Results tagged “Wrightsville” from Universal York

Tomatoes and Shakespeare and York County?

I recently wrote my York Sunday News column on the canning houses of York County, going back to the 1920s through the 1950s when the canneries dotted the county. Local farmers could easily haul their fresh vegetables just down the road to be canned and distributed all over the country.

The fanciful labels were lithographed in tempting color, usually depicting lush produce, but sometimes making you wonder why other designs were chosen. You can see the diversity in the photos shown here.

The Wel-Don bean labels above have a great story behind them.

The Rewalt house now and in the late 19th century.

The first time John B. Gordon came to York, in late June 1863, he had an occupying army with him. He returned unarmed in 1894 and received a much warmer welcome.

By then Gordon was a U. S. Senator from Georgia, serving a reunited nation. The occasion was a stop on his popular lecture tour on The Last Days of the Confedercy. Newspaper accounts relate that the enthusiastic audience at the York Opera House had paid from 25 to 75 cents to hear Gordon's reminiscences.

In the presentation, Gordon addressed his earlier visit to York County, including his encounter with Mary Jane Magee Rewalt of Wrightsville: "He paid a warm tribute to the spirit of the 'heroine of the Susquehanna' whose house he had saved from burning at Wrightsville, and who courteously entertained him and his staff but who did not hesitate (to prevent her act from being misunderstood) to assert in the midst of the confederate officers her devotion to the Union cause, telling them of a husband...in the Union army."

Gordon also fondly remembered Mrs. Rewalt in his Reminiscences of the Civil War, published in 1903: "There was one point especially at which my soldiers combated the fire's progress with immense energy, and with great difficulty saved an attractive home from burning. It chanced to be the home of one of the most superb women it was my fortune to meet during the four years of war."

To read more about the General and the Wrightsville lady see my column below, previously published in the York Sunday News.

The Tribute Tree Committee appealed to the patriotism and generosity of York County citizens in this December 1919 York Gazette ad. A neighbor recently asked if I knew anything about the rows of sycamore trees still standing in places on the Susquehanna Trail south of York. She had heard that they were some kind of War Memorial.

Research led me to an extensive file at the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives. The file contained only a few articles on the Susquehanna Trail sycamores, which were indeed planted as a World War I memorial by the War Mothers organization. The rest of the file was a treasure-trove of information on the York County component of a similar World War I memorial project to line the Lincoln Highway from coast to coast with trees.

The file includes original records, donated around fifty years ago by the Woman's Club of York, of the Road of Remembrance from Abbottstown to Wrightsville. Records of contributions collected by the very organized group of women are included, as are file cards for each serviceman memorialized. For example:
NAME: William John Feldman
RESIDENCE: 404 W. Market St., York
DEPT OF SERVICE: Artillery
RANK: Private
WHERE DIED: Contrexeville, France.
A number in pencil (S-141) probably refers to the original location of the tree planted in memory of Feldman.

Click here for a previous post on the Woman's Club, sponsors of the memorial tree project.

Why isn't the Lincoln Highway across the county today an avenue lined with these trees? One reason is probably that instead of the visually distinctive sycamores planted along the Susquehanna Trail, four varieties of trees (oak, sugar maple, elm, and tulip poplar) were planted. These common trees would have blended in more quickly, with their purpose forgotten as memories faded.

The other reason for the Lincoln Highway trees disappearing is quite evident--progress.

The story of the ambitious project itself is absorbing. The full column telling that story follows: