Published Friday, Nov. 26, 1999 The New Wilmington History Book Committee is looking for any and all information about New Wilmington and the surrounding area. "If you have old photos, diaries, letters, books, articles, maps, or anything else that relates to the town and area, we would be happy to receive them from you," said Alan Sternbegh, a committee member. All items will be returned to their owners when the group is finished.
Address all correspondence to "History Book," and send to Box 182, New Wilmington 16142. Include your name, address and phone number, and describe what material you have (letters, photos, etc.) If you have no material but know someone who does, the group would appreciate that information, too, along with a point of contact, Sternbergh said.
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But there's more to the town than that. There's a long, rich history of the settlers who came and the families who stayed, generation after generation. That's the history a group of five men -- with some help from college students, churches, and enthusiastic town folk -- are working to record and write.
The New Wilmington History Book Committee, formed this year, is Dr. Eugene Sharkey, Westminster history professor; Dr. Delber McKee, professor of history emeritus and curator of cultural artifacts; Dr. Dewey DeWitt, professor of chemistry emeritus and curator of archives; Paul Gamble, associate professor of English emeritus, and college historian; and Alan Sternbergh, former director of the college placement office.
The idea for the book came out of a casual discussion among the group. Now they're gathering material and information, planning to compile it all in book form in three or four years.
The compilation process is a daunting task, Sharkey notes. Some contributors have offered boxes of letters, waiting to be sifted through for bits of insights about life in New Wilmington a few decades ago. There are other bits of New Wilmington in history books of both Lawrence and Mercer counties, and a lot of New Wilmington in early histories of the Neshannock Presbyterian Church. More, much more, will come from interviews with current and former residents to glean family histories.
One of Sharkey's classes, a junior history seminar at Westminster, is working on some segments of the research; Sharkey said that if the students' work is professional enough, it will be credited in the book. While that research goes on, each member of the Book Committee will have other areas to explore, and various community and civic groups to contact for more information.
New Wilmington Borough Council has donated filing space at the borough building and is allocating $1,000 in its 2000 budget for expenses for the book project. Local churches are helping to distribute questionnaires to area residents. The book project may have originated with a small group, Sternbergh noted, but in the end it will be the result of a large group effort.
As to what this written history will look like -- well, the men already have definite ideas as to what it won't be.
"We want it to be forthright and engaging," Sharkey said, "not sterile or antiseptic."
Having some personal narratives is important to Gamble; keeping it readable is important to DeWitt. All of them want it to be "something other than a strictly structural framework," as Sharkey put it.
They hope to capture the essence of the town as well as its history, Sharkey and Sternbergh said, an essence they describe as a "cohesiveness," a "goodness," a feeling of "everyone helping each other."
Both men are well aware of the various nicknames for New Wilmington; in surrounding communities the little town is sometimes called Happy Valley, Bible Junction, and even The Holy City -- "and that's not necessarily meant as a compliment," Sharkey noted with a laugh.
Whatever the viewpoint, it will be added to the overall picture of New Wilmington, the men said, and it's a project that's important to them.
"There's something special about New Wilmington," Sharkey observed, "something that's demanding of preservation."
