History of York County Pennsylvania, Volume I, Part 20

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

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In 1769, in answer to many petitions in behalf of James Cooper, who had built a merchant mill near Peach Bottom, a road was opened from the ferry to said mill.

James Dickson, at April session, 1769, stated that "he had contracted with com- missioners and built a bridge across the Little Conewago, at Henry Sturgeon's house, for ro0 pounds, and to uphold the same for seven years; at the same time had the verbal promise of the commissioners that they would not see him at a loss, for they said that it would be wrong to let one man suffer by the county. Accordingly they told him to lay his bill of expenses before the grand jury ; that nevertheless he had not yet obtained redress." The court

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EARLY HIGHWAYS

appointed six men to view the bridge, poles, which reached to the bottom of the whose report was favorable to the con- tractor, and the court ordered the county to relieve him. It is doubtful if a con- tractor would be so favored now.

In July, 1770, a road was opened from Yonerstown (Dover) to George Ilgenfritz's mill, in Dover Township, by Michael Quickel and others.

The same year a road was opened from Hellam iron works, at the mouth of the Codorus, to York.

EARLY FERRIES.

Although the title to lands west of the Susquehanna was not purchased from the Indians until the year 1736. ferries were es- tablished across the river before that date. John Harris, an Indian trader, who was stationed at the site of Harrisburg, opened a ferry across the Susquehanna at that place in 1733. It was a very important crossing for the early immigrants who took up lands in the Cumberland Valley and extended their settlements down into the Shenan- doah.

In the year 1730 John Wright, an influ- ential settler at the site of Columbia, ob- tained a charter for a ferry between that point and the York County side. This, too, was an important ferry in colonial days and until the completion of the first bridge across the river, between Columbia and Wrightsville, in 1814. The members of Continental Congress crossed at this ferry in September, 1777, when the seat of gov- ernment was changed from Philadelphia to York, owing to the defeat of the American army at the battle of Brandywine. During the whole period of the Revolution it was a regular crossing place for troops from Maryland, Virginia and the south in their movement to join the American army under Washington in the Jersey campaigns. In the latter part of December, 1778, about 4,200 British and Hessian prisoners of war, who had been captured with Burgoyne at Saratoga, were brought across the river at this ferry, when they were transferred from Boston to Charlottesville, Va., to prison pens at the latter place. Large flat boats were used, which conveyed a hundred or more persons at one time. These boats were propelled across the Susquehanna with their heavy loads by means of long

stream while a pilot at the rear guided the boat. General Lafayette and Baron Steu- ben, on their way to York, during the Revo- lution, crossed here, and Washington also crossed in a large ferry boat in 1791, when on his way from Mt. Vernon to Philadel- phia, and also in 1794, on his return from the Whiskey Insurrection in Western Penn- sylvania. For a century or more this crossing place was known as Wright's Ferry, in honor of the Quaker, John Wright, who first opened it.

Anderson's Ferry, extending from Marietta to the York County side, was opened about 1730, and was extensively used in colonial days and later by travelers going from Southern Pennsylvania to Reading, Easton and New York. It was later known as the Glatz Ferry, and termi- nated on the western side at the pictur- esque point now known as Accomac. An- other early crossing place nearby was known as Vinegar Ferry. Farther up the stream and above the falls at York Haven, Joshua Lowe obtained a patent for a ferry in 1737. Many of the early Quaker settlers crossed here. During the Revolution it was known as Rankin's Ferry, and in 1794. a regiment of Pennsylvania troops crossed here on their way to the Whiskey Insurrec- tion. Near the site of Goldsboro, extending across the river to the Dauphin County side, Nathan Hussey opened a ferry as early as 1738. He was a leader among the first Quaker settlers, and one of the commis- sioners to lay off York County in 1749. The first band of Quaker settlers west of the Susquehanna crossed the river at this point, in 1734, and took up lands in Newberry Township. This ferry was later moved farther up the stream and has since been known as Middletown Ferry.

