Recently in politics Category

Henry Fortenbaugh didn't figure he would be elected Sherriff of York County in 1877. Besides, he didn't want to run anyway.

The York Gazette ran excerpts from a "long letter" to the York Press concerning his extreme displeasure with the York Republican and his not-good chances in the upcoming election.

The Gazette article of October 30, 1877 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?

Republicans try to get out the European vote with absentee ballot info.

This post is about making history instead of reporting on it. And make history we will, whatever the outcome of the imminent presidential election.

Earlier this month, while wandering the cobblestones of the beautiful old city of Prague, I was stopped short by the sight in the photo above. My first reaction was that there can't be that many Americans in the Czech Republic that it would be worthwhile to have a rolling signboard advocating absentee balloting.

Then I realized, given the close proximity and relatively small size of many European nations, one painted automobile could cover quite a bit of area. When you think of all the American military personnel, business people, and tourists in Europe at any give time, reminding them of absentee voting doesn't seem like a bad idea.

Both congressional candidates were York County natives.

The incumbent was a successful newspaper publisher and could boast of having marched off with the York Company to the defense of Baltimore in 1814. He had been a member of the committee to escort the great Lafayette when the Revolutionary hero returned to visit York in 1825.

The challenger was a successful attorney and had served in the Pennsylvania Senate. He too was known to Lafayette, having received a letter of condolence from the Frenchman upon the death of his father.

My recent York Sunday News column outlined York’s enthusiastic proposal to become the permanent capital of the United States.

Motions, debates, and votes for one location or another flew in 1789 during the first Congress under the United States Constitution. (The new Congress, which convened March 4, 1789, replaced the Continental Congress, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation.)

Thomas Hartley was one of the four Congressmen from Pennsylvania seated that first day, and he took a vigorous role in the discussions that followed on choosing the capital site.

Even though Hartley lived in York, he first made a push for Wright’s Ferry (Columbia).
Why?

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:

50 years ago, in 1957, Lawrence B. Sheppard, President of Hanover Shoe Company, opposed a Hanover council proposal to limit parking on Carlisle Street from Park Avenue to Library Place to three-hours. Mr. Sheppard warned that such an ordinance “... would force the factory owners to move from the community.” The regulation, which had been proposed to provide more parking for shoppers, was then tabled. However the parking regulations played out, the shoe company continued to prosper in Hanover.

Sheppard was the son of Harper D. Sheppard, who, with his partner Clinton N. Myers, built a struggling shoe factory into a nationally-known maker of quality shoes. The web site of the Sheppard Mansion, an inn and fine dining establishment opened in 1998 by Sheppard descendants, states that Sheppard and Myers built their shoe empire on selling the best possible shoes for one price ($2.50 in 1899) and by selling directly to the public.