Do you ever wish you knew what your ancestors were like? After all, they were living, breathing souls just like you and me. Most of you probably know or knew your parents and all or many of your grandparents. Some even remember a great-grandparent or so. Just multiply those family
When I was very young, I used to amuse myself with my grandparents’ parlor organ, very probably made by the Weaver Organ and Piano Company. As a teenager I took piano lessons, as my daughter did later, on a York upright piano, another Weaver product. I am working on an
Eliza E. Ridgely was a beautiful young woman born into a prosperous Baltimore family. The Marquis de Lafayette was said to be charmed by her during his 1824 visit to Baltimore, and she played her harp for him when he was a dinner guest of her parents. Eliza’s letters at
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,
I hadn’t been to the Haines Shoe House for several years until last week. My eight-year-old great-granddaughter and I were delighted with the tour (as well as the Beck’s ice cream and the home baked treats offered by the owner). It had changed hands not too long ago, and I
Most people know the imposing stone building on the northeast corner of York’s Center/Continental Square was erected as a bank building in the 1920s and that it served in that capacity until just a few years ago. It is now awaiting another use. But, did you know that the bank’s
See below for the transcription of an interesting clipping from the September 23, 1937 York Gazette and Daily found in the York County History Center files. It reads:
Last month I did a blog post about the impressive turn of the century York County courthouse and its narrow escape from the 1950s mentality of tear it down and build something new. The nicely restored building now serves at the York County Administrative Center in the first block
A Facebook friend asked about the history of Victor’s Italian Restaurant on Ogontz Street, knowing that the building was a former church. I looked through the York County History Center files and City Directories as well as online sources. Several newspaper articles on Victor’s in the YCHC restaurant file recapped
Fellow blogger Scott Mingus has done extensive research on the Mifflin family of Hellam Township. He has written, both in his Cannonball blog and in his recently published book, The Ground Swallowed Them Up: Slavery and the Underground Railroad in York County, Pa., about the significant role Jonathan Mifflin, his wife Susannah