The 280 acres on which Camp Security was located is highlighted in yellow.

I am glad to see that there is going to be an archaeological dig this summer at the Schultz house, which was the original pre-Revolutionary house on the land that David Brubaker owned during the Revolutionary War. Camp Security was located on part of David Brubaker's 280 acres from 1781 to 1783. It is located in present-day Springettsbury Township, but it would have been part of Hellam Township at that time.

Historic York, Inc. presently owns the house and the seven acres on which it stands. True, seven acres is a fraction of the property in Brubaker's time, but it is a start, or restart, into exploring the only undeveloped site of an American Revolutionary War prison camp. (There were previously two limited digs done on another part of the original acreage.)

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.

A little while ago, in a post on York Fair horse racing, I mentioned that there were some motion pictures of racing at the fair on films recently digitized and preserved by the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives, through a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

Charles and Carrye Noss editing film. Note the movie camera at left.

Those images and many more were taken and shared with the community, by Charles H. Noss and his wife Carrye Neiman Noss. From 1923 to 1960 Mr. and Mrs. Noss filmed local parades and events, such as the York Fair and the construction of the 1930s Wrightsville-Columbia Veterans Memorial Bridge across the Susquehanna River, and shared them with the community. They also traveled around the country and recorded subjects from Pennsylvania Dutch customs to national parks.

The Nosses showed the movies free of charge to churches and civic groups. An admission or offering must have been collected for the groups to keep, because a November 12, 1946 Gazette and Daily newspaper article says that by then the Mr. and Mrs. Noss had shown the films to about 132,000 persons and raised nearly $100,000 for the organizations. Since they continued the showings until Mr. Noss died in 1962, they could have conceivable raised hundreds of thousands of dollars by then.

Cased photo of Henry L. Smyser, taken by the J. T. Williams Gallery in York, probably not too long after Smyser returned from California.

Not long ago I posted my York Sunday News column on the very organized California Company, which was composed of 16 young men from the York County area who set out to find their fortune in gold. They sailed on the ship Andalusia from Baltimore on April 19, 1849 and arrived at San Francisco on September 21. Click here for that post on their onerous sea voyage.

Did they find their fortune? Afraid not, but they certainly tried. Some of the accounts written back home by several of the company were published in the York newspapers and went into much detail about their quest.

Dr. Henry L. Smyser was perhaps even more candid and detailed, as his letters, now in the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives, were only meant for family. He wrote to his parents only a week after they arrived, while they were still unloading the Andalusia, that he might stay for a while, but not necessarily continuing to look for gold, "if the practice of medicine would be more profitable and less laborious."

Smyser had enough labor already by the time they arrived at Woods Diggings on November 25. He and the others wrote that getting there was the hardest work they had ever done, with mud up to their knees, sometimes having to pull the wagons and mules through themselves. It didn't take him long to relate: "We had a full view of the Elephant."

See below for my follow-up Sunday News column with more details on the California Company, their pursuit of gold and their return home.

Lewis Miller drawing of the Confederate invasion of York, June 1863.

Cassandra Small's vivid letters to cousin Lissie Latimer, describing the Confederate invasion of York during the end of June 1863, are often quoted. Cassandra was the daughter of Philip A. Small, a leading businessman or York at the time, and his wife, Sarah Bartow Latimer.

In one letter Cassandra relates: "George Latimer was with General Gordon's Division; happily we didn't see him, as we should not have spoken to him. Some of his Copperhead friends shook hands with him, and he begged them not to tell us, but they couldn't keep it to themselves. We all respect him a great deal more than we do them."

Cassandra's first cousin, James William Latimer of York, wrote to his brother Bartow Latimer that, during the occupation, "Most ladies had sense to stay home. Men went about freely. I spoke to one of the Rebs once. Others talked and questioned them, but I did not feel like it. Heard nothing of Geo. Latimer or Tom."

Who were George and Tom?

A recent post concerned harness racing at the York Fair way back in 1867, over 150 years ago. A reader commented that he remembered non-harness horse races at the fair when he was a boy, with jockeys without helmets.

Click here for previous post.

He didn't say when that was, but booklets and clippings in the York Fair file at the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives indicate that racing with jockeys was also a long tradition, alongside the harness racing. At one time or another automobiles, motorcycles and bicycles were also raced at the fair.

Over the years quite a few cemeteries in York County have been built over, paved over or plowed over. Sometimes the inhabitants have been moved to another cemetery, sometimes not. There have been various laws passed over the years in Pennsylvania regarding burial grounds, but, unfortunately, in my opinion, if the owner of the land wants to remove the cemetery and goes through the proper legal channels it could still be approved by the court.

Click here for a link to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission page on cemetery laws.

While looking through the Erb family file at the York County Heritage Trust I came across an inquiry from an Erb from another area wondering what had happened to an Erb Burial Ground in Springettsbury Township.

Racing was featured at the York Fair for many years. It was so popular in 1867 that the races rained out the last day of the fair were held some days later in front of a sizable crowd. See below for a detailed account of the excitement from the October 15, 1867 York Gazette. Note that the horses were both owned and driven by York area people.

William Findlay is shown on the left and Joseph Hiester on the right in these images from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

Nineteenth century Yorkers took their politics very seriously, as you can see in the rather long ad that Frederick Hoke took out in February 1818 in the York Gazette. His candidate, William Findlay, narrowly defeated Joseph Hiester for Governor of Pennsylvania a few months before. Hiester supporters Joseph Blackford and Jacob Knisely evidently didn't pay up on their election bets, and boy, was Hoke ticked.

In the latter part of the 19th century the country heard of the violent feuds of the Hatfield and McCoy clans on the West Virginia border. Though their story might be mostly forgotten, we still refer to feuding families or neighbors as getting along like the Hatfields and McCoys.

Not too much later then the heyday of the Hatfield-McCoy quarrel, about thirty years, some York County people made the papers with their own feuding. The February 12, 1908 York Gazette reports: