1910s: August 2008 Archives

Small Field, the athletic field for York High, was the subject of a recent post. I checked further into the files at York County Heritage Trust and found that the gift was a real surprise to the York City school board.

Click here to see the previous post and the January 1916 drawing of the meadow.

A November 1915 newspaper article quotes the letter offering the field for the benefit of the children of York:

A 1917 newspaper account captured some reminiscences of David Sloat, who at 90 was one of the last three Civil War veterans in Wrightsville.

After the war Sloat had moved to Ohio and lived there for fifty years, but he retired back to Wrightsville. There he shared his vivid memories, as a boy of 16, of the Confederate invasion of York County. The account states:

A few days before armistice was declared between the Allies and Germany, ending the First World War, the York Gazette and Daily published a poignant letter written home by a York County soldier wounded in France.

The heading read:
"PRIVATE GEORGE SLOAT IS TWICE WOUNDED
Long Level Soldier Falls in Battle with Bullets in Leg and Arm"

A previous post noted that a native Yorker, Richard M. Watt, was an expert witness in court concerning why the "unsinkable" Titanic sank. Click here to read that post.

No one was more surprised that April day than the vice-president of the White Star Line, Philip A. S. Franklin, whose parents were both natives of York.