January 2007 Archives

The statue of Marquis de Lafayette is York's newest.

The city’s unveiling of the Marquis de Lafayette’s statue raises the question about what historic figure York should recognize next? http://www.ydr.com/search/ci_5105091

The city, using the artistic talents of sculptor Lorann Jacobs, is embarking on a program to build cultural history and tourism via the erection of statues and monuments.

Who’s next? ...

The Civil War threatened to divide many York churches.

York's Presbyterian Church was one of them. (For another example, see Civil war prompted strife in churches, too.

In fact, one dispute ended with its minister in jail.

The Rev. Thomas Street and a visiting geography book salesman squared off one Saturday in early 1862.

When vandals toppled more than 375 tombstones at York's Prospect Hill Cemetery in October 2005, they desecrated a community treasure.

The cemetery bears countless stories from York County's past. ...

Zion Lutheran, now empty, will become a senior-services agency.

St. Paul's Lutheran and the former Zion Lutheran churches have been in the news recently.

St. Paul's made headlines because a daughter of one of its parishioners was believed to have delivered a bouquet of flowers bearing a note detailing strategic Union defenses to rebel general John B. Gordon during the Civil War.

The Zion building, vacant for a decade, is being turned into a center for senior citizen services. http://www.ydr.com/newsfull/ci_5074715

But the two congregations made the news in the first half of the 1800s, too... .

St. Paul's Lutheran was one of many York County churches battling their own civil wars.
The same history of St. Paul’s that brought the identity of the apparent bearer of the note to rebel Gen. John B. Gordon delivers insight into the split loyalties of York countians during the Civil War.

Charles Baum, son of the minister of York’s St. Paul Lutheran Church, wrote that his father left the pastorate in the Shenadoah Valley because of his Unionist views. His family left in a hurry with only the “clothing on our backs."

The minister ran into problems in Democratic York County, too. A majority in the county supported the Peace Democrats, the so-called Copperheads whose mantra was “The Union as it was. The Constitution as it is. The Negroes where they are."

Several influential members left St. Paul’s after guest preacher, J.H. Menges, proclaimed from the pulpit “all Democrats are rebels." ...

Confederate Gen. John B. Gordon, recipient of bouquet shrouding a note from a spy.

Archivist Lila Fourhman-Shaull was researching a routine request for information about York’s St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in the York County Heritage Trust’s library.

She was working through Paul J. Kane’s 1986 “A History of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church."

As was customary for the Civil War enthusiast, her eyes moved to that era of the church’s history.

A letter from the pastor’s son Charles Baum gave an eyewitness account of the Confederate invasion of York on June 28, 1863.

She read the oft-told incident in which Gen. John B. Gordon received a large bouquet of flowers from a girl. The note exposed Union troop positions in Wrightsville, where Gordon was heading. One sentence riveted her eyes to the page... .

Many people pass this ornate building not knowing it served as a post office. A caller suggests that Rabbittransit drivers could be trained to point out such features as they transport customers.

Callers and e-mailers often contribute great ideas linking to York County history:

Contact 1: A longtime phone source, just back from Las Vegas, called with this idea: Why not train Rabbittransit drivers to give tours of landmark buildings around the city. Build up tourism, community pride and perhaps bus traffic that way. He got this idea from public transit operators in Sin City.
Response: That makes sense, and there are ample resources out there to train drivers. Try: Scott Butcher's Civil War walking tour http://www.yorktownsquare.com/2006/06/york-pa-a-community-in-change.html or a tour of the Murals of York http://www.yorktownsquare.com/2006/06/the-murals-of-york-revisited.html... .

A weight lifter who made York Barbell a name brand in the weight lifting world passed away over the weekend.

Jules Bacon, 89, a former Mr. America and Mr. Universe, died in York, an adopted town he helped build into Muscletown USA... .

James Cunningham and his Navy F-14 Tomcat.

York countians are known for earning their own piece of history seemingly everywhere.

Rick and Jeanne Cunningham e-mailed that observation recently with an example involving their own son, James:

The 26-year-old has manned the navigator's seat in Navy F-14 Tomcats for three years.

The radar intercept officer, flying off the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, was part one of the last F-14 Tomcat missions before the Navy aircraft was retired... .

"Workers of York" welcomes visitors to York's Agricultural and Industrial Museum.

Dick Boyd's autobiography, like other such works, is useful in supplying stories and behind-the-scenes glimpses not found elsewhere.

"The Bridge tells the story of the "Workers of York" statue at York's Agricultural and Industrial Museum.

As he relates it:

The York County Heritage Trust museum did not tell the story of worker contributions to York's industrial might.

He asked why not, and no one knew or seemed to care... .

York County labor leader Dick Boyd named his recent memoir "The Bridge," to mark the secluded site where workers secretly met to organize in the 1930s.

They convened under the western end of the railroad bridge across the Codorus, not far from where the the twin-towered Susquehanna Commerce Center is located today. Boyd explains in his autobiography that he walked to the bridge with his father for the quiet meeting lest the company discover union organizing efforts.

I tramped around that part of the bridge a couple of months ago to view the symbolic site where the modern labor movement started in York... .

After the 1985 blaze in which 100 children and teens safely escaped, Donald Sternbergh, son of longtime owner David Sternbergh, recalled that people came from all over to skate at Playland: 'They're like roller coaster nuts,' he said, 'who go around trying different places.'

