We know York County had a lot of different mills. Click here to read about the many mills of York County.

Sawmills sawed trees into boards, and grist mills ground grain. What purpose did a fulling mill serve?

In a recent post about York County runaways in the 18th century, I mentioned that it was pretty easy to describe what the person who ran away was wearing. They probably only had one or two sets of clothing. Click here to read about the runaway blacksmith apprentice.

Even well-to-do people didn’t have that many clothes. You have toured historic houses--how many closets do they have? A few pegs on the bedroom wall would do nicely. Why?

Posted in 1820s Universal York Windsor Township agriculture clothing manufacturing mills textiles wool

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I am presently working with the issues of the Pennsylvania Gazette printed in York in 1777-1778. In 1934 Henry Young, who at the time was most of the staff of the Historical Society of York County, gathered photostatic copies of most of issues from libraries around the county. He even received a copy of one issue from the British Museum.

The news printed in the papers is invaluable in putting the Revolutionary War into context, but the local ads give us a glimpse of life in York during the time Congress met here.

The first thing that came to mind after reading the ad for dry goods below was: “What are they talking about?” I’ve found some of the definitions, with the help of Google and Dictionary.com. I’ve added those annotations following the transcription of the ad. See if you can figure them out first.

Posted in 1770s Universal York York advertising clothing retail stores shopping textiles

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