'Rocks in the Glen' turns into town where things happen
'Salute This Happy Morn,' is a book on the Glen Rock Carolers. But it's also a book on Glen Rock, a caption in this 1997 work surmises: 'Perhaps these rocks near his house, exposed by the construction of the Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad, gave William Heathcote an idea for the name of the village he had so large a part in founding. These same tracks have been the site of train wrecks, excursion trains, and most recently, trains of bike riders using of the rail trail running through the borough. Background posts: 'I really like these old pictures of Glen Rock', Former CCC Camp now on the map and AMP's and AMF's alphabet soup spilled in same small town .
Fellow blogger June Lloyd tells the rivoting story of the spectacular train accident that rocked Glen Rock on Good Friday, 1920.
Glen Rock has always been a newsy town. (To provide it, search this blog for all of the posts linked to this southern York County borough.)
Here are some insights into the town, as found in George Prowell's 1907 "History of York County, Pennsylvania," with my own comments in parenthesis:
- The entry of the Northern Central Railroad into town came in 1838, but not without considerable effort. The hard rock that had to be removed to lay rails into town caused the contractor to call the area "rocks in the glen" or Glen Rock.- Simon Koller sold land in Glen Rock to Englishman William Heathcote, who came with fellow countrymen - the Shaws, Radcliffes and other Heathcotes. Glen Rock became an English town, which accounts for the later custom of singing English carols early Christmas Day. (Still, the town played host to Lutheran, German Reformed and German Methodist churches and only one English Methodist Church, which suggests it was not that English.)
- The town became a hefty manufacturing center, including housing a considerable number of furniture makers. George W. Geiple headed one of those woodworking outfits - Enterprise Furniture Company. The Geiple furniture name became linked with a funeral home, as in many small York County towns. (That funeral home operates today under the Geiple name.)
- The First National Bank of Glen Rock organized at a strange time - during the Civil War. (Until recently, two independent banks were headquartered in town - the Glen Rock State Bank and Peoples Bank of Glen Rock. A York Daily Record story in 1997 told about the chronically confused postal service and its misdirected mail, even after one of the banks changed its address to York.)
But back to train wrecks - or near train wrecks. Down the tracks in Seven Valleys in 1918, a train coming from the direction of Glen Rock crashed leading to no loss of life, but the loss of its load gave it the name: The Great Watermelon Train Wreck.
And a runaway locomotive from New Freedom in 1996 passed safely through the borough before stopping north of Seven Valleys. That incident is recounted in: The unsolved mystery of locomotive No. 1689.
