RAILCAR GOLD Chapter 7 . . Driver . . Part 4
RAILCAR GOLD is a historically accurate multi-generational fictional tale of hidden treasure, primarily set in York County, Pennsylvania during the latter half of the Nineteenth Century. This is Part 4 of Chapter 7 . . . Driver. A new part will be posted every Thursday. New readers may want to start at the beginning.
CHAPTER 7 . . . DRIVER . . . Part 4
Dan was looking forward to the start of the school year. Charles cutout a newspaper article from The York Gazette and gave it to Dan to study. Charles told him, “ you’ll fit right in, at school in York, if you learn what’s in this article. I’ll quiz you tomorrow on everything above the line I’ve drawn.”
Upper part of article entitled The Borough of York in The York Gazette issue of September 4th 1860
We are glad to hear that the ancient Borough of York holds its own so well, the census showing a population of 10,000. It is characteristic of York to be quiet, and not to trumpet its advantages and progress, and hence the announcement of so large a population may take some of our readers by surprise.
It will not be so with those who know the substantial feeders of the prosperity of York. The valley, which extends from Wrightsville, opposite to Columbia, to a point about ten miles south of the borough, is unsurpassed in fertility by any even of the Pennsylvania lime stone lands. It is of the same quality as Lancaster County, which lies opposite to it across the Susquehanna, and the Lebanon Valley country.
There is no more luxuriant appearance anywhere than this valley presents when the wheat is ripening, or when the grain is shocked, ready for the giant barns, which a New York orator once called “Temples of Ceres.” The other parts of the county, though not so surpassingly fine, are still fertile and productive. Iron is manufactured in considerable quantities. The population of the county in 1840 was 47,010; in 1850, 57,450 and will now probably reached nearly 70,000.
York is connected with Baltimore by the Northern Central Railroad; with Philadelphia by the Pennsylvania and Wrightsville Roads, and recently the long-projected railroad to Gettysburg has been finished. If the original plan of Mr. Stevens, to unite this road with the Baltimore and Ohio Road at Hancock, should be carried out, it would be a very close connection with Virginia and the West. York is also connected with the Susquehanna river by the Codorus Navigation, which extends by locks and dams from the borough to the river, and affords the means of bringing up lumber and coal very cheaply.
One of the most interesting incidents in the history of York is the sitting of Congress there for nine months, when the British were about to take Philadelphia. Congress, as well be remembered, adjourned to Lancaster, but sat there but a single say, thinking it best to put the Susquehanna between them and the enemy. When Lafayette visited York, with that tact which so wonderfully characterized him, he said, in words that have become classic and embalmed in the memory of every Yorker, that “it was the home of liberty in the darkest period of the Revolution.”
The first day of the session at York was September 30, 1777. Among the business transacted there was the voting of the thanks of Congress to General Gates, Lincoln and Arnold, and their troops on account of the defeats at Bennington, Fort Schuyler the presentation of the thanks of Congress to General Stark; the recommendation to General Washington to appoint Lafayette a Major General, the accepting of the services of Baron Steuben, and the appointment of Pulaski, a Brigadier General, with command of an independent legion. Congress adjourned from York to Philadelphia on June 27, 1778.
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