History around us: The Killing of Frank Jones: Murdered by Union Soldiers in Chambersburg, June 1861

​On June 1, 1861, just weeks after the Civil War began, a mob of Union soldiers murdered Frank Jones, a 41-year-old free Black man, in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

Jones lived in Wolfstown, a free Black neighborhood on the western edge of town along West Loudon Street, Washington Street, and Water Street, near the Conococheague Creek. He ran a small hotel and sold whiskey there.

That evening, soldiers from the 2nd and 6th Pennsylvania Infantry tried to force their way into his home. When Jones and his wife Sarah refused them entry, one soldier threw a rock at Sarah’s head. Jones fought back, grabbed a double-barrel shotgun, and shot two soldiers in the legs with buckshot.

He fled out the back and ran north along the creek, across West Market Street, up Franklin Street past Cedar Grove Cemetery, and reached the home of District Attorney George Eyster on Federal Hill, near the intersection of Franklin and Pleasant streets.

Mrs. Eyster hid him in the kitchen chimney, but the soldiers found him and dragged him out. Lieutenant Morgan Bryan of the 7th Pennsylvania Infantry shot him at point-blank range on the front lawn. As Jones attempted to get up and run, Bryan continued shooting and then repeatedly stabbed him with his sword. Other soldiers joined in, firing their weapons and using bayonets. Jones was struck with more than twenty wounds.

Sergeant Michael O’Reilly of the 8th Pennsylvania Infantry wrote home two days later. After describing the chase, he noted that once word spread that soldiers had been shot by a Black man, “then commenced the fun.” His letter reveals the casual, callous attitude some Northern soldiers held toward Black lives in the early days of the war.

Bryan deserted the next day. He surrendered nearly three years later, was convicted only of manslaughter in 1864, sentenced to two years, but served just nine months before being pardoned.

Sarah Jones and their four children, ages roughly two to fourteen, disappear from local records after the murder. Their fate remains unknown.

Today, Wolfstown is the site of the Southgate Mall along Water and West Loudon streets. The Eyster house on Federal Hill was demolished in the 1970s; the site is now an empty yard.

This murder of a free Black man by Union troops in a Northern town has been largely erased from Civil War memory, but he deserves to be remembered.

Stay safe Bob 

Sources:

•  Jake Wynn’s research at wynninghistory.com (primary source for locations and details)

•  Sergeant Michael O’Reilly’s letter, published in the Luzerne Union, June 1861

•  Contemporary accounts in the Semi-Weekly Dispatch and Valley Spirit (Chambersburg newspapers)

•  Trial records and Brian Stamm’s article in the Journal of Franklin County History

Your Bushcraft Gear Is Saving Lives on the Other Side of the World

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Most of us in the bushcraft community carry a LifeStraw or Sawyer filter in our kits because we know clean water can be the difference between life and death in the woods. But there’s another side to these tools that most people never hear about.

It’s easy to live in our bubble. We worry about the next big storm, the perfect bushcraft knife, or finding dry wood. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, millions of children get sick or die every year simply because they don’t have clean water to drink. We don’t see it, so it’s easy to forget it exists.

That little straw in your pack isn’t just a backup for questionable stream water on a weekend hike. LifeStraw took the technology that survivalists trust and turned it into something much bigger. For every product they sell to folks like us, they provide clean water to a child in need for an entire year.

Think about that for a second. Buying a piece of survival gear you were going to get anyway quietly helps a child on the other side of the world drink safe water every single day.

LifeStraw designed durable community systems that serve entire schools — one unit gives up to 100 children clean water for five years. These simple, tough filters match our bushcraft values perfectly: no electricity, easy to maintain, and built to last.

The next time you throw a LifeStraw or Sawyer filter in your pack, remember you’re doing more than preparing yourself. You’re stepping outside your bubble and making a real difference in a part of the world most of us will never see.

Bushcraft has always been about self-reliance. LifeStraw and Sawyer shows us we can practice that same principle while helping others at the same time.

As the Talmud teaches: If you save one life, you save the world.

