A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that, judging by the ads from real estate agents in other areas trying to entice York County buyers, this area must have been quite prosperous in the late 1860s. Merchants and other entrepreneurs wanted a chunk of our cash too.
Click here to read real estate offerings to York County "capitalists."
For example, though York had its own jewelry stores, James E. Caldwell & Co., Jewelers, Importers, and Manufacturers of Philadelphia took out a sizable ad in the Gazette offering “watches, diamonds, jewelry, solid silver wares, plated goods, mantel clocks, bronzes, decorated china vases and ornaments, musical boxes, and carved wood ornaments to shoppers from York County.
Most surprising to me was Union Pacific Railroad’s nearly full column advertisement offering bonds to York Countians to invest in the western railway, then under construction.
