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Sunday, February 7, 2010

Black Heritage vs. Gas Rights

Working on a story with Inquirer writer Andy Maykuth, I spent time this week with Denise Dennis who is deciding whether to allow access to her family's farm and the natural gas reserves of the Marcellus Shale below. That decision is complicated by her family's history.  Her ancestors were free African Americans who were among the first farmers to settle in northeast Pennsylvania in 1793.

I found her family history extraordinary and facinating. "Not all blacks were slaves from the South," Denise told Andy. "This place is a reminder that we also owned property in the United States - we had a stake in this country."

 

The 153-acre farm in Susquehanna County has remained in the family for seven generations. There are more photos here, and you can read Andy's Sunday newspaper story here.
Posted by Tom Gralish @ 12:07 PM  Permalink | 2 comments
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 10:30 PM, 03/06/2010
    wow what an awesome fact.The odds of them drilling on your property are slim the gas leases are for a finite term usually 5 years if they do not drill in that time you win if they do then the royalties skyrocket. you can spend that ample cash to stay on your farm and pay for improvements and maybe preserve your ownership for generations to come. The average farm owner in the northern tier if they joined a group of land owners could receive a lease payment of $3000 dollars or better per acre. The enviro-idiots will try to convince you its not a good idea.As a farmer you are in the business of exploiting the land for a living with they way farmers are treated today take the money protect yourself by joining a land owners group and get what is rightfully yours.
    — bobg1812
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 10:44 PM, 03/06/2010
    wow what an awesome fact.The odds of them drilling on your property are slim the gas leases are for a finite term usually 5 years if they do not drill in that time you win if they do then the royalties skyrocket. you can spend that ample cash to stay on your farm and pay for improvements and maybe preserve your ownership for generations to come. The average farm owner in the northern tier if they joined a group of land owners could receive a lease payment of $3000 dollars or better per acre. The enviro-idiots will try to convince you its not a good idea.As a farmer you are in the business of exploiting the land for a living with they way farmers are treated today take the money protect yourself by joining a land owners group and get what is rightfully yours.
    — bobg1812


2 comments
About Tom Gralish
Tom Gralish is a general assignment photographer at The Inquirer, concentrating on local news and self-generated feature photos. He has been at the paper since 1983, photographing everything from revolution in the Philippines to George W. Bush’s road to the White House to homeless people living on the street right outside his newspaper's front door. For his photo essay on Philadelphia’s homeless, he was awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the Robert F. Kennedy Award. His weekly newspaper column, "Scene Through the Lens," takes a look at Philadelphia's urban landscape. Gralish, along with Inquirer colleague and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Michael Vitez, spent a year visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art to capture the stories and photos of "Rocky runners" who come from all over the world to climb the steps - just as Sylvester Stallone did in the Academy Award winning film, Rocky. Their book, Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope and Happiness at America’s Most Famous Steps, was published in November 2006.
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