In my recent column on Margaretta Furnace in Lower Windsor Township, I mentioned that the York County History Center has some examples of scrip issued by the company in the 1840s, and that it could only be used at the company store. I am sharing images of these notes as well
The campaign to save the historic Mifflin House, the extremely significant site in Hellam Township at the edge of Wrightsville, is moving on, but help is needed from the public. To bring you up to date, in August 2017 Hellam Township denied a demolition permit requested by the developer of
In the 1970s the York County Bicentennial Commission painstakingly researched the dimensions of the first York County courthouse, which stood in the center of York’s square from 1754 to 1841. This was the building that housed the Continental Congress from September 1777 to June 1778, when the British occupied the former capital,
Our area has a high concentration of descendants of so called “Hessians.” This general term was applied to those soldiers from German-speaking regions whose rulers hired out their regiments to fight on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War. (Germany did not become a confederated nation until 1871,
Jonathan Mifflin was also a prominent Revolutionary War patriot, even going contrary to his Quaker religion to become an officer and assistant Quartermaster General for the entire American army. He also became a friend of George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette during the war. Charles Thomson
We are blessed with an abundance of gorgeous scenery in York County. It seems especially striking when you get away from the towns into some of the more remote corners. The long eastern border along the Susquehanna River affords many striking views from near Harrisburg to the Mason-Dixon Line. We
If you are a member of the York County History Center, you have probably already received the 2017 edition of Journal of York County Heritage. As part of the YCHC publications committee and one of the editors of the journal, I am again proud of this issue, the eighth in
My previous post shared a July 21, 1905 article from the York Daily about Dr. Reed of Lancaster coming to look for the camp where his grandfather guarded Revolutionary War prisoners. We know the site today as Camp Security. Dr. Reed’s visit must have been important in the news of
My last blog post noted that the book featuring York folk artist Lewis Miller’s drawings of “Hessians” that settled in York County after the Revolutionary War is once again available at the York County History Center, long after it was thought out of print. The book features 22 full page portraits, each
You might be familiar with two books featuring drawings of Lewis Miller published by The Historical Society of York County/York County Heritage Trust/York County History Center over the years. Lewis Miller, Sketches and Chronicles: The Reflections of a Nineteenth Century Pennsylvania German Folk Artist (1966) is out of print; Lewis