1830 William Wagner watercolor of the York County Almshouse.
Most of you probably cringe along with me when you see some of the figures we spend as a county today. I’m sure the reaction was the same in 1838 when York Countians read the published report for the year before.
By Pennsylvania Law each county had to publish their budget for the year just completed in the local newspapers. Let's look at a few figures from 1837.
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:
Prosperity seems to have come to the York County of 140 years ago, if the ads in the December 31, 1867 issue of the York Gazette are any indication.
Entrepreneurs and agents from New York, Philadelphia, Maryland, and Adams County were offering investment opportunities.
Real estate was enticingly offered by New Oxford Agent J. C. Zouck as an appeal to:
“CAPITALISTS
LOOK TO YOUR INTEREST!”
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 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:
One hundred years ago stylish shoes were just as important as they are today. A large illustrated ad for the B.A. Shorb Shoe Co., 24 West Market Street, appeared in the York Gazette in the fall of 1907.
Good leather shoes were a substantial investment. No cheap plastic--oops, “man-made material” was available. Featured footwear for both ladies and men ran up to $5 per pair. The average wage of household bread winner in 1907 probably wasn’t more than
That’s what the York County Shopping Center (now York Marketplace) on East Market Street was offering in celebration of its Second Anniversary fifty years ago.
Does anyone know who won the brand new 1958 rear-engine Renault Dauphine automobile? It was a 4-door, 4-passenger sedan and you could enter the giveaway every time you visited the shopping center that October. It was a reasonably priced car (around $1,650) and reportedly got over 39 mpg. But, who cared in those cheap-gas days?
You can get a good idea of the cost of living in 1957 by comparing the following specials offered by other York County Shopping Center merchants:
50 years ago, you could buy a three, five, seven, or nine-piece chrome or wrought-iron dinette set at York Supply Company, 43-45 West Market Street, starting at $39 to $50 for the set.
While you were there, you might as well equip your laundry with a Speed Queen wringer washer. It came with a laundry cabinet, double laundry tubs, 100 ft. of clothes line, clothes pins, and 20 boxes of Tide, all for $100. Thus equipped, the happy housewife could turn out seven full loads per hour.
King’s Factory Showroom, just down the street at 113 West Market, had men’s zipper-fly dungarees, size 28 to 42 on sale for two for $3. They were probably fun to put through that wringer on the washer.
Across the street
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