Recently in 1850s Category

I came across the two ads above in an 1856 York Gazetteer and City Directory. I understood the wheat and rye bread and the rolls and cakes. I wasn't sure about the rusks and the Dyspepsia completely stumped me. I thought dyspepsia meant indigestion, which wasn't something I thought bakers would mention, even if their wares didn't agree with the customers.

It turns out that dyspepsia really does mean indigestion, or disturbed digestion. So what were the bakers advertising?

As I have pointed out before, York County, Pennsylvania wasn't as isolated a century or two ago as some might imagine. Early roads, and then railroads, made travel relatively easy to Baltimore, Philadelphia and beyond. York County people go where they wanted, and visitors found it just as easy to get here.

York was a regular stop on the entertainment circuit. Yorkers seemed to have always been a good market for performances and exhibitions from menageries to balloon ascensions to internationally know personalities, such as the diminutive Tom Thumb.

The York Fair is rolling around again, with its entertainment, rides, animals, games, races, food and prizes. Take a stroll around the exhibition halls. The fair continues a long tradition of giving out awards for York County's best. Talented Glenalvin Goodridge was winning prizes for his photography over 150 years ago. His ambrotypes, described below, were exceptional, as can be seen by one of his original ambrotypes in the photo above. The article is from the October 30, 1855 York Gazette.

Apple developed by James Hersh of neighboring Adams County, c.1880

Over the years, York area people have taken pride in their fruit and vegetables, growing gigantic specimens or even developing new strains. Click on these links for previous posts on the York Imperial Apple and York Imperial Cherry.

Mr. Cicero proudly grew figs in his East King Street back yard in 1950s. A previous post showed Christian Leaman's 1809 pumpkin, as big as a barrel. George Anstine, of Lower Windsor Township, was not to be outdone. According to the York Gazette of October 30, 1855, Anstine brought his prize quince in to the newspaper office to be admired. According to the resulting article (see below), he also grew some pretty big apples. For comparison--I just weighed a very large peach and it only weighed half a pound.

Subscribers for a cemetery fence in Spring Garden Township

Blake Stough recently shared the above image of a document he had purchased on eBay some time ago. It lists subscribers for a fence to be built around "the old burial ground on the premises of Vincent Keesey, Esq." in Spring Garden Township. The document is transcribed below.

There is no date, but, looking at the 19 listed names, I am guessing around 1850 to 1875. The land is probably now in Springettsbury Township, which was formed from Spring Garden Township in 1891. I don't think it refers to the Erb Cemetery, which I discussed earlier--none of the names match up.

The 1876 Pomeroy, Whitman York County atlas shows V. K. Keesey in Spring Garden Township at the southwest corner of East Market Street and what is now Haines Road. The Springettsbury Township history, published to commemorate the township's 100th anniversary, confirms that East York was originally "the Keesey Tract." Some of the names of leading families in that history also match up with the subscribers.

The cemetery was likely somewhere in on near the area known as Old East York, but I don't know where or what happened to it. We have heard tales that there was a cemetery near York Suburban Middle School. That's in the general area. Does anybody know for sure where the cemetery was and what happened to the people buried there and their gravestones?

The document reads:

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.

1864 Bridgen's map of Conestoga Township showing dam.

1860 Shearer & Lake map of Chanceford Township.

A friend recently alerted me to an article about the port of Safe Harbor on the east bank of the Susquehanna River. The article referred to the Conestoga Navigation, which operated from the late 1820s to around 1850. It was an 18-mile-long slack water navigation utilizing the Conestoga Creek with a system of nine locks. It ended at Safe Harbor on the Susquehanna River. Where did the cargo go from there?

One of the colorful patterns from Abraham Serff's pattern book, now in the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives.

Weavers were essential members of the community in 18th and 19th century America. In Pennsylvania before the Industrial Revolution you would raise sheep for wool and cultivate flax for linen fibers. After processing and spinning the raw materials into thread or yarn, you would take them to the local weaver. Well over 500 York County weavers from 1800 to 1860 have been identified, and as I point out below in my recent York Sunday News article, there were probably many more.

The colorful legacy of the weaver lives on in the brightly patterned coverlets produced in quantity from the 1830s through the 1860s. The more intricate patterns were produced with a special Jacquard attachment, which the weaver would purchase to add on to his loom. At least one York County craftsman manufactured the attachments, as advertised in the newspaper add immediately below. It was first published February 11, 1834 and ran for quite some time.

1850s York County Prison

Here we were with a nice new jail that resembled a castle and someone had the nerve to deface the tablet over the entrance. When you look at the photo above you wonder how in the world anyone could get to it unnoticed. The arched entrance is quite high and very visible from the street and from the railroad track. The tablet must be the light colored rectangle above the arch.

The commissioners certainly took offense, offering a substantial reward and threatening to throw the book at the perpetrators, as reported in the Democratic Press of September 5, 1854.

York Furnace Bridge, c.1856.

I only knew of one photo that showed any remnants of the 1855-1857 bridge at York Furnace. That photo, perhaps taken in the 1890s, showed the remaining piers on the island.

Click here for the previous post and column on the bridge.

After reading my column about the bridge in the York Sunday News, a friend gave a copy of a much earlier photo to the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives. It is shown above.

The photo above could have been taken no later than early fall of 1856, as there are still leaves on the trees. The bridge was destroyed by ice in February 1857 and never rebuilt.