1820s: April 2008 Archives

We know York County had a lot of different mills. Click here to read about the many mills of York County.

Sawmills sawed trees into boards, and grist mills ground grain. What purpose did a fulling mill serve?

In a recent post about York County runaways in the 18th century, I mentioned that it was pretty easy to describe what the person who ran away was wearing. They probably only had one or two sets of clothing. Click here to read about the runaway blacksmith apprentice.

Even well-to-do people didn’t have that many clothes. You have toured historic houses--how many closets do they have? A few pegs on the bedroom wall would do nicely. Why?

What do you think they were?

I just ran across an advertisement for an exhibition of really, really big bones in York in 1828. One bone was said to be 20 feet long. See below for the whole ad, quoted from the February 26, 1828 York Recorder newspaper.

You have probably noticed your bread costs more lately. The rise in the price of flour has been blamed on several factors.

Runaway ads were fairly common in eighteenth and nineteenth century newspapers. Sometimes the runaways were slaves, but not so often above the Mason-Dixon line, where there were fewer slaves.

In Pennsylvania it was frequently a servant or an apprentice who had run away. The descriptions of the missing persons were quite detailed, down to their clothes. I guess that wasn’t too difficult when you consider they probably only had one or two sets of clothing. Sometimes they seem to have taken some of their employers clothing when they absconded. That would make it easier to describe their departure outfit.

The description below, from the September 9, 1828 York Gazette, certainly makes you wonder why Mr. Ward wanted his apprentice back. Not that he’s offering much for him.