I’m certainly not advocating crime, but when you think of it, salaries for all those policemen, jailers, judges, and attorneys do add to the economy. Building and upkeep of the prisons and courthouses, feeding the prisoners, and all the other fees associated with the justice system also supply work for
You rode a horse or took the stage. Mention stagecoach and the first picture that comes to my mind is the old west with Indians or robbers chasing the stage–too many John Wayne movies in my childhood. We easterners travelled by stage too, except rough, muddy roads were the worst
York County, Pennsylvania wasn’t just about farmers and merchants and trying to win a lottery. Click here for previous post on lotteries. For example, in 1826 a multi-talented young woman was in town to teach both the French language and the art of dancing.
Lotteries have always been alluring–wager a little for the chance to win a lot. Continental Congress attempted to raise funds to finance the Revolutionary War through a lottery, with a one of the drawings held in York in May 1778. From colonial times lotteries were conducted to raise money for
We know York County had a lot of different mills. Click here to read about the many mills of York County. Sawmills sawed trees into boards, and grist mills ground grain. What purpose did a fulling mill serve? In a recent post about York County runaways in the 18th century,
What do you think they were? I just ran across an advertisement for an exhibition of really, really big bones in York in 1828. One bone was said to be 20 feet long. See below for the whole ad, quoted from the February 26, 1828 York Recorder newspaper.
You have probably noticed your bread costs more lately. The rise in the price of flour has been blamed on several factors.
Runaway ads were fairly common in eighteenth and nineteenth century newspapers. Sometimes the runaways were slaves, but not so often above the Mason-Dixon line, where there were fewer slaves. In Pennsylvania it was frequently a servant or an apprentice who had run away. The descriptions of the missing persons were