 1851 Christiana Riots and Laurel Hill
ABC:LHS 089-5 In 1851, Lancaster County ... ... had become home to many self-emancipated formerly enslaved people. When slave hunters showed up to reclaim their "property," the people of Christiana gathered to protect their own. What resulted was the largest treason trial in United States history.
-
Robert Ralston Stewart and His Broken Urn
ABC:LHS 089-4 Robert Stewart Ralston... ...was attacked and severely wounded by his servant who had been his enslaved valet. The result was destruction of Black neighborhoods.
-
Stephen Duncan: Owning 2200 Human Beings
ABC:LHS 089-3 Stephen Duncan... ...was a Pennsylvanian who became a Natchez planter. Over a 50-year career, he accumulated tens of thousands of acres of land and more than 2200 enslaved human beings. But he firmly believed that slavery worked best under the US legal system and would only be...
-
Germany, Slavery, and John Bohlen
ABC:LHS 089-2 John Bohlen... ...and his brother Bohl made a world for themselves in the colonies as merchants whose offerings including liquor and people. German-speaking immigrants were common in the colonies, but especially in Pennsylvania.
-
Slavery in Colonial Philadelphia
ABC:LHS 089-1 More than 1500 enslaved people... ...lived in Philadelphia at the time the colonies declared their independence from England. Enslaved people shared the streets with indentured servants, freed Blacks, immigrants, visitors, and more than 50 signers of the Declaration of Independence....
-
Slavery and Laurel Hill
ABC:LHS #089 ...slavery was an essential part of the colonial economy. The enslaved people of President George Washington have been in the news recently. John and Bohl Despite Philadelphia's northern location...Bohlen were German immigrants who made their fortunes in the New World dealing with…
more -
Seo Jae-Pil, aka Philip Jaisohn, MD: The Room Where It Happened
BBB:LHWS #058 Seo Jae-pil, aka Philip Jaisohn... ...was the first Korean to become a US citizen, but he never gave up on his lifelong dream to return Korea to its own independence. In 1919, he chaired a Philadelphia meeting that ended with a march through the rain to the room where it happened at...
-
LTG John C Pemberton: The Loss of Vicksburg
ABC:LHS #088-2 GEN John Clifford Pemberton ... ... was a Philadelphian who threw his lot with the Confederacy, despite his graduation from the US Military Academy, where he had briefly roomed with George Gordon Meade. Jefferson Davis put him in charge at Vicksburg, where he was forced to…
more -
MG George Gordon Meade: The Man Who Saved the Union
ABC:LHS #088-1 Major General George Gordon Meade... ...took command of the Army of the Potomac with almost no warning and promptly led it to victory at Gettysburg. But instead of being remembered simply as the general who stopped Robert E. Lee, he spent much of his life defending what he did…
more -
July 4, 1863
ABC:LHS #088 July 4, 1863... ...is the day that the Confederacy knew their days were numbered. At Gettysburg, Philadelphian General George Gordon Meade stopped Pickett's charge and sent Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back south licking their wounds. On the same day, Philadelphian and...
-
Jeff Lee Johnson: Never "Just a Session Man"
BBB:LHWS #057-3 Jef Lee Johnson... ...played with everyone from Aretha Franklin to McCoy Tyner, primarily because he sounded like no one - except for the comparisons to Lonnie Johnson and Jimi Hendrix.
-
Winston Samuels: Israelites
BBB:LHWS #057-2 Winston Samuels McGinnis... ...was a Jamaican singer with a moderately successful career until he backed Desmond Dekker on the worldwide hit "Israelites." He became an accountant in New York City while the reggae that he had helped create took over the music world.
-
Rudolph Hennig: There's Always Room for Cello
BBB:LHWS #057-1 Rudolph Hennig... ...was a German born master of the cello who was the Philaldelphia Orchestra's first cello soloist after he had already been painted by Thomas Eakins. A century after his death, his portrait was again in the news.
-
Three More Musicians from Laurel Hill West
BBB:LHWS #057 Three More LHW Musicians Rudolph Hennig was the first cello soloist for the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1901; a few years earlier, Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins had represented him in oils as The Cello Player, which was used as a bargaining chip more than a century later. Winston...
-
Rev William Smith: Penn's Forgotten Founder
ABC:LHS #087-5 Rev. William Smith... ...was a Scottish-born Anglican who impressed Benjamin Franklin with his ideas about higher education and set up the skeleton and backbone of what became the University of Pennsylvania today, but he made few friends and is little remembered today
-
Hilery Baker: Philadelphia's First "Officer Down"
ABC:LHS #087-4 Hilery Baker... ...was a German immigrant who became two-term mayor during the time when the city was also the nation's capital. He established the first city police force and was the first "Officer Down" in the city's history.