Stay safe, Bob

History around us: Zion Union Cemetary

On this Memorial Day, we remember the soldiers who never came home — especially those who fought for a freedom they were never promised.

They were the men of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first Black regiment recruited in the North during the Civil War. These were fathers, husbands, and sons who left everything behind to fight for a country that still didn’t see them as equals. Their courage at Fort Wagner in 1863 stunned the nation. They charged into a hail of gunfire, knowing the odds were against them, and gave everything they had.

Among them were dozens of men from the small town of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania — a free Black community just above the Mason-Dixon Line. Eighty-eight local men answered the call, with many joining the legendary 54th and 55th Massachusetts. Today, at least thirty-eight Civil War veterans rest in Zion Union Cemetery in Mercersburg, including thirteen from the 54th — the largest known group from that famous regiment buried together in any private cemetery.

These weren’t just soldiers. They were neighbors who chose to risk their lives for a promise that wasn’t guaranteed to them. They fought so their children and grandchildren could grow up free.

This Memorial Day, as we honor all who gave their lives in service, let us especially remember these men. Their sacrifice helped save the Union and helped end slavery. Their blood helped write the next chapter of American freedom.

Freedom was never free — and these men paid the ultimate price for it. Let us never forget them.

Sacred Gound Stay safe Bob 

Fire: The Spark That Made Us Human

About 1.5 million years ago, our ancestors learned to control fire — and the world changed forever.

Cooking food unlocked massive amounts of energy. Our brains grew, our bodies changed, and we had fuel left for more than just staying alive.

Fire gave us warmth through ice ages, protection from predators, stronger tools, and something even deeper — a place to gather at night. Around that shared flame, language, stories, and culture were born.

It reshaped the planet too. We used fire to clear land, create metal, make pottery, and eventually power the industrial world.

One spark didn’t just help us survive. It made us human.

Early humans started with friction — rubbing sticks together, like the bow drill or hand drill, until the wood glowed and an ember formed. Later came percussion: striking flint against iron pyrite or steel to throw sparks into Chaga, charred or natural tinder.

From rubbing two sticks together to striking a modern ferro rod, the spirit is the same — turning nothing into life-giving flame.

Stay safe, Bob

Standing at Nessmuks Grave

​I finally met one of my writing heroes.

George Washington Sears—Nessmuk—was born in 1821, battled lifelong tuberculosis, and at 59 paddled into the Adirondacks in feather-light canoes despite doctors’ grim predictions. He called it “go light,” lived simply in the wild, healed his lungs, and wrote Woodcraft—a book that taught generations how to travel lightly and respect the woods.

He fought clear-cutting and defended the forests he loved. He died in Wellsboro in 1890 at age 68. His grave marker simply reads NESSMUK.

Visiting him reminded me how one small, coughing man refused to let illness steal his dreams. He chased solitude, found peace among the pines, and fought to protect it. 

In shadowed lungs where TB clenched its fist,

Nessmuk broke free with one determined stroke of the paddle.

His birch canoe sliced through black Adirondack waters

while mist-veiled mountains watched a frail man chase his dream.

No sickbed could hold him. In raw, quiet solitude

he found the peace he’d been searching for,

scribbled his hope across mossy pages,

and begged the axe to leave the ancient woods untouched.

One coughing man, one simple blade,

cheated death on his own fierce terms.

We live soft in our comfort, yet still we ache

to find that same wild breath and pass his light along.

If you’re ever near Wellsboro, stop by the cemetery. Stand there. Say thank you. I did.

Stay safe, Bob

Escape

​The moon slips silver across still water,

frogs chant their low, ancient hymn.

A fish rises — one clean splunk —

and the night swallows it whole.

I sit where the ancestors once piled their stones,

their twilight mounds breathing under moss.

No engines, no voices, just the lake

holding the stars like a quiet promise.

Blood under the desk stays far away.

Here the cycle turns without hurry —

birth, hunger, death, and the soft splash of return.

I breathe, and for once the world lets me.

Stay safe, Bob