Olden Times

York County has certainly produced its share of authors.   Book signings by local writers are numerous.  History, biography, and poetry are always popular.  Henry Lee Fisher (1822-1909) combined all three in his narrative poems written in the Pennsylvania German dialect (Pennsylvania Dutch).

A well-respected attorney, Fisher was recognized by his peers as a Pennsylvania German scholar.  In the English introductions to his books he eloquently explains that Pennsylvania German is a transplanted dialect of High German with added English words.  (High German refers to the language and pronunciation used in the more hilly area of southern German, as opposed to Low German spoken in flatter northern Germany.)  The majority of early settlers of this area came from southwestern Germany. 

Henry Lee Fisher was admitted to the York County Bar in 1853.  The Fishers (Henry, wife Sarah, and seven children) lived for many years at 427 (now 451) West Market Street in York.  He claimed he could see the whole way to the Kreutz Creek Valley (Hellam area) from his attic retreat.   The family moved, around 1903, to 612 West King Street, where Henry spent the rest of his life.  Fisher was the great-grandson of Kreutz Creek Valley pioneer Yost Harbaugh, as were two other Pennsylvania German poets of note: German Reformed minister Henry Harbaugh and the handicapped poet from Stony Brook, Rachel Bahn.

Much of nineteenth-century poetry was flowery and sentimental.  Fisher could be maudlin too, but his best work probably was the history-oriented Olden Times (1878).  This collection of narrative verses described the customs and labors of his farm family and their neighbors fifty years before.  Fisher had lived through the Industrial Revolution and viewed it unfavorably.  His aim, therefore, was to capture the lives of the German and Scots-Irish settlers of his boyhood.  He writes of the cookstove “now fueled with filthy coal,” decrying the cheery fire of the hearth.  He praises the quite precision and camaraderie of wielders of sickles and protests against the “noisy monster’s iron wheels [and] “ruthless reaper knives” of the mechanical grain-harvester. 

Fisher’s book was so popular that he translated the rhyming Pennsylvania German verses into English rhymes ten years later.  The warm reception might have stemmed from the humor with which he wrote.  He tells of the popular practical joke of catching Elfetriche (elves) played on a young man by his friends, who left him alone in the woods.

With open, wide-mouthed, homespun bag in hand,

And, there to wait for elves that never came.

Fisher relates the practice of young men carrying their girlfriends on their back over a footbridge.  Some maintained

Three times carried o’er the brook

Was good as married o’er the book.

He describes Militia Day in detail.  On May 15 each year local militia companies turned out to drill and then to cap off the day with a very hearty community party.  Plenty of brooms, rakes, and pitchforks were called to duty in lieu of rifles, as Fisher describes:

            Nine out of ten men had no gun,

            To prime, to load, or aim.

            Yet strange to say, that ten to one,

            They did it all the same.

H. L. Fisher also wrote ‘S alt Marki-haus mittes in d’r Schtadt (The Old Markethouse in the Middle of the Town). It was published in one volume with the Pennsylvania German version of Olden Times.  Fisher says Americans started naming everything centennial, whether it was old or not, for America’s 100th birthday in 1876. Fisher’s contribution was the centennial poem, The Old Markethouse….  Each stanza of the collection of 100 loosely joined verses had to do with some aspect of the market sheds that then stood in the middle of York or another York scene or personality.  This epic poem seems to revere the old market until the verses about rats, tramps, and dirty butcher blocks are noted.  Yorkers were passionately divided on whether the sheds should stay or go.  One writer later thought that Fisher’s satirical verses helped lead to the markets being pulled down one night in 1887.

Fisher’s Kurzweil & Zeitfertreib (Amusement & Pastime) was published in 1892.  This volume of Pennsylvania German verse consisted of adaptations and translations of English and American poetry and German dialect writers as well as some original Fisher poems such as “Hesse Thal” (“Hessian Valley”).   The latter poem may have led to the misconception that local Camp Security held Hessian instead of British prisoners-of-war.  Hessian prisoners had been marched through York County previously, with some escaping and settling here.

            Fisher’s main legacy lies in the detailed description of life nearly 200 years ago.  Human nature being what it is, each generation has its own “olden times” to remember with nostalgia.  Few have recorded their own with more grace and style than Henry Lee Fisher.

More Henry Lee Fisher posts:

Lost ways of farming.

Lewis Miller’s copy of The Old Market House.

Election poem.

