One of the York Invalids describes the fight at Wrightsville

(Canonball) ... About 4 P. M. we marched out the pike towards Gettysburg. When four miles out we returned hurriedly and took the last train for Wrightsville, none too soon, for the mounted infantry of Early's Corps appeared on all the hills and formed a cordon around the town. After an exchange of shots at very long range, we arrived at Wrightsville, opposite Columbia, where some militia were entrenched, and about daylight we were thrown out on picket skirmish line. Some time about noon the Rebs began feeling their way in by shelling, the first shell passing over to the entrenchments. A cloud of dust then going towards the river, indicated that the militia were being withdrawn across the bridge and the battalion left to get all the glory. We hadn't long to wait as skirmishers soon appeared and we had it quite lively for some time. Continued

Photo: Rivertownes PA

Clement Studebaker

(Wikipedia) Clement Studebaker (March 12, 1831 – November 27, 1901) was an American carriage manufacturer. With his brothers, he founded H & C Studebaker Company, which built Pennsylvania-German conestoga wagons and carriages during his lifetime, and automobiles after his death, in South Bend, Indiana.
Clement Studebaker was born on March 12, 1831, in Pinetown, Pennsylvania. By the age of 14 he had learned to work as a blacksmith in his father's shop. He later worked as a teacher. Continued

Photo: Conestoga Wagon (1883) by Newbold Hough Trotter (1827-1898). Painting in the State Museum of Pennsylvania (AdMeskens)

Robert Smith

(Wikipedia) Robert Smith (November 3, 1757 – November 26, 1842) was the second United States Secretary of the Navy from 1801 to 1809 and the sixth United States Secretary of State from 1809 to 1811. He was the brother of Senator Samuel Smith.
Smith was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. During the American Revolutionary War, he served in the Continental Army and participated in the Battle of Brandywine. He graduated from Princeton in 1781 and began to practice law in Maryland. Continued

Lancaster, Pennsylvania becomes the capital of the United States, but not for very long

(Wikipedia) - Originally called Hickory Town, the city was renamed after the English city of Lancaster by native John Wright. Its symbol, the red rose, is from the House of Lancaster. Lancaster was part of the 1681 Penn's Woods Charter of William Penn, and was laid out by James Hamilton in 1734. It was incorporated as a borough in 1742 and incorporated as a city in 1818. During the American Revolution, it was briefly the capital of the colonies on September 27, 1777, when the Continental Congress fled Philadelphia, which had been captured by the British. After meeting one day, they moved still farther away, to York, Pennsylvania. Continued

Photo: Mennonite farmer putting tobacco into his barn, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1941 (Marion Post Wolcott/FSA/Library of Congress).

Little Old and Slow

Video of the SRR car of the Lancaster Oxford and Southern Railroad

Andrew Ellicott

(Wikipedia) - Andrew Ellicott (January 24, 1754 – August 28, 1820) was a U.S. surveyor who helped map many of the territories west of the Appalachians, surveyed the boundaries of the District of Columbia, continued and completed Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant's work on the plan for Washington, D.C., and served as a teacher in survey methods for Meriwether Lewis. Continued

Andrew Hamilton

(Wikipedia) - Andrew Hamilton (c. 1676 – August 4, 1741) was a Scottish lawyer in Colonial America, best known for his legal victory on behalf of printer and newspaper publisher John Peter Zenger.
... Hamilton and his son James were among the founders of Lancaster, which became the fourth county in the province of Pennsylvania in 1729. The community was located on a 500-acre tract owned by Hamilton, on which he laid out Lancaster Townstead around 1730. By 1734, James, now proprietor of Lancaster town, won a seat in the Assembly and became the political leader of the county, and in 1742, secured the original charter of government, which gave the settlement the status of borough (this charter can be found today in the city clerk’s office). Continued

Where's Pepper?

(Slate) - In the summer of 1965, a female Dalmatian was stolen from a farm in Pennsylvania. Her story changed America. Continued

Photo: Dalmatian (not Pepper), Mllefantine/Wikipedia.

James Buchanan

(Wikipedia) - James Buchanan, Jr. (April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868) was the 15th President of the United States from 1857–1861 and the last to be born in the 18th century.
To date he is the only President from the state of Pennsylvania and the only to remain a lifelong bachelor. As President he was a "doughface", a Northerner with Southern sympathies who battled with Stephen A. Douglas for the control of the Democratic Party. A popular and experienced politician when he took office, Buchanan's efforts to maintain peace between the North and the South alienated both sides. As the Southern states declared their secession in the prologue to the American Civil War, Buchanan's opinion was that secession was illegal, but that going to war to stop it was also illegal; hence he remained inactive. Continued

Photo: by Mathew Brady (Library of Congress).

