History of York County Pennsylvania, Volume I, Part 18

Author: Prowell, George R.
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: J. H. Beers
Number of Pages: 1372

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The " York Barrens," which covered a large extent of territory in the lower end, became noted in the annals of York County, long after the period of experimental farm- ing. Much land in the Chancefords, Hope- wells, Fawn, Peach Bottom, and parts of Codorus and Manheim, after being cleared of timber, for two or three years produced fair crops of wheat, barley, spelt or corn. It then became poor and would not readily grow these valuable cereals. Rye could be cultivated longer on these lands; finally it

The first settlers always located

The near some spring or gentle running Pioneer stream of crystal water. Springs Home. were plenty and nature's drink was pure and wholesome. For a few days the covered wagon served as a home, often for more than one family, especially for the women and children. The spread- ing branches of a large tree afforded shelter until the log cabin, occasionally a stone house, could be built. A few red men visited them and exchanged furs and other articles. Until 1756, during the French and Indian war, their ravages were never feared and the few that remained were on friendly terms with the whites.

Hard and patiently did the settlers go to work, with coats off, arms bare, and sweated brows, to fell the trees and hew the logs for their future homes. Logs were split, notched and appropriately arranged, and then each settler assisted his nearest neigh- bor to do the heaviest work. The women who endured this new life were not idle. In homespun clothing and plain white caps, with the open air for a kitchen, and a few collected stones for a hearth, after the cus- tom of the gypsy of the present day, they swung, with chain and hooks, the pots and kettles brought from their native land, and prepared the heartily relished food. A large log, a huge rock, or the " end gate " to the emigrant wagon served as a table. Sometimes a huge white oak or chestnut was cut at a proper height, around the stump of which these humble sons of toil gathered to partake of their frugal meals, until better accommodations were provided. The men ate first ; the women and children came last. Thanks were silently offered and there was but little profanity. The children wandered into the near woods to observe the new attractions, but not too far from the cabin, lest the voracious wolf or some unfriendly Indian might cause alarm.

HISTORY OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

The timid deer and the sportive squirrel grain by both being placed on a linen sheet, were frequently added to the larder, and delicious fishes which the aborigines so much loved to catch, were abundant in the Susquehanna, the Codorus, the Conewago and in all the streams. The table of the early settler was frequently supplied with fish, easily caught. The iron fish hook was a necessary article for the emigrant, as was his flint lock gun. The spade and the hoe, necessary tools for the settler, were first brought into requisition, and soon a small patch was cleared and dug and planted with seeds and bulbs, some of which had been brought from across the ocean.

Much timber was split into rails for fences to enclose the newly cleared tracts. The underwood was "grubbed," dragged on heaps and burned, and a large flame from them was a common sight. There were no matches to light them as now. "Punk " and the flint stone were commonly used to ignite wood, or else live coals were brought from the open fires of a neighbor's cabin. The age of stoves had not arrived in York County. The era of forges and furnaces came later. Then, as the season progressed, the old fashioned wooden plow, drawn by the heavy draught horses or a pair of oxen, slowly turned up the soil, most of which for ages unknown, had been undisturbed. It is strange to think that the world existed so many thousand years without her inhabi- tants even knowing of the richness of the treasures in the western hemisphere. Limbs of trees tied together first served as har- rows to level and pulverize the soil. For a few years the same plow was used by two or more farmers. The crops were planted or sown by hand, and covered by a hoe or brushwood. The soil being naturally fer- tile, crops grew abundantly without fertiliz- ers, and to the frontiersman the first har- vest was a great delight.

of which two persons took hold, and tossing the contents up in a current of air, a gentle breeze would blow the chaff away and leave the precious grain. Corn was shelled with the hand or by flail. Wheat or corn was ground the first year or two in a " pioneer mill "-a mortar hollowed in the end of a log, or a stump, in which it was ground, In- dian fashion, with a pestle. Soon after the small grist mill, run by water power, was constructed. The log house when com- pleted was about 10x15 feet and seven feet to the roof, at first covered with heavy bark, and, after the first year's crop, was carefully thatched with straw. There was no cellar. On the garret or "loft," as it was called, was stored the grain of the first year's crop. The next winter was spent by the husband in clearing more land, and taking care of his horse, cow, pigs, and sheep, which were ex- pected to huddle together, and live har- moniously in one common stable. The wife would "ply her evening care " in front of the blazing hearth, on which the glowing " back logs" furnished both light and heat.

