Recently in migration Category

I've been doing some research lately on early York County furniture makers and found that there were many more of these skilled craftspeople than I realized. It does make sense--everyone needed furniture and few were wealthy enough to have it "imported" from Baltimore or Philadelphia.

The existing tax lists from 1800-1850 abound with cabinet makers, chair makers, joiners and turners. There are hundreds of carpenters listed, most of which may have been house carpenters, but some probably also made some furniture. Some, like George Dowdel, who invented a bedbug-proof bedstead didn't get picked up in the existing tax lists as a furniture maker or carpenter at all.

Click here for previous post.

Dowdel/Doudel did make more than just bedsteads, as evidenced by his sale bill, listed in the January 24, 1832 Gazette. He was selling everything, including his carpenter and cabinetmakers. A George Doudel from Pennsylvania arrived in Ohio about this time, so he may have preparing to move west, as many were doing during this period.

The sale bill, transcribed below, also gives us a glimpse of daily life in York in the 1830s.

We tend to think of our ancestors and their contemporaries as very strait-laced. Sometimes nothing can be farther from the truth. That’s what is so fascinating about using original documents as historical sources. Those letters, diaries, and newspapers they left behind sometime fairly sizzle with crime, intrigue, and scandal.

For example, take a look at the following advertisements from the April 1777 Pennsylvania Gazette.

You know my theory that all roads lead back to York? Here is another example. The small city of Galion, with about 11,500 people, sits in the northern part of Ohio, about half way across the state.

They are on U.S. Route 30, like York. They have an industrial past, like York. In fact, they are known for manufacturing road building machinery, just like we used to be.

Galion, however, has an even closer association with York County.

York County is part of what is known as a “cultural hearth,” an area from which ideas and culture spread throughout much of the country as settlers moved on.

In a recent post, I showed how the Great Wagon road, shown on the 1751 Fry-Jefferson map, carried pioneers to the south and west. Click here for that post.

That was only the beginning.

Click here for the Library of Congress zoomable 1751 Fry-Jefferson map.

I recently wrote about York County residents being recruited to move to Virginia in the 1870s. Click here to read that post.

There were several paths, following very early roads, from South Central Pennsylvania to less populated lands.

Did you know people from this area were actively recruited to move to Virginia?

I knew that as the families of Pennsylvania German and Scots-Irish of South Central Pennsylvania grew, parts of those families migrated down through Western Maryland and Western Virginia. As those areas filled up, the progression continued to the south or to the west. That is why so many people from all over the country come back to York County to find their roots.

I didn’t know, however, that Virginians were coming here to extol the virtues of living in their state as late as 1877.