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People's Advocate Masthead, June 21, 1853

Politics are just as popular as ever. Now we can get out political fix on 24-hour cable channels and the internet as well as regular radio and television stations and the newspapers. Trouble is, except for the printed newspapers, which last for a while and can be microfilmed for longevity, how are we going to have a record of today's politics in the future?

I recently quoted the York Democratic Press to show what an interest our forebears took in political matters and how partisan many of the papers were. Another York County newspaper of the 19th century, the People's Advocate, tried to cover a wide range of interests, as you can see by the masthead above.

Click here to read about the Democratic Press.

The illustration might be a little small, but it says:

The daily papers in York County used to have a stringer in just about every small town or village. They were paid by the column inch, so a lot of very local social news made the papers. My aunt covered the New Bridgeville (Chanceford Township) area, and I remember that she sometimes reported the occasion of my family having Sunday dinner at her house.

Those small tidbits did keep the neighbors up on community happenings. As time goes on they can be quite useful to anyone researching family or local history, as illustrated by the Dillsburg tidbits below from the October 19, 1928 York Gazette and Daily.

Among the marriages announced in an April 1837 York newspaper was that of David B. Prince and Elizabeth Sandoe, on April 6th.

The editors remarked that "accompanying this notice was a liberal slice of the most delicious pound cake for the printer. It was the sweetest communication that we have received for many months, and we inserted it with as much pleasure, as we now do the sincere hope that they, who thus remembered the printer, may long enjoy undisturbed and unalloyed connubial felicity."

Every now and then some people get all bent out of shape because they think there should be no accommodation for anyone that doesn't speak or read English. Perhaps they should stop and think that their own ancestors might have been out of luck if that was the case in York County in the 1700s and 1800s.

A few weeks ago I quoted some expenditures from the 1837 York County Budget, as it was printed in the York Gazette. Click here to read about Commissioners salaries and fox scalps.

Which language did your family read and speak in 1837?

York Countians have always been readers. At any give time in the nineteen century several newspapers flourished simultaneously in York and Hanover. Just about every small town in the county also had their own weekly paper.

Bookstores, such as Jas. B. Small's Book and Stationery Store in the Hartman Building on Centre Square, were popular and prominently located. They advertised all kinds of reading material, including the latest magazines.

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.”