York: December 2008 Archives

I've been doing some research lately on early York County furniture makers and found that there were many more of these skilled craftspeople than I realized. It does make sense--everyone needed furniture and few were wealthy enough to have it "imported" from Baltimore or Philadelphia.

The existing tax lists from 1800-1850 abound with cabinet makers, chair makers, joiners and turners. There are hundreds of carpenters listed, most of which may have been house carpenters, but some probably also made some furniture. Some, like George Dowdel, who invented a bedbug-proof bedstead didn't get picked up in the existing tax lists as a furniture maker or carpenter at all.

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Dowdel/Doudel did make more than just bedsteads, as evidenced by his sale bill, listed in the January 24, 1832 Gazette. He was selling everything, including his carpenter and cabinetmakers. A George Doudel from Pennsylvania arrived in Ohio about this time, so he may have preparing to move west, as many were doing during this period.

The sale bill, transcribed below, also gives us a glimpse of daily life in York in the 1830s.

York Imperial from USDA Bulletin

The York Imperial apple won't win any beauty contests. I have several in my fruit bowl right now and they all look different. They come in various shadings of red and green with brown freckles. Shape isn't uniform either--one is round, one is lopsided and one is...well, a kind of lopsided oval that's higher on one side than the other.

Beauty isn't what has kept Jonathan Jessop's York Imperial apples popular for over 150 years. It's their firmness and long keeping qualities that made them a favorite for storage and still keeps them in the high esteem of fruit processors.

See below for my recent York Sunday News column on clockmaker, engineer and fruit farmer Jonathan Jessop and his apple.

William Goodridge's advertisement of the public display of a Christmas tree in 1840, fairly rare for that time, has often been repeated at this time of year.

In the hope of adding a new twist, I did an internet search on Goodridge plus Christmas tree and came up with an interesting coincidence. One hundred twenty-seven years after the York, PA Christmas tree exhibit, Edward S. Goodridge of New York state received a patent for a new way of constructing artificial Christmas tree branches.

The original ad and more information on the patent are below.

We are bombarded with ads today for Christmas gifts, in print, on television and online. In 1840 York county residents managed to get their shopping, which was much sparser than ours, done with few ads to entice them.

Still, York entrepreneur William Goodridge managed to cram a lot of merchandise in the brief advertisement he ran in the York Democratic Press during November and December 1840.

Fires occur all too often, whether they are accidental or deliberately set. Even with the immediate communications and speedy response today, fires are still scary. Just think how frustrating the wait for the arrival of the firefighting apparatus was 130 years ago, such as at the scene described below, from the December 24, 1878 York Gazette.

It was the late 1850s and photography was becoming quite popular in the area, so much so that E. A. King was offering monuments adorned with your likeness. If that didn't interest you, King also advertised that he could give you a good deal on marble stones.

The newspaper ad below first appeared April 7, 1857 and reappeared regularly though the year.

That's what some excavators though in 1911, jumbling some history and jumping to conclusions. The York Dispatch reported the story:

Truth in advertising? The item below from the May 11, 1911 York Gazette looks like a news item, but the further you read, the more it sounds like an advertisement for Quaker brand remedies. Perhaps it's both--you decide.

One reason that historical research is so intriguing is because the facts may be objective and verifiable but the interpretation is subjective, influenced by the perspective of the interpreter.

Even the "facts" themselves might not be a factual as you think. The first rule in research is to use as many primary sources as you can. A primary source is usually defined as a document or other evidence, either contemporary with what you are researching or created by someone involved in the event. The same event, however, is often recorded differently by different eyewitnesses, and an involved individual's perceptions of events can change as time passes.

History is being rewritten all the time. Sometimes it is because new primary sources come to light. More often, it is reinterpretation of an event, which is influenced by the perceptions and biases of the writer. And that's o.k. It doesn't make it right or wrong, as long as verifiable facts aren't changed. New insights may be gained, but that doesn't make the older texts wrong either if they differ.

Whether or not the proclamation issued by Continental Congress in York on November 1, 1777 was the First National Thanksgiving Proclamation is a case in point.