The Terrible Catsafterme

The last day that Bob and I spent on the road of our weeklong road trip through Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey came on Saturday, June 19, 2009. There were just a few places left on our itinerary that we needed to hit, and then there were a few select locations that had been on Bob’s to-do list since our last Ohio road trip. And finally, there were a couple of spots that we had in fact visited during that trip, but since Bob’s digital camera had dropped his photos of these places, he needed to see again.

We awoke that morning in the Super 8 Motel in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. I polished off my leftover chicken pizza from the night before and we were on the road by 9am. The reason we had chosen to stay in the city was that there was one final grave to visit – that of Arthur St. Clair (1737-1818), the 15th President of the Continental Congress, known at that time as the Confederation Congress.

St. Clair actually had served in the British Army during the French and Indian War, but eventually settled in Pennsylvania and rose to the rank of major general in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He is buried in a nice park called the Old St. Clair Cemetery – not to be confused with the St. Clair Cemetery, although we certainly confused them as we were searching.

The Masonic monument denoting the burial site of Arthur St. Clair, 15th President of the Continental Congress

A statue found in the Old St. Clair Cemetery. Not only was General Nathanael Greene the namesake of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, but also Greene County where I live

From Greensburg, Bob and I traveled to a city with the unlikely name of Indiana, Pennsylvania. It had turned into another rainy day by the time we arrived. The city itself was laid out by Declaration of Independence signer George Clymer.

This was also the hometown and birthplace of  legendary actor Jimmy Stewart. There is a very nice museum honoring the life and career of Stewart located on the the third floor of the Indiana Public Library (the photo at the top, with Harvey, was taken just outside the entrance to the museum). Interestingly, on the site of the museum once stood a hardware store owned and operated by Jimmy’s father. Outside the nearby courthouse was an Indiana County War Memorial and a bronze statue of Jimmy Stewart.

Jimmy Stewart statue in Indiana, Pennsylvania

The entrance to the Jimmy Stewart Museum

Stone monument found in the entrance to the library

Housed inside the museum are a wealth of movie memorabilia, artifacts, personal belongings, a theater for film screening, and letters to and from Jimmy Stewart. His Hollywood office was also recreated using his personal belongings including his desk, one of his Oscars, his (yikes!) autopen machine, and other belongings. Photos were not permitted in the building, but Bob and I snuck a couple of this office.

View of Jimmy Stewart’s office. The autopen is located behind the photo at left

Another view of Stewart’s office. Note his Lifetime Achievement Oscar on the shelf.

One of the booths from Chasen’s, a Beverly Hills restaurant known as the hangout for many Hollywood luminaries over the years. The Academy Awards party was often held there.

Bob find a book about It’s a Wonderful Life by our mutual friend Steve Cox in the gift shop

We browsed the museum for about an hour and then scouted out one of Stewart’s former family homes. We didn’t have any luck with the house, but we did manage to located a plaque indicating where the home stood where Stewart was born. Only a small part of the front stoop remained.

The porch steps are all that is left of the birth home of James Stewart

Bob and I then headed westward about an hour and made a quick stop in Pittsburgh at the Saint John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery. Here we re-visited the grave of pop art entrepreneur Andy Warhol. We had visited here before on July 30, 2008 – but this was one of the photos that Bob lost. I made sure that I snapped one as well, so that we could finally wash our hands of this location.

Bob re-visits the grave of Andy Warhol. The soup cans seem to have multiplied since our last visit.

This was our last location in Pennsylvania and within an hour we making a stop in Steubenville, Ohio. Although this had been on Bob’s list last time, we never made it here. There were a couple of interesting markers to see in this city: two historical marker denoting Steubenville as the birthplace of  both Dean Martin and Edwin M. Stanton. Stanton, who was the Secretary of War during most of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era also has a nice statue.

Historical marker honoring Dean Martin

Marker indicating Abraham Lincoln’s visit here on February 14, 1861, on his way to Washington D.C., where he would be inaugurated as President two and a half weeks later

Monument to Lincoln’s Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton

Although it was closed for the day, we swung by Cadiz, Ohio for another repeat visit to the birth home of Clark Cable (which we had previously visited on July 30, 2008 as well). Again, this was a result of Bob having lost his digital image of the prior visit.

Bob’s head in Cadiz

Behind the scenes as I make sure that Bob gets his shot this time

Once we hit Route 70, it wasn’t hard to make a pit stop in Zanesville, Ohio to see the historical marker to Zane Grey. There was still plenty of daylight as it was about 7pm by this time. Grey was a popular western novelist in the early part of the century and is credited with many stores that became early western films.

Historical marker in Zanesville, Ohio

Although we had to dip south of Route 70 through some windy back roads for about 45 minutes, we made our very final stop of the road trip in Fultonham, Ohio, to check out the marker indicating the birthplace of Thomas Hendricks, who served as Vice President under Grover Cleveland for just eight months in 1885 before he died. I had been trying to avoid Vice Presidential birthplace…but whatever. I had already seen his grave in Indianapolis the summer before. This was a most interesting stop as it is the only historical marker I have ever seen at the cost of being annoyed by horses.

The horses and I check out the birthplace of Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks

An hour later, we were making our dinner stop near Columbus at the Cracker Barrel where I had the smallest meal of the trip, just two eggs. We arrived back at my house at around 10:00 that night, and I was frankly thoroughly exhausted. It had been a great trip during which we had covered a tremendous amount of ground and seen an amazing number of things.

Back at Cracker Barrel again, our final meal on the road

But although the road trip was over, Bob still had some more he wanted to see around Dayton. I begrudgingly agreed to get up once again to check out some of the sights to be found in my own backyard.

The week will conclude in Dayton in the next posting…

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 6:50 am and is filed under 2000's - Late, Historical Locations, Vacations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.