Area resident Gene Schenck noticed them at work last year and wrote an article about their endeavors for the Columbia/Hellam/Wrightsville Merchandizer entitled “Four Good Men With Shovels.”  After reading the article, I headed over to the cemetery and was pleased to see that they had already reset the gravestone of one of my ancestors, Revolutionary War veteran Adam Schlott (Sloat) (1761-1833).  Progress was apparent, but I noted that there were many more of the heavy two-century-old stones that needed repair and/or returned to a secure upright position.  I am pleased to report that these diligent volunteers have continued their work this year, and they are hopefully looking at late fall of 2022 as a completion date.

Starting as a Union Church of German Reformed and Lutheran, the two congregations were granted land by the Penns in 1753.  With such an early founding date, there are thousands and thousands of persons in York County and far beyond who can trace their ancestry back to these early settlers.  So I would like to once again thank Jim Anspach, Gene Smeltzer, Bill Dehoff and Bruce Herbst for their dedication as well as Robin Dehoff, who participates in mowing of the cemetery.

Jim Anspach just shared the photos in this post, showing the recent resetting of a slate stone dated 1805.  They give you an idea of the work involved for each stone.

If some local state lawmakers would have had their way in the 1830s, then-president Andrew Jackson would have been similarly honored, again reducing the size of York County, as well as taking a piece out of Adams County.  Hanover, as the county seat, would have been in the center of it all.

Here is my recent York Sunday News column telling about the efforts.  I am also including a copy of a contemporary sketch from the York County History Center files, as well as my outline on a current map showing the approximate boundaries of the proposed Jackson County.

Jackson County would have altered York and Adams county borders

Hanover, the county seat of Jackson County, Pennsylvania.  What?  A current Pennsylvania map shows that there is no Jackson County and that Hanover is a borough in the extreme southwestern part of York County.  Petitions, however, for such a county were presented several times to the state legislature during the 1830s.   A few were also submitted against the idea.  The proposal was considered seriously enough several times to go to a legislative committee.

Abstracts of minutes of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives name only the date each was presented.  I hope to find out more about the people and reasoning behind these proposals when research facilities fully open again.  Why carve a new county out of the western portion of York County and the eastern part of Adams County?  Admittedly, proposing new Pennsylvania counties was quite common in the 1830s, with similar petitions presented each session, including several in other areas to be named Jackson.  After all, Andrew Jackson was U.S. President from 1829 to 1837, even though the petitions for and against new counties didn’t follow strict party lines.

As early as 1829 the York Gazette, quoting the Shrewsbury Harbinger, reported that “in a certain district of this county, several persons contemplate to make application to the Legislature for a new county out of York and Adams.”  The January 17, 1832 Gazette reports that a petition was presented to the state House for a county out of parts of York and Adams, to be called Jackson.   The Journal of the Forty-Second House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for that year states that a bill to do so, No. 67, was reported by a committee, read and laid on the table (action postponed or suspended).  The bill was soon again considered several times by the House, as a committee of the whole.  During this session “Mr. Donnell presented three remonstrances from sundry inhabitants of York County, against the erection of a new county out of parts of York and Adams counties to be called ‘Jackson.”  Mr. Rankin presented a similar remonstrance.  John R. Donnell and John Rankin, both Democrats, were two of the three York County Representatives.  On February 10 it was agreed to “postpone to further consideration of the question together with the bill for the present.” 

Still another petition from York and Adams county residents to form a Jackson County was presented in the 1836-37 session.; it once again went to committee.  The issue heated up once more in the Forty-Eighth House in 1837-38.  Another bill, No. 227, was considered and laid on the table in January.  York County’s three representatives:  Samuel Brooks, Jr.; Martin Shearer and John Thompson were all Democrats.  Adams County’s two new representatives were Whigs Charles Kettlewell and Thaddeus Stevens. 

The February 13, 1837 Adams Sentinel reported: “Our neighbors in Hanover appear to be quite in earnest about their new county; obtaining petitions, and gathering subscriptions for public buildings, &c.  We rather think, if any very considerable slice is taken from our little county, we may as well drop the concern.” The paper went on to say that more speedy justice couldn’t be an excuse, since Adams County courts already had very little activity each session.  Jacob Wirt, prominent Hanover businessman and staunch Whig, was seemingly one of the leading advocates for a new county. 

