York really is the center of the universe, especially when you consider its place in historical events. Local historian June Lloyd looks at how things have converged on our hometown, past and present.
Lewis Miller Drawing of "Some Wicked Boys at the Market House, 1804"
Folk artist and chronicler Lewis Miller doesn't say if the prank illustrated above occurred on Halloween or not, but it certainly would have been a fitting one for the tricky holiday.
Some young Yorkers had some time on their hands in 1804 and put themselves to work taking apart and reconstructing a wagon in its new location.
Miller's caption reads:
Lewis Miller drawing of 1840 W.H.Harrison campaign headquarters.
In 1840 Democrats derisively campaigned that the Whig candidate for President, William Henry Harrison, would be more at home in a log cabin. The Whigs seized the idea and used it as a symbol, giving the idea that Harrison was one of the common people.
That wasn't exactly correct, seeing that Harrison was the son of a Virginia planter, college educated and a career army officer before he got into politics.
The log cabin image was so striking, however, that Whigs all over the country built log cabins to use as campaign headquarters. Did York?
John Hetrick's Strawberry Surprise
Ice cream and oysters have each enjoyed a long popularity in York County eateries. A recent post quoted an 1845 ad announcing the grand opening of Gray's ice cream parlor, and ads for oysters abound. Click here for the ice cream post.
York folk artist Lewis Miller illustrated nineteenth century York County in detail. His drawing above catches a local citizen about to make a culinary mistake at Gray's restaurant. Miller accompanies the illustration with the following explanation:
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?
Hartman Building Revealed March 2008
Miller View With Spectators in the Cupola
You can’t miss the news that the Hartman Building in the Square of York is going to get a drastic facelift. It has been reported in print, on TV and online. I also whipped out my camera when I walked by the other day, struck by the sight of the impressive stone keystone lintels and sturdy bricks that had been covered by metal siding all those years.
I read the news stories that the owner, commendably, plans to restore the building. But then I started to look at the various incarnations and wonder which one will be chosen. Six stories or seven? Cupola or no cupola?
The site has been drawn, photographed, and made into postcards as much as any in York County over the past 200 years. I picked six out of the many views available to share with you. See below for more.
Which Hartman building do you like best?
Lewis Miller drawing of the new courthouse, 1839.
I recently wrote about a thief stealing the copper spouting off the York County courthouse in 1874. That was the York County’s second courthouse, completed in 1840.
Click here to read about the spouting heist.
York County residents, as always, had plenty of opinions where that new courthouse should be and kept a keen eye on the cost. The first courthouse, the one in which Continental Congress met, had to go, they said, because it sat in the middle of Center Square, and traffic was picking up.
I'll tell you more about the cost of the 1840 building itself in a future post, but for now, I’ll quote the Gazette editorial of February 13, 1838 when, after much wrangling, a site was finally chosen:
Lewis Miller drawing showing himself, George Kuntz, and Dr. George Shaffner in a sleigh accident in 1831. Miller is retreiving Dr. Shaffner's wig.
There were no automobiles 130 years ago, but people still managed to accidentally harm themselves by other means of transportation--buggies, wagons, sleighs.... Many of the worst local accidents involved trains and resulting loss of body parts.
Some of the less gory accidents, as reported in the Gazette in late fall/early winter 1877 follow:
Lewis Miller Drawing of a York County Pennsylvania German Christmas Tree
In December 1867, the Gazette reported:
"FESTIVAL-- The Moravians are now holding a festival at Washington Hall for the benefit of their new church. They have the largest and finest assortment of fancy articles and toys ever offered at any similar enterprise in this place. Among the attractions is a large Christmas tree, illuminated by hundreds of jets of light, which is well worthy of a visit. A trifling fee only is charged admittance--ten cents, we believe. Give them a call."
A related item reported progress on:
I guess it is human nature to want to have the biggest and the best. We are always impressed by the tallest buildings and the most gigantic pumpkins.
Our forebears were no different, as we can see by the Lewis Miller drawing above of a huge pumpkin. Miller captioned it: “1809. Christian Leaman, big and large pumpkin grown in his garden. It was as large as a barrel and more in circumference around. Old Dr. John Fisher bought it and sent it to Baltimore to let them see what old York can raise and examine it. No man could lift it from the ground.”
The citizens often made sure the local newspapers knew about their accomplishments. Short items from all over the county in the York Gazette in the autumn of 1877 list several examples:
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:
