Signatures from past presidents, an old washing machine and a canoe pulled from the Susquehanna River once used by indigenous people are on display at the Luzerne County Historical Society.
The artifacts are part of the society’s new exhibit celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States of America from a local perspective.
"We tried to cover as many topics as possible, and then within those topics expand out with different items, but everything is county related," society director of operations and programs Mark Riccetti Jr. said.
The historical society will offer a talk about the new exhibition, "Celebrating the Semi-Quincentennial 250 Years of History," at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 27. Riccetti will discuss the exhibition’s themes and design process while highlighting some of his favorite objects.
Spoiler alert: some favorites include signatures from two presidents.
The new exhibit took Riccetti more than a year to curate and features 530 items in three galleries.
Many topics covered
Luzerne County was established before the country was founded, he said.
"There was a European settlement here from 1763, but of course, there were Native Americans here long before that," Riccetti said. "So you don't want to just start at 1776 and pretend everything before it didn't happen. That was one of the goals we had for the exhibition.”
A few artifacts date back to the early 1600s and two from 2026.
The exhibit is organized into clusters, Riccetti said. Relics from World War I and World War II are together. Artifacts from textile mills and the garment industry populate another cluster. There’s also sports memorabilia and a section dedicated to the historical society, which Riccetti said is the oldest in the state.
"We tried to cover as many topics as possible, and then within those topics expand out with different items, but everything is county related," he said.
The society has a pot allegedly brought over on the Mayflower, Riccetti said. Art on the wall was created by local artists, including a Robert Lahm oil portrait of Julia, a local Polish immigrant, hanging out her wash.
If you go
The Friday event will start on the first floor.
"I'm going to give everyone an overview of kind of how the exhibition came together, because it really was almost a year-long process,” Riccetti said.
Then, it's upstairs to tell a few more stories and highlight more items.
"It's going to be a little bit more laid back. It's not going to be like a stuffy academic lecture. We want people to get up. We want them to explore the exhibition, and we want them to enjoy it, because America's birthday is everybody's birthday,” he said.
Riccetti said the event showcases how far Luzerne County has come.
"But it's also an opportunity to remember this was an experiment. Many of the founding fathers weren't sure if this was going to work," he said of the founding of the United States.
The talk is free for society members and $5 for non-member adults, which includes museum admission. The museum is at rear 69 S. Franklin St., Wilkes-Barre, behind the Osterhout Library.
