There's an old joke around the region that Northeast Pennsylvania is the center of the universe.
That's particularly evident during presidential elections.
As the nation readies to celebrate another Presidents Day, here are a few NEPA presidential connections that underpin that theory.
Joe Biden is a son of Scranton.
Former President Joe Biden is one of two Pennsylvania-born presidents (James Buchanan is the other) and the only president born in Northeast Pennsylvania. He lived with his working-class parents on North Washington Avenue in Scranton. While his family left NEPA for Delaware when Biden was a young boy, he often talks about his early years growing up in Scranton. The city recognizes the former president’s ties with a street and expressway named after him. Even though the decision to change Spruce Street to Biden Street remains controversial, Mayor Paige Cognetti said the city will continue to honor Biden’s Scranton roots.
Ahead of his presidential win in November 2020, Biden stopped in Scranton on Election Day. He later signed the wall of his childhood home "From this house to the White House."
His last stop in Scranton was to campaign for former Vice President Kamala Harris in November at the United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners of America Local 445 union hall.
FROM THE COUNTRY'S BEGINNINGS TO TODAY
Two people with presidential connections are buried in Taylor Memorial Cemetery.
Parley Hughes was a Revolutionary War soldier. Local lore suggests he also served as General George Washington’s bodyguard. He died in 1841 at the age of 87 and was laid to rest in Taylor Memorial Cemetery in Lackawanna County.
Eliza Pulver, also buried in the cemetery, taught President Grover Cleveland as a boy at a grammar school in New York. Cleveland is the only other president besides President Donald Trump to serve two nonconsecutive terms.
A flag stained by Abraham Lincoln’s blood is displayed in the Poconos.
A Pike County museum believes it owns a flag from Ford’s Theater used to cradle President Abraham Lincoln’s head after John Wilkes Booth’s attack. Thomas Gourlay, a theater troupe member, helped doctors carry Lincoln to a boarding house across the street for treatment. He used the flag to cushion the President’s head on the ground of the Presidential Box at the theater. Gourlay gave the flag to his daughter, Jeannie Gourlay Strothers. She later moved to Milford, where she donated the flag to The Columns Museum. The dress she was wearing the night of the assassination is displayed next to the flag. The flag has been authenticated and is known as “The Lincoln Flag."
A musical connection to the 18th president in Williamsport
Retired music teacher Jeff Dent, of the Lock Haven area, leads Williamsport’s Repasz Band. He's a relative of Julia Dent Grant, President Ulysses S. Grant’s wife. The musical group is the longest actively run brass band in the country.
Then-General Grant led the Union to victory in the Civil War and the Repasz Band — spelled Repass Band at the time — enlisted in the Army for the war. Members reported playing during General Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy’s surrender at Appomattox Court House in April 1865, just days before Lincoln's assassination. The band also performed at Grant’s tomb dedication in New York City in 1897. A century later, the band returned and played Civil War music for the tomb’s rededication.
Three presidents have visited the Wyoming Massacre Memorial.
In 1878, Rutherford B. Hayes, the nation’s 19th president, was the featured speaker at an event commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the Wyoming Massacre in Exeter. The Wyoming Commemorative Association sponsors an annual observance of the anniversary on July 3. The event in 1878 was the first. The massacre resulted from the Battle of Wyoming, marking a large loss for American soldiers during the Revolutionary War. On the way to the Wyoming Valley, Hayes also spoke in Bloomsburg. Teddy Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter also have spoken at the monument to honor the lives lost.
Teddy Roosevelt is sort of responsible for the “-” in Wilkes-Barre.
Teddy Roosevelt spoke at a labor conference in Wilkes-Barre on Aug. 10, 1905. During a carriage ride with the president, Bishop John Hoban of Scranton and Mayor Frederick Kirkendall of Wilkes-Barre told him of their frustrations with Wilkes-Barre’s consistent misspelling. Locals spelled it correctly but the postal service and many non-residents refused to, until Teddy came to town and decreed that Wilkes-Barre shall be hyphenated.
JFK made a coal mining town campaign blitz
Before he was president, John F. Kennedy rounded out his 1960 campaign through Eastern Pennsylvania’s coal mining towns, including stops in Pottsville, Hazleton, Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. Retired West Scranton history teacher Nick Petula, 13 at the time, attended the Scranton stop with his father.
“You could hear this roar, almost like in a movie scene. Then he came down Lackawanna Avenue, and it's very clear in my memory, when he made the turn, he was in an open car, standing up in a convertible. My impression of him was that he was just so young looking. He just seemed so vibrant. There were a lot of University of Scranton students there. One of the students gave me one of those plastic straw hats with ‘Kennedy for President’ on it with his picture, which I still have,” Petula said.
Scranton embraced the Irish-Catholic president. JFK Elementary School in the Scranton School District became the first school named after the slain president. His brother, Robert F. Kennedy Sr., attended the dedication ceremony – one of his first public appearances after his brother’s assassination.
Petula, then in high school, attended, met Robert F. Kennedy and shook his hand.
“He had real charisma,” Petula said.
Jimmy Carter’s hometown of Plains, Ga., connected him with friends in Plains, Pa.
Larry and Diane Cook enjoyed a decades-long friendship with former president Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn. They met when the Cooks visited Plains, Georgia, in February 2004 and attended a service at the church where Carter taught Sunday school. The Cooks lived in Plains, Pa. They kept visiting Georgia and eventually decided to raise money to help the small town where Carter still lived renovate itself. In 2011, Carter joined the Cooks for an auction for Plains Better Hometown, an organization that raised money to renovate buildings in Plains, Georgia. “Plains Helping Plains” raised more than $81,000. The president then attended a cocktail reception at the Stegmaier Mansion to celebrate the success of the auction and friends he found hundreds of miles from home.
Hillary Clinton's Scranton roots
Former Secretary of State and first lady to President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton is a Scrantonian by blood. Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, was born and raised in Scranton. Clinton spent summers at Lake Winola, staying in a cottage her father and grandfather built in the 1920s. While her father died outside of the area, his family buried him at Washburn Street Cemetery in Scranton. The Clintons travelled from The White House to Scranton for Rodham’s private family funeral.
Trump often stumped for president in NEPA, but he has friends here, too
President Donald Trump spent a lot of time campaigning in NEPA during all three runs for the nation's highest office. In 2024, Trump made several stops, including in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton.
In 2020, Trump participated in a Fox News Town Hall in Scranton on March 5 at the Scranton Cultural Center and visited Mariotti Building Products in Old Forge and bought a tray of pizza from Arcaro & Genell.
But Trump also counts Scranton dentist Albert Hazzouri as a friend and golfing buddy, calling out his name during a July 2016 appearance at Lackawanna College.
