19th Century: October 2007 Archives

In celebration of the Halloween season, here’s a bit of dark history from York’s past.

Today the site of the York County Judicial Center, the southeast intersection of North George Street and Philadelphia Street was once the site of the Pennsylvania House hotel and later the Hotel Penn. According to newspaper accounts of the day, a horrific event occurred in the Pennsylvania House.

The year was 1872 and Barnum’s Museum, Menagerie and Hippodrome was in town. They set up a massive canvas tent that held 5,000 people. The tent was located where the Soldiers & Sailors monument stands today and was overflowing with people eager to see such spectacles as the bearded child, the armless woman, the man in miniature, and the strange and brainless being, among others. Rather than retell the story, it is best to read it firsthand from the York Daily from Wednesday, May 15, 1872:

DEATH OF THE CANNIBAL DWARF A HORRID SCENE Cannibalism in our Midst.

Barnum’s Museum, Menagerie and Hippodrome met with quite a loss yesterday in the death of the notorious Cannibal Dwarf, which occurred at the Pennsylvania Hotel, in this place. The little Fiji exhibited symptoms of indisposition several days ago, and the Manager, Mr. W.C. Coup, sent “the General” as he is called, to New York, to be cared for by Mr. Barnum’s family physician. But the little savage becoming restless in the absence of his associates, he was returned to the company. Like all of his race he had a native horror of shoes and clothing, and even in the wet, cold days that came upon the company in New Jersey, the Manager was unable to force shoes upon the General, and make him dress with sufficient warmth. Yesterday the man in charge noticed that his fingers were constantly in motion, while he muttered continually the only word he ever pronounced intelligibly “Fiji.” He refused everything like food or nourishment, and apparently thought of nothing but his native island. Dancing or violent gesturing of any kind was always a source of great merriment to “the General,” but now the keeper could not provoke even a smile. The miniature being was dying and while his keeper was doing his best to cheer him up and make him take his medicine, he rose up in bed, muttered “Fiji” in a whisper and fell back dead. His three native companions, who up to this time were wholly indifferent, now exhibited all the symptoms of genuine grief. They howled incessantly, and such fearful physical contortions were probably never before witnessed in a civilized community.

In the span of 25 years, William Goodridge went from a young slave in Maryland to one of York’s most prominent businessmen. He grew from barber to entrepreneur, expanding his business, purchasing new properties, and starting new ventures. For a brief time he even operated a barber shop in Philadelphia.

One of his business ventures was the Goodridge Reliance Line of burthen (freight) cars, which operated from York. These cars were capable of transporting almost any freight, and eventually ran as far west as Pittsburgh and as far east as Philadelphia.

But beyond his success in business, Goodridge became quite successful in another, more clandestine endeavour: the Underground Railroad.

His properties were stations, and he was both a stationmaster and conductor, meaning that he provided shelter for runaway slaves as well as a means of transport to get them one step closer to freedom.

He lived at 123 East Philadelphia Street, in a home that still stands today. Below the kitchen is a root cellar with exposed dirt walls. It was in here that the escaped slaves were hidden. The root cellar was accessible via a trap door in the kitchen floor that was covered with carpet. Long after Goodridge left York and passed away, his children told local historians of the hiding place, which was “found” in an 1897 renovation project by noted architect Reinhardt Dempwolf. There is also at least one narrative from an escaped slave that identifies the cellar in the Goodridge House as a hiding place. Furthermore, the National Park Service has researched and authenticated the site as part of their Network to Freedom program.

One of the benefits of my day job with the Nutec Group is that I sometimes have the opportunity to become involved with local projects of historic significance. Such is the case with the home once owned by William C. Goodridge. For five years I’ve served on the task force working to transform the house into an Underground Railroad museum. Crispus Attucks, the local non-profit working to improve the quality of life in the southeast neighborhoods of York City, and beyond, is spearheading the exciting project.

Who was William Goodridge? He was born into slavery in Baltimore, Maryland in 1805 or 1806. Because he was a slave, his exact birth date is not recorded. His mother and grandmother had been owned by Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signer of the Declaration of Independence and one of the wealthiest Americans in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. (If you saw the movie National Treasure, Carroll was featured in a flashback as the last surviving signer.) Goodridge’s mother was sold to a prominent Baltimore physician.