USA > Pennsylvania > York County > A Brief History of York County > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
A Brief History of York County
By GEORGE R. PROWELL
Curator and Librarian of the Historical Society of York County; Member of the National Geographic Society; Member of the American Historical Association, Etc.
Published by Request, for use of Teachers and others, desiring to obtain the leading facts relating to Local History
YORK, PENNSYLVANIA 1906 ~
ylas lase.
-
1
A Brief History of York County
By GEORGE R. PROWELL
Curator and Librarian of the Historical Society of York County ; Member of the National Geographic Society ; Member of the American Historical Association, Etc.
Published by Request, for use of Teachers and others, desiring to obtain the leading facts relating to Local History
YORK, PENNSYLVANIA 1906
GEORGE R. PROWELL
.
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation
http://www.archive.org/details/briefhistoryofyo00powe
A BRIEF HISTORY OF YORK COUNTY
Soon after William Penn made his treaty with the In- dians at Philadelphia in 1682, under the famous elm tree, he laid off the eastern part of his province into three counties, Chester, Philadelphia and Bucks. In 1696 an emissary was sent to central New York, the seat of government of the Five Nations of Indians, who by right of conquest over the native tribes along the Susquehanna, claimed the territory of what is now Central Pennsylvania. A provisional treaty was made January 15, 1696, with the five nations for all the tract of land lying on both sides of the Susquehanna. This treaty was con- firmed by the Susquehannock Indians September 18, 1700, in a deed given by two chiefs of that tribe. But the Conestoga Indians, a small tribe located along the river a few miles south of the present site of Columbia, claimed that the Indians men- tioned above had no right to make a treaty conveying the lands to the proprietor of Pennsylvania. William Penn, upon his second trip to America, visited the Conestoga Indians and in the presence of their chiefs, unfolded the deed or parch- ment, laid it on the ground before them and with the gentle words of a loving parent, said: "The lands along the Susque- hanna shall lie in common between my people and your peo- ple and we will dwell in peace together."
In 1722, four years after the death of William Penn, Sir William Keith, governor of the province of Pennsylvania, inet the chiefs of the Conestoga Indians and obtained permission to survey a tract of 2,000 acres west of the Susquehanna ex- tending from the site of Wrightsville to the mouth of the Codorus. This he named his "Newberry Tract," which was believed to have rich mineral deposits. The same year, after another council with the Conestogas, he obtained permission of them to survey 64,000 acres of land on the west side of the river to prevent the encroachments of Maryland "squatters." This vast area, extending from the Susquehanna to several miles west of York, he named "Springettsbury Manor," in . honor of Springett Penn, the eldest grandson of William Penn, who then was supposed to inherit the proprietory rights to the entire province ; for his father, the eldest son of William
3
. Penn, had recently died in England. But the real owners of Pennsylvania soon thereafter were John, Thomas and Rich- ard Penn, the three younger sons of the founder. As the re- gion east of the Susquehanna became settled, the county of Lancaster was laid off in 1729. It embraced its present area and included the present counties of Dauphin, Lebanon, Cumberland, York and Adams, without any well defined western and northern boundaries. Between the years 1733 and 1736, Samuel Blunston, agent of the Penns at Wright's Ferry, granted permits for settlers to locate on the Springetts- bury Manor, and on the Newberry Tract. (These were the first authorized settlements west of the Susquehanna.) As yet these lands were not considered as purchased from the In- dians, for even the five nations still claimed the rights to the western banks of the stream. They held a council in the country of the Onondagos and arranged to send twenty of their chiefs to Philadelphia, where, on October II, 1736, these "Red men of the forest," granted to John, Thomas and Rich- ard Penn, "all the river Susquehanna and all the lands on the west side of said river, to the setting of the Sun." After the treaty of 1736 was confirmed in Philadelphia, the fertile lands west of the Susquehanna were rapidly settled, and in August, 1749, the county of York, embracing Adams, and in 1750, Cumberland, covering a large area of territory, were organized as the fifth and sixth counties of Penn's princely domain.
An energetic and progressive class of Scotch-Irish Pres- byterians took up most of the lands in the lower end of the county, and the region now Adams county. The rich lime- stone lands, extending from Wrightsville to Hanover and be- yond, were settled by Germans of the Lutheran, Reformed, German Baptist and Mennonite faith. They came in large numbers, most of them direct from the Fatherland, the Pala- tinate country of the lower Rhine, or the German portion of Switzerland. Of the 6,000 people in York county in 1749, fully one-half were Germans, a thrifty, frugal and industrious people, who came to Pennsylvania by the invitation of the distinguished founder, William Penn.
