Recently in crime Category

It was 1908. Although their families had been immigrants only a hundred years or so before, some York County people weren't too sure about the new immigrants coming in to work at plants, mills and quarries or to build roads.

These new arrivals weren't of German, English and Scots-Irish stock like them. They were Slavs, Poles, Italians and who knew what.

In the incident below, from the April 30, 1908 York Gazette, York Haven found out that not all foreigners were troublemakers.

Lewis Miller drawing of York jail on George Street

York County has had four prisons in its nearly 260 year history. The present one certainly seems to be the most secure. But reading the newspaper accounts of past jailbreaks, you have to wonder if anybody was watching.

At least in the 1857 Christmas night jailbreak the prisoners had to hack through a wall of the almost-new second jail on Chestnut Street. Click here to read about that escape.

In 1829, when the jail was on the northeast corner of George and King Streets, it was apparently much easier. The May 26, 1829 York Recorder tells the story:

William Wagner Drawing of 1830 York County Courthouse.

I'm certainly not advocating crime, but when you think of it, salaries for all those policemen, jailers, judges, and attorneys do add to the economy. Building and upkeep of the prisons and courthouses, feeding the prisoners, and all the other fees associated with the justice system also supply work for a lot of people.

I haven't checked the probably astronomical costs today, but take a look at the crime and court related expenditures below from the 1825-1826 York County budget report, as published in the York Recorder. They make up quite a chunk of the costs for that year.

“ARREST MAN AFTER TEN MILE CHASE--FIND HATCHET AND SEARCHLIGHT.” So screamed front page headlines in the April 20, 1908 York Gazette.

What was the crime?

One of the subjects that I have been know to rant about is the “Good Old Days.” I say that in most cases, comparatively speaking, they weren’t that great.

Not that I want to spread gloom and doom. I’m an optimist and I believe that most people are good and decent. That doesn’t mean, however, that there aren’t some really bad eggs out there.

Crime, however, certainly isn’t a new phenomenon in York County. Spend some time reading old newspapers and you will see what I mean. The York Gazette article of March 17, 1908 below illustrates my point. It reads:

York Chief of Detectives Charles S. White celebrated Lincoln’s Birthday a hundred years ago by jailing a jewel thief named Harry St. Clair. White went to Baltimore to pick up the 16-year-old criminal, who had been arrested there.

The Gazette reports that St. Clair was charged with:

An Earlier View of Market and Beaver Streets by William Wagner with National House on Left.

I recently wrote about a rowdy York citizen swinging a Civil War cavalry sword around a local cigar store in 1877.

Click here to read about the sword incident.

That York Gazette article referred to even more excitement the previous week in the same neighborhood at Market and Beaver Streets.

I recently wrote about a Confederate sword that a farmer plowed up near Hanover in 1882, nearly 20 years after it had fallen in a skirmish there.

Click here to read about sword on Forney farm.

There were probably a lot of swords around York County in the years after the Civil War, brought home as souvenirs of that dreadful conflict.

Drinking and weapons of any kind shouldn’t go together, as we can see in the following article from the October 30, 1877 Gazette. (The anonymous reporter had a rather droll sense of humor--a 19th century Mike Argento?)

We often hear about new schemes the unscrupulous come up with to part the unwary from their cash. The York Daily newspaper reported an elaborate one of 100 years ago.

The January 31, 1908 article reads: “CHIEF WHITE ARRESTS FAKE BIOGRAPHY MAN.
R. N. Crawley, of Philadelphia, who came to York several months ago, representing that he was about to publish a book of biographies of prominent professional and business men, was arrested yesterday afternoon by Chief of Detectives Charles S. White on charges of false pretence.”

This map, from the 1876 Pomeroy, Whitman Atlas of York County shows the location of the Lutheran Burial Ground.

Sounds like familiar headlines from today’s papers, doesn’t it? Unfortunately stealing for the salvage value is nothing new. In fact, the following article from December 29, 1874 Gazette reports that the York County Courthouse was the victim: