Kathryn Clark: Bucks County Pennsylvania

There's a nice little article today in The Intelligencer on Kathryn Clark, who worked more than 25 years as an editor and reporter for The Intell and for The Courier, our sister paper down in Levittown.

She's recently completed a book, a 128-page hardcover called "Bucks County, Pennsylvania."

Here's the article:

Author pens intimate portrait of Bucks
By Christopher Ruvo [Hi Chris! — Rayna]
Correspondent

Kathryn Finegan Clark has Bucks County in her blood.

Born in Bristol, the Durham resident’s family roots reach back to the 1850s and her husband’s local lineage extends to an English ancestor who arrived here in 1682 — months before William Penn.

For more than 25 years, Clark covered Bucks as an editor and reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times and The Intelligencer, getting to know all the county’s interesting nooks from Riegelsville to Bensalem.

Given that background, you could argue Clark, a Barnard College graduate, was the perfect person to write the book she recently completed: “Bucks County Pennsylvania,” a 128-page hardcover that explores captivating aspects of the county’s 330-year history through story-essays and nearly 200 pictures.

“I regard the book as a very personal, intimate portrait of a county I’ve always loved,” said Clark. “I wrote what I wanted to write about the beauty, the energy, the durability of my favorite places.”

Taking readers on a journey from Lenape villages through the Space Age, the book goes far beyond the standard stone-farmhouse-and-covered-bridge guidebook fare and delivers fascinating — and little known — insight into the local past.

There’s an account, for example, of what may be the oldest continually running men’s club in the world. Formed in Bensalem in 1732, the State in Schuykill began as a fishing and eating club for the wealthy. While George Washington wasn’t a member, he is believed to have been a guest of the club.

“It still operates today under ancient rules and remains limited to only 25 members,” said Clark, who took most of the photographs featured in the book.

During her research, Clark found interesting connections between the past and present. The Lenape Indians — the indigenous, pre-European residents of what would become Bucks County — sported tattoos, had indoor and outdoor fireplaces, always washed up before bed, and made summertime family trips to the shore.

“In many of their practices they were so much like us,” said Clark, who notes the Lenape were also “the ultimate recyclers.”

A veteran writer for newspapers and magazines, this is Clark’s first book. It will be available by August through Schiffer Publishing Ltd., online retailers, and bookstores. Clark hopes the work proves entertaining and edifying, informing residents and interested outsiders about the county she always fondly has called home.

Said Clark: “I really hope people from the upper end and the lower end realize what a great place the whole county is.”