Accomplishments

• We answer hundreds of queries about local history for visitors from all over the United States and encourage hands-on historical research.

• We catalog and maintain a computer database on a growing archival collection of books, postcards, diaries, letters, photographs, scrapbooks, maps, artifacts and other memorabilia. 

• We publish a periodical newsletter, Signals, back issues of which can be downloaded from our website.

• We offer a lecture series on local, regional and national history and have sponsored seminars on genealogy, the renovation of old houses, railroad history and historic preservation.

• We foster research on important Sewickley Valley architecture and present awards to encourage historic preservation.

• In 1976, our membership formed the nucleus for the Sewickley Valley Bicentennial Committee,  and the Society became the repository for the assets of the Committee, including nearly 300 historic photographs.

• We lent financial support to the restoration and maintenance of the Old Sewickley Post Office as a cultural center.

• In 1990, we sponsored a major exhibition on Longfellow, Alden & Harlow and financially supported a book on the architectural firm by the late Margaret Henderson Floyd.

• In 1993, the Society published a new edition of the Molyneaux map, the original of which was commissioned by Sewickley Heights Borough in 1933. It is available for sale through our website.

• We prepared the script for the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation’s slide presentation on old Sewickley gardens.

• In 1995, research material was furnished to Altarus Records, which recorded pianist Donna Amato performing the works of Ethelbert and Arthur Nevin.  From Edgeworth Hills, the first major recording of the music of these two local composers, can be purchased through our website.

• We were instrumental in saving two finials from the 1911 Sewickley Bridge, one of which was permanently installed in Park Place in 1998.

• We saved railings from the Sewickley Elementary School and installed them at the Sewickley Public Library.  In 2000, they were incorporated into a new garden terrace.

• In 2000, we became the repository for the records and assets of Edgeworth Preservation, and in 2011 we published a second edition of that group’s award-winning volume Historic Houses of the Sewickley Valley.  It is available for sale through our website.

• We celebrated the new millennium by co-sponsoring, with Sweetwater Center for the Arts, a major exhibition of works by local artists entitled “A Brush with History.”

• At the request of the Old Sewickley Post Office Corporation, we prepared four sets of Lost Sewickley notecards and four sets of postcards featuring vintage Sewickley photos.  They can be purchased through our website.

• In 2005, we contributed to the new statue of “Fame,” the Civil War Soldiers’ Monument in Sewickley Cemetery.

• We recently reprinted two classics: Lights & Shadows of Sewickley Life by Agnes L. Ellis (1893) and The Social Mirror by Adelaide Mellier Nevin (1888).  Both books are available for sale through our website.

• A new postcard history entitled Sewickley, prepared by the Historical Society staff, was published in 2006 and can be purchased through our website.

• In 2009, we erected a memorial marker in Park Place in honor of Captain Frederick Way Jr.

• In anticipation of Sewickley Cemetery’s 150th anniversary in 2010, we published an illustrated booklet entitled History of the Sewickley Valley Found in Sewickley Cemetery.  The booklet is available for sale through our website.

• In 2010, we acquired the extensive genealogical files of the late Dorothy M. Moore, Sewickley Valley Historical Society archivist.

• We also contributed a leadership gift toward  the memorial to the Tuskegee Airmen that is proposed for Sewickley Cemetery.

• We assisted in the publication of Dennison Daniel Moore and William L. Moore Jr.’s 2010 booklet The Sewickley Caves: Illuminating the Darkness.  It can be purchased through our website.

• In 2011, we mounted an exhibition of late Victorian and early Edwardian garments entitled "High Fashion in the Valley: Vintage Clothing from Sewickley Collections."

• In that year, we also cooperated in the publication of Richard J. LeBeau's very popular book Count Noble: The Greatest Dog That Ever Lived.  A fourth printing is scheduled for 2015.  The book can be purchased through our website.

• We contributed to a major renovation of the Old Sewickley Post Office kitchen.

• In 2014, we supported the preservation of the property at 202 Beaver Street, Sewickley.

• In 2015, we contributed to the construction of the Village Theater Company's new theater in Sewickley

• Our Architecture Committee is working with Sewickley Borough to erect new street signs marking Sewickley's three historic districts