Robert Chambers established a ferry across the Susquehanna terminating on the York County side below New Cumberland, in 1735. Many of the Scotch-Irish settlers in the Cumberland Valley crossed the river here. For the through travel from the south this ferry was used extensively before the Revolution. William Chesney. a patriot of the Revolution, for many years owned a ferry which crossed the river below New Market, and died there in 1782, leaving a large estate in York County. The ferry

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HISTORY OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

was then purchased by Michael Simpson, who had served as a lieutenant and later as a captain in the Revolution. After the war he was a brigadier-general of militia and died at his ferry house below New Market in 1813. When the Susquehanna bridge was built at Harrisburg in 1816 this ferry was discontinued.

Col. Thomas Cresap, an influential settler in Maryland, owned a ferry at the mouth of the Susquehanna as early as 1724, and shortly after married the daughter of Thomas Johnson, who had established a temporary ferry at Peach Bottom. When Cresap laid his plans to drive the Germans from their settlements in the valleys east of York, he obtained a Maryland patent for the Blue Rock Ferry, which was about four miles south of Wrightsville. This ferry was continued after the border troubles had ended, and was later known as the Myers and the Dritt Ferry, being owned after the Revolution by Capt. Jacob Dritt, who was drowned in the Susquehanna, while at- tempting to cross when the wind was high and the water turbulent. A ferry extended across the river at York Furnace for many years. The river is narrow at this point. Ashmore's, afterwards Nelson's, and still later McCall's Ferry, was the most impor- tant crossing place over the Lower Susque- hanna for a century and a half. It was opened about 1740. Peach Bottom Ferry was opened under a Pennsylvania patent in 1738, and during the days when the lumber interests along the upper Susquehanna were most extensive, this was a very important crossing place.

BRIDGES.

The first bridge in York County extended across the Codorus Creek at Market Street, York, and was built in 1743. A legal record entered in January, 1768, petitioning for a new stone bridge, says, " The old bridge of wood at High (Market) Street is much de- cayed; the sills are rotten, so that it is dangerous to cross with heavy wagons." In the same year a stone bridge was built at this place. A wooden bridge across the Conewago, beyond Dover, was built in 1768 and a stone bridge at the same place in 1811.

Under an act of the Legislature approved April 2, 1811, a state appropriation was made to assist chartered companies in the

erection of bridges across the Susquehanna at Harrisburg, at Northumberland and at McCall's Ferry. They were all built by the noted engineer, Theodore Burr, the in- ventor of the "Burr Bridge Plan." The Harrisburg bridge was commenced in 1812 and completed October, 1816, at a cost of $192,138. The part of the bridge nearest the city was taken away by the flood of 1846, and a second bridge at a subsequent flood. Mr. Burr and his son, after com- pleting the Harrisburg bridge, commenced the construction of the one at McCall's Ferry, which cost $150,000. During its short existence, it was considered a re- markable structure, but was taken away by the ice flood of 1817. Theodore Burr, who was born at Torringford, Conn., in 1762, and 1789 married the granddaughter of Captain Cook, the great English navigator, died at Middletown, Dauphin County, No- vember 21, 1822, while superintending the erection of a bridge across the Swatara at that town.

A bridge was built across the Susque- hanna at York Furnace in 1855, and taken away by the flood the next year.

The first bridge across the Susquehanna between Wrightsville and Columbia was completed in 1814. It was 5,690 feet long, a little more than a mile in length. It was removed by an ice flood in 1832. The second bridge was a covered wooden struc- ture placed on twenty-three stone piers. It was destroyed by fire by a regiment of Pennsylvania troops at Columbia on the evening of June 28, 1863, to prevent Gor- don's brigade of Confederate soldiers from crossing the stream at Wrightsville to the Lancaster County side. This bridge had been used from the year 1838 to the time of its destruction by wagons and carriages and by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. for several years passengers were trans- ported across the river in flat boats. In 1869 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company built a third bridge across the river at this place. This structure was blown down and removed from its piers by a wind storm on September 30, 1896. This also had a drive- way for carriages and wagons and a track used by the railroad company for passenger and freight trains. The fourth bridge is 5,375 feet, or a little more than a mile, in length and was built by the Pennsylvania

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FRIENDS OR QUAKERS

Railroad Company in 1897, at a cost of half a million dollars. It rests upon two abut- ments and twenty-five piers, each 200 feet apart.

and on the banks of the Delaware founded the city of Philadelphia. The same year, under spreading branches of a large elm he met the chiefs of various native tribes of Indians and made a treaty of peace and friendship with them that was never sworn to and never broken.

