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Cut from James Mills' Eye-catching Ad.

The answer for Final Jeopardy this evening concerned two American presidents who witnessed the first balloon ascension in Paris and then, about ten years later, in 1793, the first American balloon ascension in Philadelphia. (Do-dee-do-dee.... Who were Jefferson and Adams?)

Watching balloon ascensions soon became a hugely popular spectator across America, including York, as you can see in my York Sunday News column below on Mr. Mills, his balloon, his excursions and his fate.

When we are living through worrisome economic periods we tend to ignore that throughout the history of our country we have had many similar slumps and that we have always recovered to new prosperity.

There have been different complicated causes for economic recession and depression over the years. One of the contributing factors to the Great Depression is said to be the 1930 Hawley-Smoot Tariff which was meant to help keep U.S. industries competitive. The higher tax on imports instead led to less foreign trade, which at this time was with European countries, and less of a market for U.S. goods.

Tariffs had been called for, and enacted as an attempt to help local industry, long before the 1930s. The December 31, 1867 York Gazette carried the following item from the Columbia Herald:

Lewis Miller drawing of himself and friends admiring 1868 Wrightsville bridge.

Bridges make our lives so much more convenient.

We have recently been hearing about the high cost of maintaining bridges. They are, of course, much more expensive to build from scratch.

Where would we be if we didn't have the four bridges (Norman Wood in the south, two at Wrightsville in the middle, and Route 76 in the extreme north) that cross the Susquehanna River from York County?

Wrightsville has always occupied an important location in the transportation network. The Monocacy Trail, orginally a Native American path, became one of the first roads for the European settlers to York County and beyond. That road crossed the Susquehanna River at Wrightsville, first by ferry and then over bridges covered and modern.

The Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal, opened in 1840, followed the west bank of the river from the Chesapeake Bay to Wrightsville. Then the mules, working from towpaths on the covered bridge, pulled the canal boats across the river to Columbia to continue on their journey up the east bank.

Railroads soon replaced canals as movers of people and freight, again crossing the bridge at Wrightsville. The excerpt below from the November 20, 1877 Gazette shows the hazards passengers could face and the volume of products shipped out from Wrightsville.

Yorkers did not lack for entertainment. Traveling performers and theater groups of all kinds made regular stops in York. The draw of the menagerie was usually the assortment of exotic animals, but the one the came to town in May 1843 added lots of drama to the animal acts.

The sizable announcement in the Gazette was an enticing piece of advertising:

My recent York Sunday News column outlined York’s enthusiastic proposal to become the permanent capital of the United States.

Motions, debates, and votes for one location or another flew in 1789 during the first Congress under the United States Constitution. (The new Congress, which convened March 4, 1789, replaced the Continental Congress, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation.)

Thomas Hartley was one of the four Congressmen from Pennsylvania seated that first day, and he took a vigorous role in the discussions that followed on choosing the capital site.

Even though Hartley lived in York, he first made a push for Wright’s Ferry (Columbia).
Why?