Before the first settlement of Frontier York County agriculture had a Farming. fair foothold in this province, the domestic animals had been put into use, and all the cultivated plants grown in the mother countries had been tried on American soil. Corn, to the early York County settler, was a new plant, native to America, and cultivated in a small way by the aborigines. Hemp, cotton, rice, spelt, oats, millet, lucerne, flax, rape, rye, oats, barley and buckwheat were all cultivated for a time in York County. The raising of some of these cereals was soon discon- tinued. Hemp was cultivated a long time, and the old-fashioned " hemp mill " is still remembered. It was cultivated in York County as late as 1830. Flax and its valu- able product were known much later. The linsey-woolsey made from linen and woolen thread was used by our ancestors as an ar- ticle of clothing.

Many of the Quakers came to York County on pack horses and some of the first wagons they used were made here en- tirely of wood. The wheels were sawed from the thick trunks of the " gum tree " or the tough "buttonwood." A few of these This experimental farming of our ances- tors was so successfully tried before the Revolutionary period. that, since then. settlers brought their wagons with them. Spelt, wheat, barley and rye were first culti- vated. They were cut with a sickle, the introduction of few plants. except threshed with a flail, and among the earliest settlers the chaff was separated from the sorghum during the Civil war, can now be named.

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PIONEERS AND PIONEER LIFE

Grasses which appeared in the Penn- Introduced. sylvania Herald, published then in York, dates the siic- cessful introduction of clover seed into York County :

Those farmers who would wish to improve their land and stock, and put money in their purses by cultivating that valuable new article, CLOVER, would be supplied with SEED by applying to the subscriber, or to Samuel C. Updegraff, in said town. February 14, 1792. CALEB KIRK.

The following advertisement, later, and Jerseys since the Civil war. Long wooled sheep were raised at an early date. Many farmers during the Revolutionary period owned from ten to twenty of these animals. Merino sheep were introduced from Spain soon after 1800. Previous to the settlement of America, the domestic animals of Europe fed on natural pastures. The grasses were not cultivated as they are now. The artificial seeding to grass only became common in Europe and America to- ward the close of the eighteenth century. There were many kinds of grasses indi- genous to this section, but they were not well suited for pasturing purposes; hence domestic animals deteriorated. The faith- ful horse and the ox, both of which were used for farming, as well as the milk cow, deteriorated in form and 'size, and became smaller than their progenitors. The native Indian corn was found to be wholesome and nutritious food for them, and greatly coun- terbalanced the effect of the grass food.

The first seed sold at a rate of what now is equivalent to $20 a bushel. Owing to the dry season of 1838, the following year it sold for $20 a bushel in York County and for $17 during the Civil war.

Red clover and timothy, native grasses of Europe, were not grown much in Pennsyl- vania before 1800, except by experiment. About this date their introduction became general. In some sections of York County they were never successfully grown until

During the colonial period, the products after the era of commercial fertilizers. The of agriculture and of the forests constituted German scythe could not cut them well, the principal articles "taken to market;" first conveyed from our county to Philadel- phia and Baltimore on pack horses and af- terward on rudely constructed wagons. Since 1870 the fattening of cattle for market has become a very important business. Thousands of them are sold annually in the town of Hanover and shipped to Baltimore and Philadelphia. In the fertile lands around York, and in many sections of the county, farmers find the fattening of cattle a profitable business.

which caused the introduction of the Eng- lish scythe. These new grasses grew well on upland regions. They were found to be better food for domestic animals than the native meadow grasses. Timothy grass seems to have been introduced into this country by Timothy Hanson, an intelligent Quaker. He sowed a few quarts of this imported seed on his farm near Dover, Del. His Quaker neighbors were pleased with the success of his experiment. The next fall these neighbors purchased some of Timo- The fields were ploughed in The Old "lands " by several furrows be- Time ing thrown together. In harvest thy's seed. It grew well on all the farms and the Quakers continued to call it Timo- thy's seed, which in after years became Harvests. time two or four reapers would known as timothy grass.

Spelt and barley held sway in York County for nearly a century, when they gave way in the decade between 1820 and 1830, to red-wheat and the blue stem wheat. The ears were smooth. Many varieties of wheat have since been cultivated with suc- cess.