In his first relations with untutored red CHAPTER VIII FRIENDS OR QUAKERS men of the forest he impressed himself so deeply upon them that the name of Penn for many years was so great among the Indians that to be one of his followers was Origin of the Society-Immigration to America-Early Settlement of York County-Newberry Meeting-Warring- ton Meeting-Fawn Meeting-Menallen Meeting-York Meeting. at all times a passport to protection and hospitality among them. In the language of the historian, Bancroft. "while every other colony was visited, in turn, by the terrors of Indian warfare, no drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by a red man The Society of Friends arose in England about the middle of the seventeenth century, at a time of considerable religious commotion in that country. They were first called Quakers in derision, by Justice Bennet, because George Fox, the founder of the society, bade him and his associates to tremble at his word. They accepted the name so far as to style themselves "The people called Quakers," in all their early books of record. Faith without formula was their cardinal principle, for they adopted no creed and believed in the con- trolling influence of the "inner light," which is given to every man. in Pennsylvania." Soon after the landing at Philadelphia, Penn laid off the three original counties of Chester, Philadelphia and Bucks. Then he sent an emissary to treat with the Five Nations of New York, who by right of conquest some years before, claimed the title to lands now part of Cen- tral Pennsylvania. But a little band of Indians called the Conestogas, who stayed along the Susquehanna a few miles south of the present site of Columbia, claimed that the other Indians had no right to make a treaty conveying lands west of the Sus- quehanna. Then William Penn visited the Conestogas and in the presence of their chiefs, unfolded the deed of parchment, laid Among the early members of this Society was William Penn, a man of trained intel- lect, gifted in speech and a courtier in man- ner. He was a son of a distinguished admiral in the English navy, and both he and his father were always on terms of intimacy and friendship with the royal family. Penn became interested in the it on the ground before them and with the gentle words of a loving parent, said : " The lands along the Susquehanna shall be in common between my people and your people, and we will dwell in peace together." In 1722, four years after the death of Penn, Sir William Keith, governor of the prov- ince, came west of the Susquehanna and emigration to New Jersey and then decided had surveyed two thousand acres of land to found a Quaker colony according to his at and above the present site of Wrights- ville, which he called his " Newberry tract." own ideas. He inherited a claim of sixteen thousand pounds, due by the crown to his The same year, after getting permission from the Conestoga Indians, he surveyed a tract of seventy thousand acres for the use of Springett Penn, the grandson of the founder, and he named it the " Manor of Springettsbury." Soon afterwards the fol- lowers of Penn, in large numbers, located on lands north of the Conewago Creek and ex- tended their settlement into Adams County. They at once organized religious meetings. father, and King Charles II, who never had much ready money to pay his debts, was glad to settle this account by granting him forty thousand square miles of land west of the Delaware River. In commemoration of Penn's father, the King gave to this princely domain the name of Pennsylvania. In 1682 the proprietor himself with one hundred of his chosen followers, crossed the Atlantic

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HISTORY OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

built houses of worship, and established power of the Province of Pennsylvania for schools. When York was founded in 1741, some of them located here. Three of the five commissioners who laid off York. County, in 1749, were English Quakers, and a majority of the early court justices and members of the Assembly from York County were of the same people.

The Quakers played a great part in the early history of Pennsylvania, and for nearly a hundred years-up to the time of the Revolution-they had a controlling in- fluence in the Provincial Assembly. The political changes resulting from the war re- moved them from power and they never afterwards regained their former position. They held their own in Philadelphia for half a century after the Revolution, and through their enterprise and thrift made that city the greatest business center on the continent, and the metropolis of the Union, a proud position which she held until 1850. It is only within the last decade that the city has begun to recover from the effects of the retirement of the people who created her early reputation.

In the increase of membership the Friends as a religious Society have not kept pace with other denominations with which they were so closely allied two hundred years ago. In some of the western states the liberal Quakers, who have instituted modes of religious worship more like other churches, are growing in numbers and in- fluence. A recent report of the Society places the entire membership in this country at one hundred and fifty thousand, greater number than there were in a America at the close of the Revolution.

