Results tagged “Henry Laurens” from York Town Square

Henry Laurens, president of Continental Congress, was one of a handful of candidates to serve in that body for the entire nine-month period it spent in York County. That service exacted a heavy toll on the South Carolinian. Background posts: Where was Thomas Jefferson when Congress met in York?, Laurens believed to be the first American to be cremated, Who were these congressional visitors to York Town, anyway?

I've written about the sacrifices of Continental Congress president Henry Laurens before.

But for some reason, they seem particularly acute this time of year when his bout with gout during Congress' visit in York was particularly intense.

So I made them part of today's Christmas Day editorial appearing in the York Daily Record/Sunday News:

This turn-of-the-20th-century building was originally used to burn refuse from York city and York Hospital. It's been converted into a crematorium.

Last post told the story of Revolutionary War patriot Henry Laurens, apparently the first American to be officially cremated in the 1790s.

Two hundred years later, the practice is gaining visibility around York, where Laurens dwelt for nine months as president of Continental Congress in 1777-78.

In 2000, a small brick building with a large smokestack on Kings Mill Road became a crematorium.

For years, it had been rumored that the then-spooky building was originally used for burning bodies.

A 1955 newspaper article gives a glimpse at how that legend grew. As the story goes, a south-side neighborhood gang lurked around the building on Halloween night. Some gang members who peeked in a window reportedly saw a "job" under way.

Thus ended their sleep for a month... .

Unsung Revolutionary War hero Henry Laurens was reportedly the first American to be cremated.

Southern Carolinian Henry Laurens was not one of the younger men to serve in the Continental Congress during its nine-month stay in York County.

(See discussion of ages of American Revolution's heroes at American Revolution was a young man's fight..)

By the end of 1777, he was 53.

But few of the nation's founders, young or hold, suffered more in the war than Henry Laurens... .