Pulpit Rocks

Nothing further from the county histories. The six histories held here end in 1913 and this story belongs to 1993, so there is no passage in them that bears on it. Rather than attach an unrelated page and let it look like corroboration, this story stands on the sources listed below.

Checked against the record. SOURCE UPGRADED. This story previously rested on Wikipedia alone. It now rests on the National Historic Landmark nomination itself (NRHP ref. 93001614), plus I. C. White's 1885 report for the Second Geological Survey, which is in the project corpus. CREDIT CORRECTED. The original gave the discovery to John Frazer alone. The nomination gives it to three men: the rocks 'profoundly represent an understanding achieved by Henry D. Rogers, the director of the first survey and his two assistants, James C. Booth and John F. Frazer.' Frazer was an assistant, not the man on his own. NUMBER CORRECTED. The original said 'several layers of sandstone.' The nomination is specific: the 1836 survey found 'there were in fact three ridge forming sandstones, not just one as previously thought.' MEASUREMENT CORRECTED. The original said the pillars sit 'about ten feet apart.' White's 1885 report, quoted in the nomination, says 'isolated piles of rock 50' high, with passage-ways from one to ten feet wide between them.' Ten feet is the top of the range, not the typical gap. SHARPENED, all from the nomination: the watercolour is by George Lehman, it was the FRONTISPIECE to Rogers's 1858 final report rather than merely 'in it', and Lehman is 'commonly believed' to be the first professional artist hired by a state or federal survey to sketch sites for government reports. That hedge is the nomination's own and is carried through rather than upgraded. Juniata College owns the MAJOR section, donated by the Africa family, with the remainder held by the John V. Eisenberg heirs and used by a local game and hunt club. NHL criteria 1 and 2, theme XIII Science, Earth Science, Geology. LOCATION TIGHTENED: 'between Huntingdon and Alexandria' becomes the nomination's own placement, on Warrior Ridge about a mile and a half northwest of Huntingdon along the old Huntingdon-Hollidaysburg Turnpike. White's 1885 description does place it 'near the road to Alexandria', so the original was not wrong, only vague. CHECKED AND HELD: the designation really is a National Historic LANDMARK, not a National NATURAL Landmark, which is what a geological feature designated in 1993 looks like it ought to be. The nomination is headed 'NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATION' and the designation date is 4 November 1993. The suspicion was checked and did not survive, which is the correct outcome to record.