If Bury's evokes the most memories about local eateries, Playland tops the list for generating nostalgia about past places to go for fun.

The East Market Street complex, neighbor to a Bury's hamburger restaurant, included a roller skating rink, a large swimming pool and later a motel. The complex opened in the months before Pearl Harbor and lost spin completely after a 1985 fire destroyed the skating rink. Other parts were razed in 1991. Today, Cloister Car Wash and Wendy's sit on parts of Playland's former site.

Here are a few memories from the locals about the Springettsbury Township hangout and environs:

Betty Bury Harmon, here at a recent York Fair, looks at herself in front of her family's hamburger stand in an old fair book. "They just developed it," Harmon said about her father and his brothers. "They came up with the sauce, and it hit."

Write about Bury's Hamburgers, and it will spark more response than any other York County icon.

There's something about those burgers, still served at the York Fair, that bring back memories.

Bury's operated up to 11 restaurants in the York area at various times starting in the 1930s. The York Fair is just about the only place to find them in recent years. Smitties Soft Pretzels and Bricker's Fries rival Bury's in memories, but Bury's takes the sauce.

A couple of Bury's memories from readers:

J.W. Gitt

A visit to J.W. Gitt's former mansion overlooking Hanover last week said much about the longtime owner of the Gazette and Daily.

There was a putting green near the house, that reflected his love of golf.

Solar panels still heat water in the house, fitting for his concern about the environment.

His largely untouched library of thousands of Cold War-era volumes reminded one of those heady days when his small-town leftist newspaper had subscribers in big cities around the world. ...

York has lost one of its most widely circulated authors.

William H. Shank, 91, died over the weekend.

The engineer-turned-author did not write high profile, easy-to-read romance novels or children's stories.

His topics focused, literally, on where the rubber meets the road... .

York County residents better not place the hillbilly label on the likes of West Virginians and Kentuckians.

Consider this: By 1840, York County had more distilleries - stills - than any other county in Eastern Pennsylvania. And only Lancaster County produced more gallons of spirits... .

Emanuel Freedman, William Penn High School class of 1927 and Columbia University graduate, perhaps achieved more as an editor than any other York County alumnus.

Manny Freedman rose through the ranks at The New York Times, including copy editor, deskman for the London bureau, assistant foreign editor, foreign editor and one of four assistant managing editors. As assistant manager editor, he was responsible for personnel, including hiring. He died in 1971.

An Overseas Press Club bio on Freedman credits him with hiring a whole generation of foreign correspondents. As foreign editor, he guided coverage of such events as the Korean conflict, the Hungarian uprising of 1956, the Suez crisis of the same year, the 1954 Geneva conference on Indochina and many other major events.

In his profile of The New York Times "The Kingdom and the Power," (1969), Gay Talese described Freedman, a member of the York High Hall of Fame:

Dominick Argento is not the only achiever with York County roots to win a Pulitzer Prize. http://www.yorktownsquare.com/2006/12/dominick-argento-at-top-of-yor.html

Frederick Woltman, a native Yorker and reporter for the New York World-Telegram, gained the coveted prize in journalism 60 years ago.

This makes him one of York County's most honored journalists, joining Robert Maynard, Art Geiselman and Manny Freedman (who will be topic of our next post)... .

A recommended New Year’s resolution is to read some of the fine books put forth by York County authors.

Such books often tell much about our county, its people and the way they interact.

Michele McKnight Baker’s “Sandpaper Sisters" is one such book. www.sandpapersisters.com.

Without disclosing her identity, the author lived at New Life for Girls treatment centers, faith-based group homes for recovering addicts, in Dover and Westminster, Md.

She tells about her experiences in her book, drawing her title from special relationships within the centers.

“It is someone who rubs you the wrong way at first but is able to sand the rough edges in a spirit of caring," Baker wrote.

Among other things, the book offers insight into women who live in the facility, visit local places during their stay and sometimes reside in York County after their successful treatment.

The book is packed with neat stories, two of which we used in the York Daily Record’s Christmas editorial:

John F. Kennedy campaigns in 1960 for the presidency in York. (See list of known presidential visits below.) Background post: Ted Kennedy's visit to York comes almost 50 years after JFK's and Hillary Clinton's rally site in York, Pa., a little odd.

There is a telling story about President James Buchanan, who regularly passed through York County on his way to his home, Wheatland, in Lancaster County.

His practice was to leave his conveyance and walk across the mile-long covered bridge connecting York County and Lancaster. One trip in 1859, he slipped, fell, got up and, unfazed, continued his walk.

Some would say there was a certain poetic justice in his fall. His inability as president, and as a particularly weak president to boot, to hold the union together ultimately resulted in the Civil War and the rebel army's visit to York County in late June 1863. The very bridge itself slipped into the Susquehanna River after Union troops torched it to stop the Confederates from crossing.

After his fall, Buchanan returned through York "in excellent health and fine spirits," a newspaper reported. Too bad, many Americans then believed, that he didn't depart from office with his country in similar circumstances.

Buchanan's links to York made his excursions through the region public, even down to coverage of his slips. But it's impossible to pin down a complete list of prospective, actual or former presidents who visited York and Adams counties.

Here is a sampling of visits to York and Adams counties from those who occupied the White House: