A friend told me about a recent article by Lower Windsor Township resident Gene Schenck in the Columbia/Hellam/Wrightsville Merchandiser. It detailed how four local men, Jim Anspach of Columbia, Gene Smeltzer of Lower Windsor Township, Bill Dehoff of Windsor and Bruce Herbst of East Prospect have been working for some
Hanover Lutheran pastor Frederick Valentine Melsheimer has been called the father of American entomology (insects). He was also a “Hessian,” who came to America with troops fighting on the British side during the Revolutionary War. If you have Melsheimers in your ancestry, there is a good chance that you descend
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,
Remember “The Twist,” the dance craze from the 60s? Remember Chubby Checker who brought “The Twist” to life? What connection could this have to York County? Read on. A friend recently mentioned that her cousin, Reverend George Garber, a retired Lutheran pastor who now lives in Florida, was over 100
My recent York Sunday News column on Anna Dill Gamble is below. She was truly a woman ahead of her time. Gamble used her time, money and skills to further causes in which she believed. Her missions included Catholicism, women’s suffrage and world peace. She helped organize the Catholic Association
Here are some more local news items, this time from Shrewsbury in December 1889. This time I didn’t even have to go to the newspaper microfilms at York County Heritage Trust myself. Friend, relative and Dallastown native, Apyrl Zarfos Anderson, who now lives in France, has been in York County
Summer brings thunder and lightning. Here is an account of a quite powerful lightning strike at St. Jacob’s (Stone) Church in Codorus Township. It is from the June 28, 1887 York Gazette. FEARS OF LIGHTNING—During the storm on Monday, the 20th inst., about noon, the lightning struck the Stone (St.
Dr. Florence Gipe was a very interesting woman. She was a pioneer in modern nursing education and also deeply interested in York County History and Civil War history. I only met Dr. Gipe once, even though she was a childhood friend of both my parents and my stepfather. They all
I am doing research for an article I’m writing on the prolific York County Fraktur artist Daniel Peterman, who did the certificate above. So far I have recorded 79 examples of his work. His hand-down Taufscheine (Birth and Baptismal Certificates) cover six decades of the 19th century, from the 18-teens
Why aren’t some of the gravestones in the cemetery between Canadochly Lutheran Church and Canadochly Reformed Church in Lower Windsor Township lined up in straight rows like those in the rest of the cemetery? The answer seems to be connected with the date that the church shown in the photo