‘Horrific’ legacy: ‘Ghost River’ a ‘story of resilience’ of tribe after massacre

(Albuquerque Journal) Lee Francis and writing are a match made in heaven.
The Albuquerque-based writer was chosen to work on the graphic novel “Ghost River: The Fall & Rise of the Conestoga.”
It’s a project has kept him busy for the better part of a year.
The novel is a reinterpretation of the Paxton Boys massacre of 1763 and Pamphlet War of 1764. Continued

'Ma & Pa' historical group to purchase land

Photo: MDRails

(Trains Magazine) MUDDY CREEK FORKS, Pa. – The Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad Preservation Society, which operates the Ma & Pa Railroad Heritage Village in southern York County, Pa., announced that it plans to buy 6.67 acres along it railroad right of way and has begun fund-raising. The closing on the purchase is planned for late April.
The property, at High Rock, is about half a mile north of society headquarters at Muddy Creek Forks. Craig Sansonetti, president of the society, told Trains there are three reasons the group wants this site. Continued

Rumors of Lost Civil War Gold Stir Hope in Pennsylvania

 

(NYTimes) For decades, treasure hunters in Pennsylvania have suspected that there is a trove of Civil War gold lost in a rural forest in the northwestern part of the state.

But the mystery about where it is hidden, or if it even exists, has recently deepened.

Last week, F.B.I. representatives showed up at a site in Dents Run, Elk County, an area known for its seasonal elk viewing activities that feed the economy of nearby Benezette Township. Continued

Let the River Run Wild

 

Conowingo Dam

(NYTimes) IF the Chesapeake Bay is America’s Estuary, then its largest tributary, the Susquehanna River, could arguably be called America’s River. But we certainly don’t treat it as a national treasure: This once magnificent watercourse, which runs through New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland toward the coast, is today an ecological disaster — largely thanks to four hydroelectric dams, built along its lower reaches between 1904 and 1931.

An impending license renewal by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for two of these dams will lock in another half-century of measures woefully inadequate to remediating the dams’ environmental consequences. Instead, all four should be removed. Continued 

 

Holtwood Dam

Safe Harbor Dam

York Haven Dam

 

Learn about the Susquehanna's role in the Civil War

(YDR) The Susquehanna River played an important role in the Confederate campaign into Pennsylvania prior to the Battle of Gettysburg.
You can learn about the river's significance during a historical presentation from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Jan. 11, at PPL's Brunner Island Environmental Preserve.
Steve Runkle of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission will talk about the Gettysburg Campaign. Continued

Stewartstown Railroad's future derailed?

(York Daily Record) For more than a year, some shareholders and supporters have been trying to get the Stewartstown Railroad back on the tracks.
They've done some work to repair the roof on the station in Stewartstown and prepared a business plan to that could allow the company to open at least a mile of track for tourist rides within a year.
But the 124-year-old railroad company is fast running out of time.
If it can't repay more than $350,000 in debt by Jan. 30, its biggest assets -- including two stations and an engine house listed on the National Register of Historic Places -- will be sold at sheriff's sale. Continued

Photos: Library of Congress

This year's York steam whistle concert could be last

(York Dispatch) The annual steam whistle Christmas concert might come to an end this year because of ongoing boiler issues and high costs.
"I want to make 55 years and we'll see what happens after that," said Whistle Master Donald Ryan. "I'm 66 years old and this has been part of my life for 55 years. That's my Christmas." Continued

Historical blizzards

The Baltimore Sun has a nice little slide show of snowstorms that hit the region over the years.
Falmanac has also covered the Great Blizzard of 1888 and the infamous Knickerbocker Storm of 1922. The Knickerbocker storm was named for a Washington D.C. theatre which collapsed in the blizzard, killing 98 people and injuring 133. Also, check out this odd story from a snowstorm in 1772. And please, whatever you do, don't forget the snacks!

