1850s: April 2009 Archives

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.