The cows brought here first were Domestic long-horned, hooked backward, Animals. many of them of brindle color. They were a large sized, clean limbed animal. Short horned cows were not introduced until 1830, Devons much

take a " land." The harvest sea- son was a time of great enjoyment. Neigh- boring farmers assisted one another. Ten. fifteen, and sometimes as many as a hundred reapers, both men and women, with the sickle, worked in one field as a gay, lively company. Before the introduction of the cradle, tradesmen. and townspeople all tem- porarily dropped their vocations and went to assist in harvesting. On the farm of George Hoke, in West Manchester, in 1828, there were 102 men and women, reaping in one field with the sickle. They soon cut the grain of that field and went to another.

HISTORY OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

About the same time near by, Peter Wolf early day, there were a few large dwelling had fifty-four reapers at work. They houses with massive doors, wide halls and easy stairways. Some of the wood-carving was beautifully done, showing artistic work- manship. passed along like a moving battle line. It was an interesting sight. A good reaper could cut forty-two dozens of sheaves a day. The German scythe, made of malleable iron, sharpened by hammering the edge on a small anvil, called the " dengeln stock," was used for mowing. The whetstone was car- ried by the mower with a horn containing water mixed with vinegar. For cutting spelt, rye and wheat the sickle was almost universally used until about the beginning of the war of 1812, or possibly five years earlier, when the grain cradle came into use in York County, and in the country in gen- eral. The sickle was extensively used for cutting rye at a much later period.

As soon as a tract of land was Fruit cleared and the young fruit trees Trees. could be obtained, an abundance of apple, peach, pear and cherry trees were planted by the pioneer settlers. In no country did they grow more luxuriantly than in the native soil of Southern Pennsyl- vania. Winter apples, "cherry bounce," " apple jack," and " peach brandy " soon be- came plentiful. The " snitzings " and "ap- plebutter boilings " were parties where mirth and hilarity reigned.

There were no large barns be- Big Barn fore the Revolution such as are and Second seen now by the hundreds, in House. York County. The first ones were either log or stone. After a few years, as saw-mills became established along the streams, the huge trunks of the oak and the walnut were sawed into scant- lings and boards, and settlers then began to construct large buildings. Rye, the only winter grain that produced well at first, was very useful. Its straw was used for thatching roofs, for making bee-hives and bread baskets. A well-made straw roof lasted many years.

The second house built was two stories high, of stones or logs, with weather- boarding. Many of them had a large chim- ney in the centre, after the German custom. The English and Scotch custom was to build chimneys on the outside of the house, one at each gable end. They were made of stone or brick. Among the wealthier classes large buildings were erected about the year 1812, and even earlier. In York at a very

The amount paid for land by the The Value first settlers in York County of Real varied in accordance with its Estate. natural fertility and the timber that was found upon it. The immigrant obtained a warrant from the heirs of William Penn, giving him the privi- lege of taking up land that had not already been purchased. Some of these warrants specify that a tract of 200 acres or more was often granted to a settler for the amount of five shillings, more or less, per acre. Some of the most fertile lands were originally sold by the proprietaries at prices ranging from five to ten dollars per acre. When the Revolution opened in 1775, the best farming land lying near towns sold at the rate of thirty to fifty dollars per acre. In 1781, ow- ing to the depreciation of Continental cur- rency and the paper money issued by the State of Pennsylvania, as a result of the war, good farming land was sold as high as $200 per acre. This estimate is based upon the value of paper money, which soon after- ward became totally worthless and most of it was never redeemed either by the state or the government. There were several in- stances in which farms were sold in York County about this time and paid for in con- tinental money. The holder of this money in 1783 had neither farm nor credit, for his money then was worth no more than the weight of the paper upon which it was printed. In many cases bankruptcy fol- lowed.

