We sometimes seem to have a love/hate relationship with old buildings. We act like we would love to save them for their historical ties or architectural significance. On the other hand we often seem to hate committing funds to preserve them. This isn’t a new problem. There have always been
Some time ago I wrote a York Sunday News column on Dr. William Bigler’s 1890 trip to Florida to visit his son. In those days of railroads snaking all over the county, it might have been easier to travel from here to many other parts of the United States than
When planning for the recent Unraveling York County’s History: An Evening with the YDR’s History Bloggers event earlier this month, each of the five bloggers (Jim McClure, Scott Mingus, Stephen H. Smith, Joan Concilo and me) was asked to choose a local history topic that tends to generate discussion. I
The June 16, 1863 weekly York Gazette carried the article below copied from the Harrisburg Telegraph newspaper the day before. Citizens of south central Pennsylvania were beginning to realize the imminent threat of invasion was very real. To Arms! To Arms! The Invasion of the Northern States–The Entire Rebel Army
Happy 249th birthday to one of my favorites, English-American architect and engineer Benjamin Henry Latrobe. His mother, Margaret Antes of Germantown, Pennsylvania, had been sent to England to further her education. There she met Moravian minister Benjamin Latrobe, and their son Benjamin Henry was born May 1, 1764 near Leeds,
You may have read my recent York Sunday News column on the fifteen ferries that connected York County with Lancaster and Dauphin counties across the Susquehanna River. There were so many that I didn’t have room in my column to share details on each ferry, gleaned from the York County
I have had several comments and questions already about my recent York Sunday News column on the 15 or more ferries that crossed the Susquehanna River at one time or another between York County and Lancaster County. Since there were so many, I could only fit in a couple of
The marker above describes the third of the five sites commemorated by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in York’s Continental/Center Square. As with some of the others, it refers to the time that the center of York was the center of United States government when Continental Congress met here
If you are reading this, you are probably interested in York County history and know that York was the capital of the United States from the end of September 1777 through June 1778. The Revolutionary War was in full swing, and the British were occupying Philadelphia, which had been the
My recent York Sunday News column outlined York’s enthusiastic proposal to become the permanent capital of the United States. Motions, debates, and votes for one location or another flew in 1789 during the first Congress under the United States Constitution. (The new Congress, which convened March 4, 1789, replaced the