Persecutions were continued Immigration to America. with more or less severity until the accession of Wil- liam and Mary to the throne of England, when an act of toleration was passed in 1689. Prior to this, however, many Friends had sought a home for re- ligious liberty in America, and when Wil- liam Penn established his colony in 1682, it was but natural that a large number should have been attracted here. The settlement at first near the Delaware River, largely by Friends, gradually extended backward, and though the Scotch-Irish and Germans, after thirty years, began to pour into the country, the Friends wielded the political

more than seventy years. At length, when others by unjust treatment had aroused the savage nature of the aborigines, and the mother country had become involved in a war with France, the pressure brought to bear upon the province by England and the neighboring colonies was too great for a continuance of a peaceful policy; warlike measures must be enacted, and yielding to the inevitable, several Friends withdrew from the halls of legislation in the Penn- sylvania Assembly, leaving their places to be filled by those not opposed to war.

Friends were among the first

Migration settlers in York County, and

to York they came from New Castle

County. County, Delaware, then a part of the " Territories " of Penn- sylvania, and the southern part of Chester and the eastern part of Lancaster Counties. We naturally think of them as coming up to York County by the rich valleys of the Pequa and the Conestoga to their new set- tlements on the " west side of the Susque- hanna," and in the northern part of York County, extending their settlements west into what is now Adams County .. When Friends :migrated from one place to another in which they wished to locate, permission was granted by the meetings to which they belonged, and the record of it was placed on the minute books. Among the first emigrants who came to this county are recorded the names of Garretson, Day, Cox, Bennet, . Lewis, Hussey, Frazer, Hodgin, Carson, Davison, Elliot, Mills, Key, Smith and Underwood. John Day built the first mill in the northern part of the County before 1740. It was twelve and one-half miles north of York. He became the first president justice of the York court. Nathan Hussey opened a ferry in 1736, near the present village of Goldsboro. At that point some of the early Quaker emigrants crossed the Susquehanna. John Wright, who obtained authority from the Lancaster County courts to establish a ferry, at the present site of Columbia, and who named Lancaster County, and afterward for six- teen years was president justice of the county court, was a Quaker, and many of his Society, as well as Germans and Scotch- Irish, crossed the Susquehanna at this ferry. Another prominent Quaker was Samuel

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FRIENDS OR QUAKERS

Blunston, the agent of the Penns, who cating in the eastern parts of Manchester granted permits for lands west of the Sus- and Newberry Townships and in the Red- land Valley around the site of Lewisberry. They obtained authority from the Sadsbury meetings in Lancaster County to organize a preparative meeting in 1738. Religious ser- vices were held first in the houses of mem- bers. A log meeting house was built at the site of Newberrytown in 1745. quehanna for several years, and had a con- trolling influence in the settlement of York County, from 1733 to 1737. He lived at John Wright's ferry. John Wright, Jr., located at the present site of Wrightsville. Nathan Hussey, Thomas Cox and John Wright, all Friends, became three of the five commissioners who laid off York County in 1749. Few people now living have a correct idea of the number of Friends who migrated to and resided in York County a century and a half ago. About 1810 the western migration fever began to draw them away, and hundreds of them helped to establish new meetings in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa and other points. Much earlier than that many of them moved to North Carolina, Virginia and western Penn- sylvania.

The organization and sub- Plan of Organization. ordination of the meetings of the Friends are as fol- lows: One or more meet- ings for worship constitute one preparative meeting ; one or more preparative meetings, one monthly meeting; several monthly meetings, one quarterly meeting; several quarterly meetings, one yearly meeting, which is an independent body; yet the different yearly meetings maintain more or less of correspondence with each other.

The preparative meetings are held monthly, and generally in the week prior to the regular monthly meeting, for the yard presents a well kept appearance preparation of reports and other business, to be presented thereat.

The monthly meetings are the principal executive branch of the Society for the exercise of the discipline over the members, and keep regular voluminous minutes of their proceedings as also records of births, deaths and marriages. "Indulged " meet- ings for stated periods are held by sanction of monthly meetings, but all meetings subordinate to, are established permanently by authority of the quarterly meetings, and these in turn by the yearly meetings.

NEWBERRY MEETING.

