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town that has been transplanted to Pennsylvania. And no wonder, for it was largely New
Englanders who settled the community in 1806. Stroll along its shady streets, to the town
green, where a bronze statue depicts a scene from the beloved children's poem “The Dutch
Lullaby.” It shows Wynken, Blynken, and Nod adrift in their improbable craft—a sea-
worthy wooden shoe.
7. French Azilum
One of Pennsylvania's oddest footnotes to history can be found at a horseshoe bend in the
Susquehanna River, some eight miles southeast of Towanda. In the autumn of 1793, sev-
eral prominent Philadelphians sympathetic to royalists displaced by the French Revolution
purchased land in the Susquehanna Valley and made it a refuge for exiled aristocrats.
The Azilum, or asylum, became a genteel community of comfortable log cabin homes,
the largest of which, La Grande Maison, was reputedly intended for Marie Antoinette and
her children. But any hopes the emigrés may have had for a new Versailles-on-the-Susque-
hanna were dashed when the queen was guillotined; not long after, the French community
began to disperse but a few remained in northeast Pennsylvania, where their descendants
live today.
The site of French Azilum is unquestionably one of the prettiest along the meandering
Susquehanna River. A nature trail winds along the river where courtiers once sauntered,
andthe1836LaPorteHouse,builtbythesonofoneofthecolony'sfounders,offersalook
at the settlement's brief but historic heyday.
8. Tunkhannock
ReturntoRte.6atWysoxandtakealongerviewupanddowntheSusquehannaRiverVal-
leyfromtheMarieAntoinetteOverlook,locatedaboutsevenmileseastofthevillage.Less
than three miles farther down the road, another scenic vantage point commands a broad
riverviewnearthemassivesandstone-and-shaleoutcroppingscalledtheWyalusingRocks.
The drive through the Alleghenies began with sensational views of its one great signa-
ture river—the Allegheny—and at the picturesque town of Tunkhannock, it will end with
those of another, the Susquehanna. Just ahead lies Scranton, a hardworking coal town and
stop on the Lackawanna Valley railroad. In it you'll find connections with I-81 to points
north and south.
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