history: November 2007 Archives

We didn't know how bad smoking was for our health 90 years ago, when cigar factories were springing up everywhere. In York County, we knew cigars were very good for our economy. For well over 150 years, processing tobacco into cigars kept many York Countians gainfully employed.

Lewis Miller illustrated a group of youths, himself among them, making cigars in 1811 at the shop of "William Spangler, Tobacconist." They were Henry Sheffer, John Lehman, Jacob Weiser, Lewis Miller, Daniel Masse, Daniel Wolf, Emanuel Sheffer, John Jones, and Henry Wagner. Miller would have been around 15 at the time. Some of the boys look quite a bit younger.

According to the Red Lion Area Historical Society webpage, in the month of October 1929, 15 million cigars were shipped out of the Red Lion train station on the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad. This wouldn't have included the millions more made each month in factories large and small in York and just about every community in the county.

My grandfather, Edwin Shelley, converted a three-story house into a cigar factory in Lucky, Chanceford Township. Grandpa wasn't alone as shown in the following Gazette article from the fall of 1917:

A few days ago I wrote about York County's continuing love affair with the oyster. Many people will tell you that with good oysters you need good beer.

Breweries abounded over the years in York, as evidenced by the following 1857 advertisement from the Gazette. One hundred fifty years ago, brothers D. W. Barnitz and A. M. Barnitz were turning good York County barley and rye into equally good York County beer.

Click here to read more about the Barnitz family of brewers.

The Lewis Miller drawing above shows a previous generation of the Barnitz family at their brew house with a crowd of Yorkers, carrying empty pitchers, advancing on them. Miller captioned it "The Old Brew house in the year 1801. The[y] made Good Beer."

The ad reads:

One hundred and fifty years ago York Countians loved to have their photograph taken. The art of practical photography was less than 20 years old, but there were at least two outstanding photographers in York. We seem to hear most often about Glenalvin Goodridge, perhaps because his father William is known as the first successful African American businessman in York.

J. Thomas Williams may have been more prolific than Goodridge, judging from the examples of his work that have survived. He was also very accomplished, as attested in the following ad, which had already been running in the Gazette for at least two and a half years in the fall of 1857:

We know York Countians have had a long love affair with the oyster. Start digging near the site of any old tavern, such as the Golden Plough, and you are likely to turn up remnants of long-ago oyster shells. Crushed oyster shells might be far under the streets you travel daily, since they were used as an early paving material.

With its proximity and trade orientation to Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay, oysters have always been popular here, especially in the months with an “R” in them. Why are oysters still mostly consumed in those months, September through April? There seems to be several reasons: Oysters reproduce during the summer months, keeping up a good supply of oysters; in the old days refrigeration wasn’t available, leading to spoilage in hot weather; and the quality is said to not be as good in the summer.

We just wish the prices were the same as those in the following Gazette ad for Bozman’s Oyster House on South George Street 110 years ago, in the fall of 1897:

York Mayor Ephraim Hugentugler had his hands full in the fall of 1917. He hauled many locals into his police court for furnishing liquor to soldiers stationed at the temporary training camp at Gettysburg. The soldiers also got themselves arrested for drunkenness or being disorderly, a charge that sometimes meant consorting with the local young women.

Excuses flew liberally: The Gazette reported that one soldier got off with just a $10 fine by explaining that "he never drank before and that the booze went to his head and he did not know what he was doing."

A 24-year-old soldier "caught spooning" with a 13-year-old girl in Penn Park said he didn't know she was under 18 because "he did not ask her age." The mayor didn't quite believe a group of women, aged 15 to 24, rounded up at Penn Common when many of them said they couldn't get away from the soldiers. "Huggy" told the girls they should be home after nine and "declared that if they are not permitted to take their soldier friends home to entertain them, they certainly will not be allowed to do so on the streets and public parks."

The Mayor and Police Chief Kottcamp were both upset when the U.S. District Judge Witmer, who had jurisdiction over the liquor furnishing cases, let seven of what Hugentugler called the "worst characters in York" off with a warning. Hugentugler decided to take matters into his own hands. See my Sunday News column below:

One hundred fifty years ago Yorkers were just as eager to spend their money on snack and drinks as they are today, as shown in a sampling of ads from the Gazette:

Christian Pfahler caught your eye with the large letters “L. I. P.” You had to read further to find it referred to his “Liquor, Ice and Pop business, at the old stand of Charles Hay, No. 44 South George Street, York, Pa. His stock of Liquors are of the CHOICEST BRANDS, AND VARIETY.”

The favorable character of the last season has enabled him to secure a full supply of Ice of the very best quality, which can be had at his residence or will be delivered as heretofore.

The ad continues:

One hundred years ago, in the fall of 1907, the Gazette ran the following article:

“A horse and dog hospital and a horse ambulance are new things promised for York. The York Rendering Works, of which E. A. Dempwolf is manager, is trying to interest local members of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and others in the matter of raising a fund for the purchase of an ambulance which can be used to haul sick horses to a hospital which will be established in this city.”

The proposal goes on to say that as the horses recuperate,

One hundred twenty-five years ago people were a lot more passionate about their politics. A November 1882 Gazette article recounts a "DEMOCRATIC DEMONSTRATION AT RED LION." Imagine the following spectacle today:

Ninety years ago York Mayor Hugentugler presided over a frequently lively police court: One case involved a "near murder" with a hatchet on the 500 block of Vander Avenue. The York Gazette reported the husband

One hundred years ago the Gazette reported a disastrous fire in Red Lion:

When Mrs. Emanuel Barshinger of North Main Street woke up about 4 a.m., she could see a fire in Millard Smith's cigar factory. It soon spread to surrounding buildings. The Smith factory and his warehouse were destroyed, as were John Garner's warehouse, the stables of Levi Kaltreider and of Dr. G. N. Yeagle.

The Leo Fire company was credited with saving Mrs. John Seitz's barn and

One hundred and fifty years ago this week the following letter appeared in the York Gazette under the heading “Borough Police and Watchmen.”