In honor of America 250, Pennsylvania Postcards will focus on the people, places, and events that best commemorate this U.S. milestone and our Commonwealth's crucial role in it.
Some of the most fascinating people from the time of the American Revolution never saw a battle. Such is the case with a 16-year-old Quaker girl named Sally Wister.
In 1777, the British Army began to occupy the countryside around Philadelphia, where Sally Wister lived with her family. She started keeping a journal, written over a nine-month period and addressed to her best friend Debbie.
Sally documented what historians call an unusual side of war, fascination and anxiety over what would happen next, flirtations with officers, a rare glimpse into life on the home front during that time from a teenage girl point of view.
You can read it for yourself. Sally Wister's journal was eventually published.