-
Alexander Murray: A Forgotten Commodore
ABC:LHS #087-3 Alexander Murray... ... came from a family that was part of the Scottish diaspora to the New World after the Jacobite Rebellion in the early 1700s. Born in Maryland, he was a ship's captain before he was out of his teens and rose to become a Commodore in the Navy. By the time he...
-
Thomas Godfrey: A New Way to See the Horizon
ABC:LHS #087-2 Thomas Godfrey... ...was one of the New World's first native inventors. While working as a glazier, he was intrigued by the reflection and refraction of light through a shard of glass. This led to his invention that made life on the seas easier and safer, and saved thousands of…
more -
Invitation to an Exhumation
ABC:LHS #087-1 The concept of "celebrity corpses" to attract customers to a cemetery was nothing new. People had been digging up other people for years for legal, political, religious, scientific, and other reasons, so why not for commerce? Many transportable cadavers have made interesting…
more -
Mobile Corpses from the 18th Century
ABC:LHS #087 Even in death, some people don’t rest easy. Someone always wants to dig them up and move them. Though Laurel Hill East opened in 1836, several of its 18th-century dead were buried elsewhere first. First, I trace the many reasons people exhume the dead. And there are plenty. Thomas...
-
George Gerbner: The Man Who Counted Fear
BBB:LHWS #056 George Gerbner... ...was a Hungarian refugee and combat survivor who grew up through the start of European Fascism during the 1930s. His discovered that the power lay with those who controlled the narrative and tell the stories. He used violence as an example to spread his message,...
-
Take Me to the River: A Virtual Tour
River Section starts at the BODE plot Join me on an audio guided tour of the River Section of Laurel Hill West, one of the original four segments when the cemetery opened in 1869. You won't miss and of the fancy mausoleums or Tiffany studio stained glass, since they came later. You will meet the...
-
The Drew / Barrymore Clan at Mount Vernon: Laurel Hill's Next-door Neighbors by Thomas Keels
ABC:LHS #086-4 Drews and Barrymores... ...are among the best-known acting families in the United States. Although many of them started in an alternate final resting place, Louisa Lane Drew, owner-manager of the Arch Street Theater found a final resting place at Mount Vernon. Several years later…
more -
BARMOUTH to PENCOYD
With the warm weather here, you can take advantage of Laurel Hill's location as part of the Trails System that connect the Cynwyd Heritage Trail to the Wissahickon trail system. If you have walked or ridden your bike through West Laurel Hill Cemetery from the entrance just off the Cynwyd Trail…
more -
PENCOYD to BARMOUTH
With the warm weather here, you can take advantage of Laurel Hill's location as part of the Trails System that connect the Cynwyd Heritage Trail to the Wissahickon trail system. Your walk or ride from the Righters Ferry entrance to the Barmouth entrance at the Cynwyd Heritage Trail is less than a...
-
The Potter - Vanuxem Clan
ABC:LHS #086-3 William Potter & Frederick Vanuxem... ... were brothers-in-law and best friends. Potter served as President of Thomas Jefferson University for many years despite the lack of a college degree. Vanuxem left a legacy for Princeton which is still celebrated.
-
Charles & William Kindred: Go West, Young Men
ABC:LHS #086-2 Charles & William Kindred... ...became rich men in railroad land speculation. There is a town named for them in North Dakota. They broke quite a few rules along the way.
-
Francis Sully Darley: The Best Organist in the City
ABC:LHS #086-1 Francis Thomas Lilly Sully Darley... ...was the grandson of the famed portrait painter and married the daughter of locomotive manufacturer Matthias Baldwin. He wrote operas, played the organ, conducted choirs, but his art collection was staggering.
-
A Few Loose Ends: Cleaning Out Some Old Files
ABC:LHS #086 for May 1, 2026 I was tied up with preparing some new tours and could not finish the podcast on the Bible Riots of 1844. I scrounged around and found a few scripts I had written and never used. And then I remembered a segment that Thomas Keels recorded for me for an abandoned…
more
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
Tales for taphophiles of permanent residents of Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia and West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cywnyd, Pennsylvania. Often educational, always entertaining.
HOSTED BY
Joe Lex
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories have?
All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories currently has 150 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories about?
Tales for taphophiles of permanent residents of Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia and West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cywnyd, Pennsylvania. Often educational, always entertaining.
How often does All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories release new episodes?
All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories publishes regularly with 150 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories?
You can listen to All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories?
All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories is created and hosted by Joe Lex.
URL copied to clipboard!