York: November 2008 Archives

Congratulations to the students who participated in the recent essay contest sponsored by the York Daily Record/Sunday News and the York County Heritage Trust.

It was my pleasure to help judge the entries. All the students who entered, as well as their teachers and parents who encouraged them, are to be commended for taking time to dig into national history with a local twist.

The students in grades 6-8 and 9-12 were to write a letter home as if they were one of the delegates to Continental Congress meeting in York in 1777-78. They could tell about the problems of living in York Town as well as the heavy challenges they faced in molding one nation out of 13 diverse colonies.

Those in grades 3-5 could choose to write a biography of one of the delegates who served here.

See below for links to the winning essays as well as a link to the Library of Congress online transcriptions to the original Letters of Congress.

Lavish 1938 movie ad for the York theater

My post yesterday covered some of the movie theaters in York County and the variety of films they were showing Labor Day weekend in 1938. Now I'll tell you what else those avid movie goers had to choose from.

Click here to read the first movie post.

I checked city directories at the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives today, so I can also let you know where the theaters were located.

Feel free to respond below with memories of those days 70 years ago when movies were king.

I've heard the theory that entertainment does well in a period of recession because people want to escape for just a little while. York County's many movie theaters were certainly showing a great variety of films in September 1938, when America was just starting to come out of the Great Depression.

As shown below, some theaters even added an extra incentive--free snacks. Others advertised that the films they were showing provided clues to a nationwide $250,000 contest being run by the motion picture industry.

What was playing?

Lewis Miller drawing of York's square in 1799.

I recently posted a Lewis Miller illustration of "wicked boys" taking a wagon apart and reconstructing it on the roof of the market house in 1804. I was asked where that market was.

Click here to read that post.

It was in Center Square, right smack in the middle of downtown York. You can see the location in the Lewis Miller drawing illustrating that area in 1799.

See below for a brief history of markets in the center of York, drawn from Prowell's History of York County and Lewis Miller's Chronicles of York.

First National Thanksgiving Marker, East Market Street, York

Have you passed by the marker above, tucked into a mini-park in downtown York, PA, and wondered about the story behind it?

The marker reads: "THE FIRST NATIONAL THANKSGIVING WAS PROCLAIMED FROM YORK BY THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS ON NOVEMBER 1, 1777 TO BE CELEBRATED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18. IT WAS WRITTEN BY SAM ADAMS OF MASSACHUSETTES, 'THE FATHER OF THE REVOLUTION,' WHO ADVOCATED FOR THE FIRST TIME 'ONE PUBLIC DAY OF THANKSGIVING' FOR ALL OF THE STATES AFTER THE BATTLE OF SARATOGA 'THAT WITH ONE HEART AND ONE VOICE THE GOOD PEOPLE MAY EXPRESS THE GRATEFUL FEELINGS OF THEIR HEARTS.' BY VARIOUS HISTORICAL AND PATRIOTIC SOCIETIES AND THE NATIONAL THANKSGIVING FOUNDATION."

Princess Street Chapel from Atlas of the City of York by Frederick Roe, 1903

A recent post told how the Ladies' Aid Society of the Princess Street Evangelical Chapel successfully carpeted their church by raising the funds with an autograph quilt in 1909.

Click here to read that post.

I was curious as to what happened to that congregation and to their building. I found a trail that illustrates how many religious groups and sites change. New congregations are formed; some disappear or merge with others. One church body outgrows a building and another moves in.

The Princess Street Chapel story fits in with all of the above.

It's the season of the year for fund-raisers to really ramp up. Even though worthy organizations raise money for their causes throughout the year, it seems like the coming holiday season really brings them out. Church bazaars, craft shows, musicals, plays, basket bingos--the community newspapers are full of them.

Finding novel ways to raise funds has a long history. The York Daily newspaper of October 30, 1909 reports on how the ladies of Princess Street Evangelical Church successfully carpeted their church.

We would probably be surprised at how murky city skies were a hundred or so years ago. Manufacturing was booming, and that meant a lot of smoke and steam.

The York Gazette of December 31, 1867 reports on a major fire that took a while to get noticed because of those conditions.