Wrightsville bridge changes go back to another era

(York Daily Record) - An icon that connects York and Lancaster counties could soon receive a bright facelift.
Officials from the Lancaster-York Heritage Region and Rivertownes PA USA unveiled plans recently in Columbia, Lancaster County, to revamp the Veterans Memorial Bridge with a new lighting system and gardens.
The art deco-style bridge, which is on the National Register of Historic Structures, spans the Susquehanna River linking Wrightsville and Columbia along Rt. 462.
The project will return the bridge to how it looked when it was built more than 75 years ago, said Claire Storm, president of the local Rivertownes organization. Continued

Remembering Lancaster's lost port

(Lancaster Online) - Near the west entrance to Safe Harbor Park in Conestoga Township stands a testament to an odd chapter in Lancaster County history — the Port of Lancaster.
The almost-forgotten 19th-century port attempted to use the Conestoga River to put Lancaster on par with the ports of Boston, Savannah and New York City.
... "But it is true. At one time Lancaster did consider itself a port city," he said. "And it was possible, by traveling down the Conestoga to the Susquehanna and then to Baltimore, to go down to our city's port and buy yourself a one-way ticket across the ocean to Paris." Continued

Photo: Confluence of the Conestoga and Susquehanna Rivers (Kim Choate).

4 Things to Consider Before You Try to Join the Amish

(boingboing) - I know, I know. The recession blows. The job you may soon lose is stressful and unpleasant. And beards are more popular these days. But before you abandon your fast-paced lifestyle for a quieter, more-cow-filled one, I recommend consulting my book, Be Amazing. There are a few things you need to think about. Continued

Tobacco Barn

"Pennsylvania tobacco was air-cured, and it also needed to be stripped and sometimes boxed before it went to market. From these requirements flowed the design logic of the tobacco barn. Regional differences within Pennsylvania stem not from function, but from cultural origin. In the central river valleys, tobacco barns look like their counterparts in Lancaster County, while in the Northern Tier river valleys, they tend to look more like New England tobacco barns." Continued

Barney Ewell

(Wikipedia) - Harold Norwood "Barney" Ewell (February 25, 1918 – April 4, 1996) was an American athlete, winner of one gold and two silver medals at the 1948 Summer Olympics.
Born into poverty in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Barney Ewell was one of the world's leading sprinters of the 1940s. Mr. Ewell attended John Piersol McCaskey High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Continued

Photo: USA Track & Field

Columbia Bridge

An early version of the Columbia Wrightsville Bridge over the Susquehanna River (Library of Congress).

Richard Winters

(Wikipedia) - Richard D. Winters (born January 21, 1918) is a former United States Army officer who commanded Company "E" of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, during World War II. The unit - also known as "Easy Company" per the contemporary Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet - parachuted into Normandy in the early hours of D-Day, and fought across France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and eventually into Germany.
Winters was portrayed in the 2001 HBO mini-series Band of Brothers by British actor Damian Lewis.
Richard Winters was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and grew up in nearby Ephrata. Continued

Regions' tourist destinations losing their historic authenticity?

(York Daily Record) ... Lancaster County's Amish country, as well as the Hallowed Ground Corridor from Gettysburg to Virginia, were listed in the December issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine among the 109 most important historic places on Earth.
But both ranked fourth worst when it comes to promoting sustainable tourism and destination stewardship - how authentically they preserve their past, manage tourism and withstand the pressures of development. Continued

Photo: Canon EOS 5D

Der Belsnickel of the Pennsylvania Dutch: 'He looked scary and carried a sack of presents'

(York Town Square) - ... "He looked scary and carried a sack of presents, mostly nuts and hard candy, and a stick or a cane. He came when it was dark, before the children went to bed, and would rap on the window or the door with his stick," Reigart said. "He would ask to see the children, and ask them if they had been good. He tossed nuts and candy on the floor, and when the children scrambled to get them he would switch them a little with his stick, admonishing them to be good." Continued

Illustration: volgagermans.net

Robert Fulton

(Wikipedia) - Robert Fulton was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1765. He had become interested in steamboats in 1777 when (at the age of 12) he visited William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Henry had found out about Watt's steam engine on a visit to England. He had then made his own engine and in 1763 – two years before Fulton was born – tried putting his engine in a boat, which sank. Continued

Milton Hershey

(Wikipedia) - Milton Snavely Hershey (September 13, 1857 – October 13, 1945) was a confectioner, philanthropist, and founder of The Hershey Chocolate Company and the "company town" of Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Hershey was born on a farm near Derry Church, Pennsylvania, the only surviving child of Henry and Fanny Hershey. Due to the family's frequent moves, he dropped out of school after the fourth grade and was then apprenticed to a Lancaster, Pennsylvania printer. The apprenticeship was soon terminated as he did not like the craft and purposely let his hat fall into the printing press. Continued

Chocolate issued to WW2 troops. Photo courtesy of Hershey's.