The Pardee Mansion | Hazleton, PA

A scandal in Hazleton at the Pardee Mansion on West Broad Street was reported in the Hazleton Sentinel on December 4, circa 1900.  Linesmen from the Electric Light Company were attempting to cut down some of the branches from the fine old shade trees planted in the front garden of the Pardee residence in order to carry out work on the lines.

When she saw what was happening, Bessie’s younger sister Edith called out to the workmen from a second-story window to stop. The newspaper reported what happened next:

They refused to do so, but the next moment the linesman who had made the refusal found himself looking into the barrel of a small pearl-handled pistol held by Miss Pardee. ‘Stop cutting those trees at once,’ said Miss Pardee, ‘or you’ll get hurt!’  ‘Oh, certainly,’ replied the linesman, and he slid down from his perch in a hurry. At last accounts no further spoliation of the trees had been attempted.

Mutilation of the trees, planted forty years previously by Ario Pardee, was prevented by the brave interception of Miss Edith Pardee.