On March 5 Shearer and Thompson presented three petitions for Jackson County, and also proceedings of separate meetings of citizens of Paradise, Manheim and Codorus townships and Hanover Borough in York County and Berwick and Conewago townships in Adams County, all in favor of the new county.  Kettlewell countered with a remonstrance from Adams County inhabitants.  I have found no references after that to what happened to this last movement, but since there is no Jackson County, it was evidently permanently tabled somewhere along the way.  York County eventually ended up with a Jackson Township in the general area, formed from the eastern part of Paradise Township in 1853.

The York County History Center has a copy of a hand-drawn map “Plan of a New County to be composed of parts of York & Adams County to be called Jackson County as prayed for in the Session of 1837-8.”   It was to be composed of about 200 square miles/128,000 acres, with about 15,000 inhabitants The 1837-38 boundaries are: “Beginning at the point when the public road leading from Littlestown to Frederick T. intersects the Maryland line—thence by a straight line to Sneeringers, late Adams, mill—thence along little Conewago Creek to when it intersects Big Conewago Creek—thence along Big Conewago on the South side to Emicks mill—thence along a Road leading to Wiests at York Road, thence by a straight line to Brickers Mill (Zieglers Tavern crossed out) to intersect the division line between Shrewsbury & Codorus Townships—thence along the said division line to where it intersects the Maryland line, thence along the said Maryland line to the place of Beginning.”

You can pretty well trace those boundaries of the proposed county on a present day map by comparing it with the 1821 Small and Wagner Map of York and Adams Counties.  It shows the Adams, Emicks and Brickers mills and Wiest’s tavern.  I also consulted the 1858/1860 wall maps and 1872/1876 atlases of Adams and York counties.

Today you would start where Route 194, the Frederick Pike, crosses the Maryland line.  The straight line slightly northeast would meet the south branch of the Conewago a bit northwest of Centennial, where Hill Road runs along the creek.  After meeting the main branch of the Conewago, it would follow that creek northeast to near Big Mount.  The Emick/Emig’s mill building has been converted into apartments and still stands on the south side of the creek at Big Mount Road.

The line then turns southeast, probably following Big Mount Road, which becomes Labott/Roth’s Church Road as it crosses Route 30.  Weist’s tavern was near the eastern end of Spring Grove. The straight line to the dividing line between Codorus and Shrewsbury townships would meet the south branch of Codorus Creek at Seitzville, the probable Bricker’s mill location, and then follow the Codorus/Centerville creek/line between the townships to the Maryland line, where the boundary would turn west along the Mason-Dixon Line back to the point of beginning.

I will report any further information or corrections to the boundaries, or any new information in a future post.

It has an easy to navigate map chock full of color coded markers of sites along the original stretch of Lincoln Highway across York County, now designated Routes 30 and 462.  The sites marked fall under headings such as: Entertainment, Food & Drink, Historic Site, Lodging, Outdoor, Retail, and Transportation.  (Most of us history enthusiasts are especially interested in the blue markers, which designate historic sites.)

When you click on a marker, it will take you to a short description of the site and additional links.  Those links will then transport you to the marked location’s website for more information and/or perhaps a link to a blog post by my fellow history bloggers or me with more information about what occurred there. In order to create the sites or blogs used, the expertise of professionals such as full-stack devs may have been utilized.

You can also click the Places to See dropdown menu at the top of the page.  From there, you can follow links to stories and graphics on specific communities along the Lincoln Highway in York County.

The Lincoln Highway Legacy website is very new, and the Davidsons are busy adding more markers and stories, so go back often.  Tom Davidson spoke on the Lincoln Highway and his research and plans at a recent York County History Center Writers’ Roundtable.  Here is a link to that program on the YCHC YouTube channel.

As Tom mentioned in his talk, in the early 20th century more and more people owned automobiles and needed places to go.  The Lincoln Highway was one of the popular sightseeing routes, and it was included in popular travel books.  Here is a link to my former York Sunday News  column quoting the 1916 travel book written by Louise Closser Hale, in which she humorously described her passage driving across York County.

Ever since the column appeared over three years ago, I have had personal incidents, both local and national, shared with me.  As time passes and our knowledge of space and technology becomes more sophisticated, people are more inclined to share experiences that they have not talked about because of concern that others would scoff.

In fact, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence recently directed that a report on “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” be prepared.  The Committee seems to be concerned that these unidentified aerial phenomena might be the work of foreign adversaries, and they want the incidents thoroughly investigated, whatever the source.  To read the pertinent section of the “Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021” click here and search for “unidentified.

