Photo by Greg Reedy
Author James Burke signs a copy of his book “Pioneers of Second Fork” Wednesday night at the Elk County Historical Society in Ridgway. 

For Burke, penning account was an adventure.

By Greg Reedy

Record Sports Editor

James Burke, author of “Pioneers of Second Fork,” spoke at the Elk County Historical Society Wednesday night, detailing some of his research behind the book and some oral history discovered with his journey.
The book was published in May 2009 and work on the book started in the 1960s. He said research has taken him to numerous historical societies, cemeteries, libraries and even the Civil War prison in Andersonville, Ga.
“The book to me is not a book, it’s an adventure,” Burke said. “I started this thing back in the 1960s when there was a fracas about a grave they couldn’t identify. It was called ‘The Lonesome Grave.’ There was a lady who worked at the historical society, we traced the property back. I thought it was pretty easy to solve these mysteries. Later on, it wasn’t quite as easy as that. On our travels, we’ve been to many historical societies,  cemeteries and museums. We’ve met a lot of an interesting people and these people all are interested in history so we all enjoyed ourselves very much.”
Burke said he is amazed by how much the country has changed in the past 200-300 years.
Stories told by Burke include anecdotes found about Frederic Weed, the founder of Weedville and Isaac Webb, the founder of Force.
He spoke of Clearfield being annexed to Centre County for three years. 
Burke was happy to have Lynda Pontzer in attendance. Pontzer did the cover for the book and also helped Burke with the writing aspect.
“The experience in writing the book was more of an adventure,” Burke said. “Lynda kind of tutored me through some writing but as a result I can write better now than when I started. When I first started, there weren’t any computers. We had tablets and I still have some notes. When I got my first computer, which I paid too much for. You could use it as a word processor. You do a story, start another one and then you’re at the library we would find out we would miss one on the previous story. The investigating is like analyzing the ashes of last week’s campfire. Much of the smoke has went into the air and now you got to find those little pieces and try and weld them together.”
In the process of putting the book together, Burke found out history is not always what it seems.
“One of the things that I learned is you think if someone like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow didn’t write part of our history, it might be more accurate today. They make legends out of people, they distorted in history. Their family isn’t going to say someone was hanged for murder. Sometimes you have to be careful.”
Burke spoke of the early presidents of the United States and felt John Adams was the most honest one.
“I decided amongst them all that John Adams was the most honest president of the early ones,” Burke said. “He was sincere, he had the country in mind and there was a lot of turmoil then. Going through the Revolutionary war, everybody thinks George Washington was a great leader and everybody got behind him. Well, it wasn’t any different than it is now. A third were rebels, they generally were the poorer people, a third were people were tories and a third just didn’t care.”
When doing research on Isaac Winslow, Burke said he got a tour from an unlikely source.
“We go up to the Isaac Winslow house and it’s closed,” Burke said. “We say we’re going north and we stop on the way back. One of the maintenance guys comes over and says I know more than they do. I’ll give you a guided tour. We got a whole album of the portraits in the museums.”
Before Burke closed his presentation, he felt there was an underrated man in history that didn’t get enough credit in Elk County.
“Judge (James) Gillis, I think more credit needs to be given to him,” Burke said. “He made Elk County happen.”