Living the History

03/18/2026

Pennepack Baptist Church, founded in 1688 in Northeast Philadelphia by Welsh settlers, is one of the oldest Baptist churches in America. It was a founding member of the Philadelphia Baptist Association (1707), which was the first Baptist association in the colonies.

03/15/2026

03/13/2026

This day in history

On March 13, 1847, Cherokee Nation citizens gathered at Fort Gibson to raise funds for victims of the Irish famine caused by massive potato crop failure. Still recovering from their own forced removal less than a decade earlier, Cherokee Nation citizens donated money to help alleviate mass starvation in Ireland.

Lieutenant Colonel Gustavus Loomis (pictured here later as a brigadier general), commander at Fort Gibson, led the meeting and addressed the crowd. The “Arkansas Intelligencer” reported on the gathering, noting Loomis’s remarks on the “extraordinary distress in Ireland.” The meeting resulted in a $130 donation – equivalent to about $5,000 in 2026.

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.