The region north of the Conewago creek was settled by intelligent Quakers from Chester and Lancaster counties and New Castle county, Delaware. They, too, came rapidly and soon populated the northern part of the county. A number of them settled in and around York, which was founded in 174I under the Quaker rule; for the Society of Friends, or Quakers, controlled the province of Pennsylvania nearly a hundred years after the first landing of Penn. The Friends organized their meetings and built houses of worship in New- berry and Warrington townships immediately after the first settlement.
4
First Stone House.
In 1737, John Shultz and his wife Christina, built the first large stone house, within the limits of York County, at a time when there were no other two-story houses west of the Sus- quehanna. It was originally in Hellam, but now in Springett Township. This house is in an excellent state of preservation even though it is now one hundred and seventy years old. During its early history, it was one of the old time public inns and if it could speak might tell many an interesting story of our colonial days, as well as of Revolutionary times. A well authenticated tradition asserts that on the 30th of September,
The Shultz House
1777, some of the members of the Continental Congress, while on their way from Philadelphia to York, to make that place the seat of government during the British invasion of Penn- sylvania and occupancy of Philadelphia, stopped at this house for rest and refreshment. They were traveling on horse- back and the saddles used by those distinguished patriots greatly excited the curiosity of the surrounding populace, who were then unaccustomed to see such expensive luxuries. The house is quaint and antique in design, though yet a convenient and comfortable residence. One of the walls contains the
5
following words carefully carved on a sandstone tablet: "In the year 1737 John Shultz and wife Christina built this house."
York county as laid out in 1749 contained 1,469 square miles, or about 950,000 acres, and had 1,466 taxable inhabi- tants. The original population of 6,000 was increased during the following two years to 8,000. This will illustrate how rapidly settlers came into the county, as the increase in popu- lation in two years was thirty-three and one-third per cent. The area of York county since the formation of Adams county in 1800 is 921 square miles. In 1783 a census was taken by the township assessors, who reported a population of 27,007. Of this number 17,- 007 lived within the present limits of York county. There were in addition 657 colored slaves, whose term of servitude had not yet expired under the state act of 1780, which gradu- ally abolished slavery in Pennsylvania. According to the government census report for 1790, York county had a popu- lation of 37,747. The next census was taken in 1800, the year Adams county was formed, when York county had a popula- tion of 25,643, which was increased in 1810 to 31,900; in 1820. to 38,759; in 1830, to 42,859; in 1840, to 47,010; in 1850, to 57,450 ; in 1860, to 68,200 ; in 1870, to 76,134 ; in 1880, to 87,841 ; in 1890, to 95.548; in 1900, to 116,413. The estimated popula- tion now is 130,000.
Topography.
The topographical features of York County consist prin- cipally of easy-rolling hill and valley surface in a great variety of aspects. The county belongs to the open country of the great Atlantic plain, with an average elevation of about 500 feet above high tide at Philadelphia. A ridge of the South Mountains, about 1,000 feet high, enters the northwestern cor- ner of the county and terminates above Dillsburg. A spur of these mountains extends across Fairview township and down along the Susquehanna. Enclosed within the different smaller ridges are the fertile Redlands and Fishing Creek Valleys, composed of the new red sandstone and red shale formations. Round Top, I, IIO feet above sea level, and its quiet neighbor, Knell's Hill, are isolated peaks of basalt or trap formation in Warrington and Monoghan Townships. The Conewago Hills, isolated ridges of South Mountain, cross the county to- ward York Haven. Above Wrightsville, as far as to the mouth of the Codorus Creek, extending westward toward the Harrisburg pike, is a wooded ridge of white sandstone, known as Hellam Hills. Between this and Conewago Hills there is a wide extent of red sandstone.
Pidgeon Hills, named in honor of Joseph Pidgeon, an early surveyor, extend through the western part of the county. The
6
southeastern portion of the county contains slate ridges and hills, and extensive quarries are worked in Peach Bottom Township, yielding roofing slate of the very best quality. The Martic Ridge crosses the Susquehanna from Lancaster County, on which ridge there are many high bluffs along the west side of the river. This ridge passes westward to Jeffer- son. The southern and southwestern parts of the county are undulating, and contain here and there wooded hills.