I will keep all identities confidential, but I would love to hear from anyone that might have witnessed anything unusual in the vicinity of Glen Valley Road near Glen Rock, sometime in the summer of 1971.  Something was definitely sighted by my correspondent, a sibling and parents while they were driving to visit relatives one evening after dark.  At first sighting, it was not much above treetop level, then it moved farther away, but it was still visible.  The object stayed in the area long enough so that the family and relatives were able to watch it for a while after the children and their parents reached their destination.

The parents and the two now long grown children haven’t discussed the incident, even among themselves, until recently.  People just didn’t talk much about sightings of unknown origin back in the 70s.  Again, I think we have become more open to possibilities in today’s age of rampant technological advances.  I am impressed that the members of that family do still vividly remember that night 50 years ago.  My correspondent stresses that “Driving in a car at night was NEVER the same.”

A quick Google search brings up many sightings, both current and in the past.  Most describe the objects sighted as round or oblong with fewer triangular or rectangular shaped.  Most mention lights, and almost all comment on their moving much faster than any known aircraft.

Again, I would love to hear if anyone else could have witnessed this incident, as well as from anyone who has had similar experiences in the York County area over the years.  We have come a long way from laughing at “flying saucers” to wondering about “unidentified flying objects” to our government now mandating studies of “unexplained aerial phenomena.”

You can also find all kinds of websites on UFO sightings, from obvious fiction to some that seem to seriously and rationally record and tabulate what people have observed.  It is interesting that Pennsylvania seems to be one of the states with the highest number of reports.  And York has the second highest city in Pennsylvania using the ratio of sightings per 100,000 residents, with a ranking of 77 of 447 cities nationwide.

What have you seen?  You can email me at ycpa89@msn.com.

I have since spent several hours doing Google searches on the organization so that I could understand it better.  It was formed in 1795 and named after the (brief) King of England, William of Orange.  It was quite popular in some sections of the United States, especially those settled by Scots Irish Protestants.  The lodges flourished in this country well into the 20th century, but many seem to have folded since, although one was just 10 years ago in Naples, Florida.  In Pennsylvania there might be one or so still extant in the Philadelphia area.  The Orange Order maintained an orphanage at Hatboro, Montgomery County; it later became a retirement home and then was bought by a Methodist group.  They seem to still be quite active in Canada, as well as the British Isles.

You can tell by the names of townships in northwestern Lancaster and adjacent Dauphin counties, such as Donegal, Rapho and Londonderry that the Scots Irish influence was strong there.  The rock in question is in East Donegal Township. I am guessing there was an Orange Order lodge in that area. In fact, what we were reading as 101 at the bottom of the arch likely could be LOL, standing for Loyal Orange Lodge.  Then should be a lodge number, but that seems to be worn away.  Because of those possible letters and the location, I think the Loyal Orange solution is correct, but some sources show a similar arch and 2 ½ symbol for the Royal Arch degree of Masonry.  The original Loyal Orange founders seem to have belonged to the Masons, so there are some confusing similarities, even though the institutions are separate.

So, thanks to Bob’s comment, we have a good idea of at least what that part of the inscription signifies.  Perhaps the other numbers and letters are not connected?  In any case, what is it doing at the edge of the river?

William Halterman shared these photos of a boulder in the river in Lancaster County’s East Donegal Township, across from Hellam Township in York County .  He also marked its location on a Google Earth image shown here.  The site is just a little upstream from the foot of Vinegar Ferry Road near Marietta.  I have written a few times about Vinegar Ferry, actually named for an early operator, Christian Winiker. (Say Winiker a few times with a Pennsylvania Dutch accent, and you will see where the name comes from.)

Vinegar Ferry, which terminated on the York County shore near present day River Drive, operated for many decades.  It was one of the Susquehanna ferries scouted out during the Revolutionary War in 1778 for possible troop movement.   (The ferry got a good report, but the York County side was deemed too steep to be practical for large groups to pass.)  It is said to have continued in operation at least until the 1920s.

The rock in question is engraved with an image of an arch with a large 2 ½ in the center.  The numbers 101  are below the arch.  To the right of the arch is a large S with C82130 or C82180 below it.  There might be traces of other letters or numbers.  The Google Earth image shows it surrounded by water, but Bill says it is accessible by land when the water is lower.

Could the figures have something to do with the ferry?  Or perhaps a survey of some kind? Anything to do with the Shock’s Mill railroad bridge about a mile upstream?  Are there similar examples elsewhere?  Please share any insight you might have.