All farming lands and real estate in this county and throughout Pennsylvania reached a high valuation in 1814. This was the result of the enactment of a law estab- lishing forty state banks. This caused an enormous circulation of paper money, eventually worth in coin only about one- fourth of its face value. Governor Snyder had vetoed this bill, creating the banks, but the bill was passed over his veto and became a law without his signature. Money circu- lated freely everywhere throughout the state and its abundance caused enterprising citizens to formulate plans for laying out new towns. Some of these became perma-

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PIONEERS AND PIONEER LIFE

nent villages or boroughs in this county, while others were only "paper cities." Among those laid out at this period familiar to the reader were Jefferson, Franklintown, New Market, Siddonsburg and Liverpool, now Manchester borough. Some of the towns laid out during the fluctuations of the Pennsylvania currency from 1814 to 1816 were Sowego, Georgetown, Millerstown and Jacobstown, and the old town of Man- chester. It would not be easy for the reader at present to locate the sites of any of these " paper cities." When the collapse came in monetary matters in this state, their pros- pects of future greatness ended.

Land reached its highest valuation in this county during the Civil war and down to the year 1880. Farms situated near the centres of population then sold as high as $300 per acre. Land remote from towns brought $100 or more per acre. The war and the extravagant modes of living after it had ended, caused a depreciation of all the paper money, even the "greenbacks," as the national currency was called. During the year 1864 a gold dollar was worth $2.65 in national currency and a bushel of wheat sold for $2.50. Money was abundant every- where and in general all industries pros- pered. The financial crisis beginning in 1873 spread all over the United States and reached its climax in York in 1877. For a period of several months during that year only one large manufacturing establishment in York was in operation. After the re- sumption of specie payment, which went into effect by an act of Congress in 1877, there was a gradual rise in the price of farm

Most of the virgin soil after it Fertilizers. was cleared of timber by the early settlers was fertile and productive. The farming land did not need a fertilizer to grow good crops. Manure, the best of all fertilizers, was the first to be used by the York County farmers. A com- position known as "plaster," containing ammonia and other ingredients, was intro- duced soon after the beginning of the nine- teenth century. It came into general use in Pennsylvania a few years later. Lime was used for plastering houses and for mason

work, many years before its virtues were known to generate the necessary sustenance in the soil, and furnish it to the roots of the growing crops. In 1817 it was experi- mented with in Hellam and Spring Garden Townships, but it was not much used in the county on the land until about 1828; by 1830 it was put into general use. The conserva- tive opinion of many farmers prevented them from applying it for many years after, and those who did use it were at first ridi- culed as foolish and visionary.

Societies and associations for the diffu- sion of knowledge and the growth of the physical sciences, especially chemistry and geology, about this period, led to great de- velopments in agriculture. From that time forth agriculture began to be studied as a science, and lime became very extensively used. Bonedust, guano, phosphates, and other artificial fertilizers have been used in great abundance in York County, and seem to produce especially good results in slate and shale lands. The rotation of crops began with the introduction of lime.

The threshing machine, succeed- Threshing ing the laborious methods of Machines tramping with horses and

and pounding with the flail, was a Reapers. great curiosity. At first only the wealthy farmers bought them. Laboring men and many farmers opposed their introduction, which they con- sidered an innovation injurious to the in- terests of the poor man. It was not many years, however, before all enterprising farmers used them, and the laboring man found his task much easier. The same dis- lands. But at no time since then have the cussions arose when other labor-saving fertile lands of York County been sold at so high a figure as during the ten years suc- ceeding the Civil war.

machines were invented. " Taking bread out of the poor man's mouth " was the cry. It is quite probable that the ancient Egyp- tian could thresh and clean his grain, three or four thousand years ago, as well as the York County farmer could before the intro- duction of the threshing machine, when from ten to sixteen bushels per day were what one man could thresh out with the flail. By treading with horses, he could possibly treble this amount. Then came the horse power, threshing first one hundred, then three hundred or more bushels of wheat per day; finally the steam thresher, travelling from farm to farm, and thresh- ing 600, 800, and sometimes over 1,000

HISTORY OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

bushels in a day, or 50,000 bushels in a year.

The double toothed, turning grain rake and hay rake succeeded the common hand rake about 1838, and continued in use until 1870. The modern sulky rake, a still greater improvement, has since been used. The old Colter plow gave place to the much easier running plow of recent date.