Conewago Creek and its branches, Little Conewago, Ber- mudian Creek and Stony Run, drain the northern and north- western parts of the county. Codorus Creek with its two branches, flows through the central part, past York. Muddy Creek with two large branches, drains the southeastern por- tion. These streams provide a plentiful irrigation.
The surface of the county furnishes a variety of scenery --- rugged and fair, mountain and river, hill and plain, glen and dale, purling and dashing streams. The climate is change- able but salubrious. The people who inhabit this fair land are well adapted to the cultivation of the means of enjoyment and prosperity so bountifully afforded them.
York county has the shape of an irregular quadrangle. It borders on Maryland and lies on the parallel of latitude, 39 degrees, 43 minutes, 26.3 seconds (Mason and Dixon's line), and extends northward nearly to Harrisburg, or about 15 minutes above the fortieth parallel, which crosses the county through Emigsville. The county is crossed by the meridian of Washington, and with reference to that, its extreme eastern and western points are in longitude respectively 45 minutes east and 10 minutes west. York County extends along the Maryland line about forty-five miles, bordering on the coun- ties of Harford, Baltimore and Carroll. It adjoins on the north and west the counties of Cumberland and Adams. It contains an area of 921 square miles. The Susquehanna River flows for nearly fifty-five miles along the eastern boundary, and the extreme eastern point of its southern boundary is about fifteen miles north of Havre de Grace, at the head of the Chesapeake Bay.
As has been stated above, the highest elevation in the County is Round Top, which is I, II0 feet above mean tide at Philadelphia. The elevation of Red Lion is 900 feet, Shunk's Hill, 880 feet ; New Freedom, 827 feet ; Maryland line south of Hanover, 820 feet ; New Park, 812 feet ; Fawn Grove, 810 feet. These are some of the highest points in the County.
The elevation of Center Square, York, is 372 feet; Dills- burg, 540 feet; Hanover, 590 feet ; Wrightsville, at river, 214 feet ; Dallastown, 656 feet ; Lewisberry, 601 feet; Dover, 43I feet.
State Line, at Susquehanna, is 68 feet; Peach Bottom, on
7
canal, IOI feet ; McCall's Ferry, 117 feet ; Muddy Creek Forks, 121 feet. These are some of the lowest elevations in the County.
Organization of Townships.
In 1739, the same year that the Monocacy Road was laid out through the present sites of Wrightsville, York and Han- over, to the vicinity of Frederick, Maryland, the provincial as- sembly of Pennsylvania passed a special act, which empow- ered the county court at Lancaster to "lay off that portion of Lancaster county west of the Susquehanna into townships." Under the provisions of this act, in 1739, the township of Hel- lam, which originally included most of the present York County, and Pennsborough Township, embracing all of Cum- berland County, was laid out without any surveyed western boundaries. Soon thereafter the first named township was divided into Upper Hallam and Lower Hallam. When the Indian treaty was confirmed by the provincial authorities at Philadelphia in 1736, the rightful authority of Lancaster County extended west of the Susquehanna. From that date until 1739, the officers of Hempfield Township, which included the present site of Columbia, exercised authority on this side of the river. Samuel Blunston, the agent of the Penns at Wright's Ferry, was given authority to issue permits to set- tlers west of the river. He was born in the township of Up- per Hallam in the County of York, England. During the first thirty years after 1739, the oldest township in this county was called "Hallam." In 1742 the townships of Manchester, New- berry and Shrewsbury were laid out by Thomas Cookson, deputy surveyor. Manchester extended north to the Cone- wago Creek and had no well defined western boundary. New- berry then included the present Fairview township. In 1783 it contained more inhabitants than the town of York, or any township in the county. Shrewsbury included the present Hopewells and Springfield townships. In 1745 Lower Hallam township was organized into Chanceford, embracing Lower Chanceford and Fawn, including Peach Bottom. Warrington
was laid out in 1744. Monaghan in 1745, Dover, Codorus, Paradise and Manheim in 1747. All the foregoing townships were established by the Lancaster county court. Heidelberg was laid out in 1750; York, 1753; Windsor, 1757 ; Hopewell, 1767; West Manchester, 1800; Washington from Warrington, and Fairview from Newberry in 1803 : Lower Chanceford from Chanceford, 1805; Franklin, in 1809; Peachbottom from Fawn, in 1815; Conewago from Dover, in 1818; Springgarden from Hellam and York, in 1822; Carroll from Monaghan, in 1831 ; Springfield from Shrewsbury, in 1835; Lower Windsor from
8
Windsor, in 1838; Jackson from Paradise, in 1857, and West Manheim from Manheim, in 1858.
