Feb 13, 2005 By Frances Borsodi Zajac 5 min read

SPRINGHILL TWP. – The National Park Service wants to hear from anyone who ever worked at Friendship Hill, had relatives who were employed there or were a guest at one of the many parties held at the mansion over the years. Friendship Hill Historic National Site is starting an oral history project led by volunteer intern Joni Liston Miller of Fairbank.

Miller said what local people know about the house is important.

“It adds to the visitor’s experience, and it’s part of the local history,’ said Miller, who grew up in Nicholson Township and graduated in 1991 from Tri-Valley High School (now Albert Gallatin High School).

Kitty Seifert, park ranger, historic interpreter and volunteer coordinator for Friendship Hill, said the federal government legislated the park service to tell the story of Albert Gallatin, who served as secretary of the treasury under President Thomas Jefferson and who built Friendship Hill. However, Seifert said the park service did not want to distance itself from the home’s later owners.

“They included Judge John Littleton Dawson – besides being a judge, he was in Congress and responsible for the Homestead Act that opened the West. J.V. Thompson was a coal baron whose families owned it for three generations until we acquired it. This is the local history of the county and the district. The post-Gallatin history has a place and needs to be addressed,” Seifert said.

For this project, the park service is turning to Miller, who volunteers at Friendship Hill along with her husband, Russ. Miller is a senior majoring in history at California University of Pennsylvania, where her husband is majoring in both history and criminal justice. The couple have two children: Joshua, 8, and Sarah, 3.

Miller began her internship in January, but she and Seifert first talked about this project last May. They became interested through a videotape the park service created in the late 1980s of Mrs. B. Langdon Tyler of Massachusetts, a direct descendant of Gallatin through his son Albert Rolaz. Although Tyler never visited Friendship Hill, she became a member of the Friendship Hill Association and supported the work of the friends groups with financial donations.

In the tape, Tyler talked about several items that belonged to Gallatin that she was donating to Friendship Hill, including a pocket watch, signet ring, wedding fan that is believed to have belonged to Hannah Gallatin (the statesman’s second wife), Hannah’s scent bottle, crystal that was a gift from a European aristocrat and 84 volumes of books.

Charmed by that session, the two women decided that Miller could oversee an oral history project during her internship, which will last through May. But Miller has plans to stay on as a volunteer through the summer and into the fall to give more time to the endeavor.

“There’s a passion in me to do this oral history,’ said Miller, who is also working on a project that traces the genealogy of Gallatin.

Miller credits her interest in these areas to her grandmother Jane Liston: “She wrote a book about her own family, the Breakirons. Her influence gave me a love for doing what I’m doing: tracing genealogy and doing oral history.’

Taking part in the oral history project is easy. People can call the national park to schedule an appointment with Miller. If a visitor can’t come to Friendship Hill, Miller will come to them or make phone calls to people living out of the area.

The park service is interested in talking to people who worked at Friendship Hill, visited there or attended parties at the estate, such as the annual gathering thrown for the Point Marion Volunteer Fire Department.

The park service is also interested in photographs or artifacts from the property. Anyone who has these items does not have to give them to the park service, but officials would like to gain information from the artifacts and scan the photos for their archives.

Some interesting items already have turned up: Miller spoke to the wife of the late William Brockway, who was given a doorknocker by the owners as a boy in 1933 when he accompanied his father to a job replacing doors. Brockway passed the doorknocker on to his daughter. The park staff discovered it was similar to another doorknocker they have from the property that is now in storage.

“This is the kind of stuff we’re interested in,’ said Seifert.

The oral history will be compiled for the Friendship Hill archives, but Miller and Seifert also hope that excerpts could be published in a small, affordable book.

“It would be especially interesting for local people who have bits and pieces of the history but don’t know the whole story,’ said Miller.

One of the best examples of the power of oral history involves the late Quinter S. Baker.

“His father worked here and he lived on the property as a kid. He had a great love of the property and knew the historical significance of Gallatin,’ Seifert said.

She noted that as an adult, Baker worked to have the house saved, and knocked on any door he could find. He eventually came to the door of then-U.S. Rep. Austin J. Murphy.

“He gets Austin hooked on the history of the place,’ Seifert said, “and the next thing we know, we’re getting another national park.’

To become involved in the oral history project, call 724-725-9190. Friendship Hill National Historic Site is located along Route 166 near Point Marion. The park is closed Sundays and Mondays until April 3.