All the small cereals were, for an entire century of the history of agriculture in York County, sowed by hand and " harrowed or plowed in." The grain drill came into use in 1843 or thereabouts, and has, like many other implements, undergone changes since. Perhaps the greatest triumph and the one which created the most curiosity among the farmers, was the invention and successful use of the mower and reaper. If a farmer purchased one of these all his neighbors for miles around went to see it operate. The McCormick and the Hussey reaper and mower were the first to be used in this county, introduced in 1853. Various other kinds soon were purchased in Hanover, York and Dover. Reaping machines, like threshing machines, had been devised cen- turies before in a crude form, but it was not until the time of the great World's Fair at London, in 1852, where the American machinery attracted so much attention, that they came into prominent use. From 1852 to 1855 their distribution was immense, and their manufacture very profitable. In 1853 Conrad Moul, of Hanover, began manu- facturing the " Hussey " mower and reaper, but he sold his first reapers of the Hussey patent in Hanover in 1851. From 1853 to 1870 he made a large number of them in his shops at Hanover. Ilgenfritz and White, of York, the next year made the "Atkins." The following year Flickinger Brothers, of Hanover, began making the " Dorsey " and Reuben Hoffheins, of Dover, his own in- moved his shops to York. The McCormick was invented and tried in 1831 and the Hussey reaper in 1833. These were the first American machines. A noticeable fact is that Obed Hussey, the inventor, was a descendant of Nathan Hussey, who was one of the commissioners to lay off York County in 1749, and one of the first Quaker settlers in the county.

CHAPTER VII

EARLY HIGHWAYS

Early Roads-Early Ferries-Bridges

Indian trails extended across York County from east to west and from north to south when this territory was occupied by the aborigines. Many years before white settlers had crossed the Susquehanna, there were routes for pack horse travel across this region to Maryland and Virginia, both of which provinces were partially settled before 1736, when the heirs of William Penn purchased the lands of his province west of the Susquehanna. Although the Quakers began their settlements in the northern part of York County as early as 1734, and the Scotch-Irish first occupied the southeastern section about the same time, and the Germans began their authorized settlements around York as early as 1733, there is no record of any public highway being laid out west of the Susquehanna until 1739. The first settlers of this region, some of whom came in wagons, but most of them on horseback, cut their own roads through the dense forests to the places where they made a selection of land for permanent settlement.

It was during the year 1739 that Monocacy under the authority of the Lan-

Road. caster Court this route, long known as the Monocacy Road, was opened upon the petition of numerous settlers west of the Susquehanna in the present limits of York County. The view- ers to locate this important road were Joshua Minshall, Francis Worley, Henry Hendricks, Christian Crawl, Michael. Tan- ner and Woolrich Whisler. The road began on the line between the lands of John Wright, Jr., and Samuel Taylor (now south 72 degrees, west 562 perches to Crawl's run, south 70 degrees, west 430 perches to a marked white oak, west 76 perches to Canoe run, south 68 degrees, west 454 perches, west 994 perches to west branch of Grist (Kreutz) Creek, west 544 perches to Little Codorus (Stony Run), west 684 perches to Big Codorus (York not yet laid out), continuing westward across

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vention in 1857. A few years later he Wrightsville) ; thence west 500 perches,

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Perrin's run one and a quarter miles south- west of York, three-quarters of a mile far- ther to Springer's field, one and a half miles farther to the " point of a steep hill," thence west to Loreman's run, to Christian Eys- ter's land (near Wolf's church ), to Nicholas Croucher's run, to west branch of Codorus Creek, to John Link's Run by the " Bar- rens " to Conrad Low's plantation, west four and a half miles to Adam Forney's land (now the site of Hanover) ; thence nearly due southwest by Kitzmiller's mill, on Conewago Creek, to the provincial line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. The entire length of the road was 34 miles, 290 perches. It soon became a prominent high- way of travel to the south and southwest. This route was taken by General Wayne on his trip with his brigade of American sol- diers on their way to Yorktown, Virginia, during the Revolution, and the route taken for transporting Hessian and British prison- ers to Maryland and Virginia during the same war; also the course of St. Clair and Wayne in 1792, on their way to Ohio to quell the Indian troubles there. During the war of 1812, when the British army occu- pied Washington and was threatening Baltimore, immense trains of wagons, con- veying cotton from Alabama, Georgia, Ten- nessee, and other points in the south, used this route on the way to Philadelphia and New York. It was the first road laid out within the present limits of York County under the authority of Pennsylvania.

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History of York County Pennsylvania, Volume I, Part 18

Author: Prowell, George R. Publication date: 1907 Publisher: J. H. Beers Number of Pages: 1372

Author: Prowell, George R.
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: J. H. Beers
Number of Pages: 1372