Early Church Organizations.
In September, 1733, the early Lutherans took steps to organize a church west of the Susquehanna. It was in that year that twenty persons contributed each a small amount toward buying a record book for the congregation. These early emigrants lived on the fertile lands east and west of York.
The first pastor of this congregation for ten years was John Casper Stoever, then only 25 years old, a native of Frankenburg, Germany. He was ordained for the ministry by Rev. Schulze in a barn in Montgomery county. He or- ganized many other churches in Lancaster, Berks and Leba- non counties, and died near Middletown in 1779.
The services of the early Lutherans were held in the barns and houses. In 1744, three years after York was founded, the first Lutheran church was built in York county on the site of Christ's Lutheran church, on South George street. The pastor of this, known as "The Evangelical Luth- eran church of the Codorus," from 1743 to 1744, when he died, was Rev. David Candler, who, in 1743, organized "The Evan- gelical Lutheran church of the Conewago," now St. Mat- thew's Lutheran church, of Hanover, near which he resided. This parish extended from the Susquehanna to the vicinity of Frederick, Maryland, where he organized also "The Monocacy church."
Early members of the Reformed church settled west of the Susquehanna, contemporaneously with the Lutherans, and held their first religious services in private houses, conducted by missionaries. Rev. Jacob Lischey was the first regular pastor of the first church founded in York in 1742 on the pres- ent site of Zion's Reformed church, on West Market street. The congregation was organized about 1735.
Rev. Thomas Barton, the noted missionary and soldier, in 1755, and for ten years later, was the first rector of the St. John's Episcopal church, of York, and also officiated at Car- lisle and York Springs. At first he was quite successful in preaching among the Indians in York and Cumberland coun- ties. But during the French and Indian war he organized his people for defense against their allied foes. In a letter to the governor of the province in 1758, Mr. Barton is described as having "put himself at the head of his congregation, fully armed, and marched either day or night at every alarm." His descendants formed, for a long time, a well-known family in Philadelphia.
9
The first house of worship in York county built by the Presbyterians was a log church at the junction of Scott's Run and Muddy Creek. The exact date of the organization of this church can not be ascertained. The building was doubtless erected soon after the first settlement, which was made about 1735. Three different buildings were erected in close suc- cession and the fourth one, near the. Slate Ridge church, in 1762. The Monaghan Presbyterian church, near Dillsburg, was founded about 1745.
The German Baptists, or Dunkers, a church body origi- nated in Germany in 1708, sent its first emigrants to Pennsyl- vania in 1729. As early as 1738, a church of this denomination was organized in the western limits of York county. A church on the Bermudian was founded in 1741. The Dunkers and the Mennonites were among the first settlers west of the Sus- quehanna.
Methodism was introduced into York county by the noted traveling missionary, Rev. Freeborn Garretson. The first services conducted by him were held January 24, 1781, at the private house of James Worley, who resided on the farm now owned by Jacob Loucks, near West York. The subject of his sermon was, "Old things shall pass away and all things be- come new." The next evening he preached at Lewisberry. The first Methodist church in the county stood on the site of the First United Brethren church, of York.
The doctrines of the Evangelical association were first preached in York county by Revs. John Erb and Matthias Betz, who, in 1810 established three "preaching places"-one at Jacob Klinefelter's, in Shrewsbury township, one at the house of John Seitz, in Springfield township, and the third at the house of Adam Ettinger, in Dover township. The first church building owned by the association in this county was erected near Shrewsbury in 1822. It was the second church of the denomination in America. The first one was built at New Berlin, Union county, in 1815.
The first church of the United Brethren in Christ was built in Windsor township during the early part of the present century. Philip William Otterbein, the founder of this de- nomination, was ordained a minister in the Reformed church in 1749, in Germany. He came as a missionary, in 1752, to York and Lancaster counties. It was during his pastorate of churches, near York, that he adopted his "new measures." In 1744 he moved to Baltimore, where he soon afterward founded the original church of the denomination.
Rev. Samuel Bacon, a graduate of Harvard and an early teacher in the York County Academy, August 11, 1817, organ- ized the first Sunday school in York county at his residence on Philadelphia street, York. He invited all Protestant denomi-
IO
-
nations "to lend a helping hand." By the year 1819 twenty- six Union schools were organized in the county with 2,000 scholars.