Photo: The Great Blizzard of 1888 (NOAA)

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

Steam whistle concert revived

The Steam Whistle Concert, a Christmas tradition in York, will take place again this year. And organizers are asking for help from the public to make sure it continues.
Starting at midnight on Dec. 25, Donald E. Ryan will play seasonal songs for 30 minutes on the factory whistle at the New York Wire Company on East Market Street in York. Continued

Study shows factory tours give York County strong tourism base

(YDR) With York County's free factory tours as a draw, visitors annually pump about $1.3 billion into the local economy.
Yet, according to a recent survey, guests in the county don't know where to find the best shopping and restaurants. Continued

Link to York County Factory Tours

York City Council considers changes to historic buildings law

(YDR) Members of York City Council discussed a proposal Tuesday that would create a permit for work on historic buildings and add a penalty for work done without approval.
Councilman Cameron Texter drafted the proposed changes to the city's Historic York law, which includes the operation of the Historical Architectural Review Board.
The bill would "ensure that the City of York may continue to protect its historical properties, which exist as one of York's greatest resources and assets," Texter, who could not attend Tuesday's committee meeting, wrote in a memo. Continued

Photo: "York, PA" (Nightening)

Hunter Concealed Charm in Shotgun

(Universal York) Not having any luck hunting for game? You might want to try the charm above, shared by a friend who found it rolled up and tucked into the stock of his grandfather's century-old shotgun. ... like many other Pennsylvania Germans who believed in powwowing, a hopeful hunter might figure that a charm copied from The Long Lost Friend, a powwow book, would help put that dinner on the table. Continued

For Poe, This Has Been the Year to Die For

(NYTimes) ... Disenchantment is Poe’s intellectual theme as well. He scorns the Transcendentalists and other American writers with their visions of transformation and possibility. He rejects ideas of moral uplift. The New World holds no promise. But the Old World, in which so many of his stories are steeped — the realm of old families, cultivated tastes and long traditions — is also corrupt and rotten.
Poe seemed to enshrine reason as the only plausible authority, creating in his famous detective stories an archetypal model later used by Arthur Conan Doyle. Poe’s hyper-rational detective Dupin is a master of reason. But he uses it to lay bare the brutish, disruptive forces lying underneath its polished surface, just as he deduced the existence of the rampaging orangutan on the Rue Morgue. Poe’s madmen are singularly rational. His reasonable men are singularly mad. Reason is not to be fully trusted. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

York Folk Artist Lewis Miller Elusive Character

(Universal York) Lewis Miller's drawings are widely known, but not a lot is known about the man himself. The drawings of nineteenth century life have been used widely to illustrate books, including textbooks, and many articles in newspapers and magazines. I often use them to accompany the items I post here.
Miller drew the people and places he knew and saw, at home in York and in his travels, during the first half of the nineteenth century even though, as I explain in my recent York Sunday News column, he seemed to have drawn them much later, after he had retired to live with nieces in Virginia in the late 1850s. Continued

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)

York-made Manley radio a mystery

(Universal York) A friend recently shared these photos of a radio he picked up at a public sale. The Manley Manufacturing Company of York, PA made garage and shop equipment, as it says on the brass label of the radio case. They started out in the 1920s and manufactured items such as hydraulic lifts and jacks. The company eventually became part of American Chain and Cable.
So why does this radio have a plate that says it was manufactured by Manley and is machine no. 1008? Continued

Photo: Detail from a vintage Atwater Kent radio ad.

Gettysburg details early plans for 150th battle anniversary

(YDR) It might be almost four years away, but Gettysburg needs all the time it can get to prepare for its 150th Anniversary National Civil War Re-enactment.
... Pending permits and agreements, the event will be at Redding Farm, Phiel said. He's hoping to have 1,000 acres available -- more than was used during the 145th anniversary -- because organizers expect 15,000 re-enactors. Registration has not yet started, but the number was capped at 15,000 because of resources, logistics and battlefield safety. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

Wrightsville "Farthest East" Monument Dedicated on July 4, 1900

(Cannonball) This impressive old Civil War memorial has stood for more than a century at the intersection of Hellam Street (once the famed Lincoln Highway) and Fourth Street in downtown Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. It commemorates the town as the point farthest east reached by the Confederate army during the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign. Union militia burned the mile-and-a-quarter long wooden covered bridge over the Susquehanna River to prevent the Rebels from marching into Lancaster County. [Conveniently enough, as the "Rebels" were out to burn it anyway.] Continued

Photo: Nightening

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Photo: Lincoln at Gettysburg, November 19th, 1863 (Library of Congress).