York Fair produces affairs to remember
A father and son took brides last week at the York Fair.
Interesting how love and the fair have gone hand-in-hand from the annual festival’s earliest days… .
That means as far back as 1765, when it met twice a year.
The fair gave country folk the opportunity to meet more than the limited number of people who crossed paths in sparsely settled York County, Pa.
John Durang is credited by some as the first American dancer of note. Here’s how he described the twin topics of love and the York Fair and other such “frolics” in the 1770s, as found in “Nine Months in York Town”:
“Yorktown is a dull place for business for merchants and most mechanics and inn keepers, except in seasons when the fairs and harvest frolic are held,” said Durang. “In those country towns, the country people flock in from all quarters, old and young of both sexes; their native simplicity joined in sociability excite their mirth extensive. … A great many marriages takes place by the young countrymen and girls at the time of their harvest frolics. … They encourage the young folks to work cheerful, to save as much money by their labour as will buy them useful and necessary things to please their fancy and enough left to pay their way in the frolic.”
And here’s a sampling of past York Fair posts:
Teddy Roosevelt at the York Fair: ‘I know York county farmers are prosperous. Their barns are bigger than their houses’.
This York Fair mural is fading from sight .
Good old days at the York Fair were at least old.
JFK received grand applause at York Fair visit.
Young curators produce York Fair exhibit: ‘A Fair of Our Own’.
All’s Fair blog gives all kinds of insight about York Fair.
Both Yanks, Rebs camped at old York Fairgrounds.
‘The lower she sank in her chair’.