French and Indian War.
In 1754 there was a storm brewing in Western Pennsyl- vania. Insidious French settlers were laying claim to the Ohio valley, and in order to effect their purpose, they had in- cited the Delawares and other tribes of Indians to be un- friendly toward the English and German settlers in Eastern Pennsylvania. In fact the Indians became allies with the French in erecting forts and other defenses in Western Penn- sylvania. Benjamin Franklin and his two associates in 1754 had a conference with Indian chiefs at the Croghan Fort above the site of Harrisburg and at the new town of Carlisle in the Cumberland valley. They succeeded in part in recon- ciling the Indians, but the French had erected Fort Duquesne, where Pittsburg now stands, and two other forts some dis- tance to the north. Sir William Pitt, then the Premier of Eng- land, persuaded the King to send General Edward Braddock, an officer of distinction in the English army; with two regi- ments of troops to this country for the purpose of driving the French from our Western frontier. Braddock landed in Vir- ginia, where he met George Washington, then a young man, who volunteered to join Braddock as an aid on his staff. Two thousand provincial troops were ordered to be raised from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.
Benjamin Franklin at York.
Benjamin Franklin, then a leading spirit in the Pennsyl- vania assembly, came to York in the summer of 1755 and soon afterward met General Braddock at Frederick, Md. He found that this English officer had only twenty-five wagons to trans- port his stores and baggage across the Allegheny Mountains. He needed 150 wagons and Franklin returned to York and Lancaster and sent his son, Richard, to Carlisle, offering 15 shillings a day for a wagon with a driver and four horses, 2 shillings a day for each horse with a pack saddle or other sad- dle, and 18 pence for a horse without a saddle. By pledging his own property as security, and paying for each team partly in advance, he secured the 150 wagons. Soon afterward Sir John St. Clair, a Scotch baronet, quarter-master of the Brad- dock expedition, came to York and Carlisle to secure 1,200 barrels of flour for this expedition. He obtained the flour from the grist-mills in York and Cumberland counties. Then, returning to Braddock's army, near Cumberland, Maryland, composed of nearly 3,000 men, St. Clair with 800 picked men
II
cut a new road across the mountains towards Fort Duquesne. Against the judgment of the youthful Washington, General Braddock advanced too hastily and was met a few miles west of the present site of Pittsburg, where he was defeated; losing sixty officers, himself being among the killed. It was an in- glorious defeat to the British army. In this battle Washing- ton had two horses shot under him and four balls passed through his clothing. Only 400 men came out of the fight un- harmed. The provincial troops served with more valor than the English regulars, and Colonel Dunbar, commanding the survivors, marched to Philadelphia. The triumphs of the In- dians in defeating Braddock incited them to hostility against all the settlers of Pennsylvania. They began at once to make depredations on the frontier parts of the province east of the mountains, and most of the settlers fled across the Susque- hanna. Men, women and children came in large numbers through York to cross the river at Wright's Ferry.
George Stevenson, the agent of the Penns at York, wrote a letter to Richard Peters, secretary of the province at Phila- delphia, stating that the condition of affairs at York was alarming in the highest degree, for he expected the town would soon be visited by hostile Indians with the firebrand and the scalping knife. James Smith, afterward a signer of the Declaration of Independence, John Adlum, Herman Up- degraff and Thomas Armour, Court Justices of York county, addressed letters to the Governor asking for arms and am- munition for companies about to be raised for defence, stating that one company, armed and equipped, commanded by Hance . Hamilton, the first sheriff of York county, had already gone to the frontier. They further stated that hostile Indians were within one day's march of Harris' Ferry, and two days' march from York. Recruiting began at once at York and through- out the county and five companies were raised. Rev. Thomas Barton, missionary for the Episcopal Church at York, Carlisle and York Springs, commanded one company; Rev. Andrew Bay, Presbyterian clergyman, raised another. All ministers of the gospel were urged by the provincial authorities to rouse their members to prepare for defensive operations. Captain Hance Hamilton, with sixty Scotch-Irishmen, marched to Fort Littleton, a defense in the present region of Fulton county. Captain David Jameson, a physician of York, went with a company to Fort Augusta, on the present site of Sunbury. A line of fortifications and blockhouses had been built from the Delaware river along the eastern slope of the Allegheny mountains to the Maryland line.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.