The original Newberry meeting land, which is in the present village of Newberry- town, consisted of a hexagonal tract of 42 acres and 61 perches, surveyed April 10th, 1767, to John Garretson and Joseph Hutton, in trust for the Society of Friends. Infor- mation about the early meeting houses is very meagre, but the first building, which is said to have been of logs, was probably erected on this tract. The old burial ground in the eastern part of Newberrytown is all of the plot that is now owned by the So- ciety. The remainder of the land and the meeting house, which, according to the in- scribed stone in the west gable, was erected in 1792, was sold about 1811 by authority of a special act of State Legislature, and the meeting was removed to another location about two miles west of the town, midway between Newberrytown and Lewisberry. Here a stone meeting house was built on a five acre lot sold to Jesse Wickersham and George Garretson, in trust for the Society, by Samuel Garretson and Alice, his wife, by deed of roth mo. 4 da., 18II. In 1898 the meeting house was re-covered with a slate roof and thoroughly repaired. The grave- and is enclosed by an iron fence. Oc- casional services are held in this meeting house.

"The Newberry community," says Al- bert Cook Myers, in his excellent work en- titled " Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania." " received a consider- able body of the Irish Friends, but not so large as did Warrington and Menallen. Some of these who settled at Newberry were: Timothy Kirk and his sons, Jacob, Timothy, Caleb, Ezekiel, and Jonathan Kirk; Robert Whinery, originally from Grange, probably near Charlemont : Robert Miller and his son, Samuel: George Boyd. Joshua Low, Joseph and John Hutton, Wil-

The first members of the Society of liam Wilson, and several members of the Friends settled in York County in 1734, lo- Hobson family."

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HISTORY OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

At Sadsbury Monthly meeting, Newberry Meeting Records. March 7, 1739: " There being divers families of Friends of late settled on the west side of the Susquehanna, some of them have produced certifi- cates of this meeting from Kenett meeting, where they formerly dwelt, there being four mentioned in one certificate bearing the date February 10, 1738, viz. : Nathan Hussey, Ann, his wife; John Garretson and Content, his wife; John Day and Ann, his wife; Christopher Hussey and Ann, his wife, and another certificate from the same place bearing the date May 4, 1738, recommends Joseph Bennett and Rebecca, his wife, all of whom this meeting receives in membership with us.

" The friends of that settlement being desirous of a toleration from this meeting to keep meetings of wor- ship every first day and fourth day of the week for six months time, which request is granted."

9-5-1739: "The new meeting settled on the west side of the Susquehanna, having had some time past a tolera- tion from this meeting to hold meetings of worship every first day and fourth day of the week, and the time being expired, at the request of several of them, being in this meeting, friends allow them twelve months longer to be held as before."

6-5-1745: "Andrew Moore, Calvin Cooper, Jonas Chamberlain and Thomas Bulla are appointed to visit the meetings on the west side of the Susquehanna, to see how they fare in the truth, and report to next meeting."

8-7-1745: "Friends expressed their satisfaction in re- spect of a visit made to friends on the west side of the Susquehanna."

At Concord Quarterly Meeting, 9-11-1745: "Leacock ( Sadsbury) Monthly Meeting concurring with the friends on the west side of the Susquehanna who con- tinue their request of having a meeting for worship and a preparative meeting settled among them, in regard . thereto this meeting appoints our friends, John Smith, Jolin Baldwin, Jacob Way, John Way, Joseph Gibbons, William Levis and Robert Lewis, to give those friends a visit and consider how far they may be able to keep up a meeting with reputation; as also to view and judge of a suitable place to build a meeting house on, and make report thereof at our next meeting."

12-10-1745: "The Friends appointed at the last quar- terly meeting to visit Friends on the west side of the Susquehanna report they gave those friends a visit, and after some time spent and consideration had on the affair, do judge as it appeared to them that the Friends of Newberry and those of Warrington may keep up a meeting for worship, as also a preparative meeting with reputation, and Leacock monthly meeting continuing their approbation of the affair, this meeting agrees that the Friends of Warrington build a new meeting house for worship on the land agreed on when Friends were there, and to keep their meetings of worship on every first and fourth day of the week, and that Warrington and Newberry have liberty to keep one preparative meeting until further order."

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History of York County Pennsylvania, Volume I, Part 20

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