Thanks to some of the comments below, more information was found.  Click here for a follow-up post.   It is still a mystery why the rock, and the carving, is by the river’s edge.  More insight is welcomed.

Here is my recent York Sunday News column citing the diary entries of two local community leaders that show the effects of the very far away Tambora eruption were indeed felt in York County.

Was the year without a summer experienced in York County?

“The year without a summer” is an intriguing phrase.  I wondered if the strange weather of that year, 1816, affected York County.  It did, even though I haven’t been able to find much primary documentation yet on its local effects.  You would think that something so unusual would have made enough of an impression to be duly recorded and the stories passed down to future generations.  Not many local diaries and letters from that period survive, however, and few copies of 1816 local newspapers still exist.  Accounts from further afield do help paint the picture.

First, some background: the event that triggered several extraordinary summer cold snaps in Western Europe, Canada, New England and much of the Mid-Atlantic region during 1816 occurred over a year before.  On April 5, 1815 Mount Tambora on the island of Sumbawa in present day Indonesia violently erupted, spewing out a vast cloud of dust and ash.  Accounts say that earlier eruptions of Mounts Etna and Vesuvius and later of Krakatoa (1883) pale in comparison to the force and duration of Tambora.  The island of Java, three hundred miles away, was covered in several inches of ash.  100,000 people are said to have died soon after the eruption, and the long term effects were horrendous.  Crop failures caused widespread starvation and the colder temperatures might have contributed to the development of a new strain of cholera, leading to a pandemic.

Mount Tambora was shortened by 4,200 feet with much of that debris and ash coming down to earth.  It was the massive amount of dust and gas in the atmosphere, the most known in recorded history, that altered a portion of the earth’s climate for several years.  Trapped in the stratosphere, the particles and gases decreased the heat passing through from the sun; cooling temperatures can also decrease rainfall.  These factors, frost and drought, cause crops to fail, resulting in financial ruin as well as starvation. 

The dense clouds gradually moved into the higher latitudes, so that by May 1816 cooling temperatures were noted in northeastern United States.  As the year progressed the weather fluctuated wildly.  A few warm days would be followed by cold, often accompanied by high winds and sometimes a snowfall.  Every month seemed to be touched by at least one frost, sometimes more, setting back the crops and even requiring replanting.

The venerable Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture resolved at a special meeting on October 30, 1816 to collect facts and circumstances relating to agriculture and horticulture, “which have occurred through the extraordinary season of 1816; and particularly the effects of frost on vegetation,” to ascertain the best grains, grasses and fruit to resist droughts, excessively wet conditions and frosts.  Corn crops were scanty, but cooler crops like wheat and rye were fine, perhaps even benefiting from the insect population being kept in check by the cold. Wheat prices rose with resulting inflation, however, because of the demand for flour to replace scarce corn meal.  Hard hit Canada and Western Europe were also clamoring for flour, further escalating prices.

Some farmers could not buy the scarce high-priced corn to feed livestock, and hay was also in short supply because of related periods of drought.  Their cattle and pigs would die or have to be sold for very low prices.  Some sources say these were breaking points for many northeastern farmers, leading them to pull up stakes and join the migration to new lands opening up for settlement farther west. In October 1816 an Ohio newspaper noted that the number of emigrants from the eastward that year had far exceeded those of previous years. 

Few then seem to have connected the unusual weather with Tambora despite Benjamin Franklin having speculated 30 years before that volcanic eruptions and the changes they wrought in the atmosphere could affect weather patterns.  Sunspots were blamed for causing the cold periods during 1816 by some, an idea still being presented in some journals as little as 60 years ago.  Current scholarship holds that the sun releases more energy, not less, when sunspots occur, and their effect on earth might be negligible anyway.

 

Occasional periods of cold lingered for several years, but 1816 was the worst year for summer lows and the effect on agriculture.  New England and New York were hard hit by the cold, and our regional papers did pick up some of their news.  For instance, in mid-June, snow fell for an hour and a half in Bangor, Maine, and the Boston Gazette worried that several days of frost would destroy vegetation.  On June 7th the ground was frozen in Homer, New York.  April, May and June had a spell of frost each month.  Several days of frost in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in early June did make their local paper.

Two primary sources in the York County History Center collections give confirmation of the up and down weather of 1816.  Dr. Robert Cathcart recorded brief weather comments in his dairy.  County official Jacob Barnitz jotted even briefer notations in German in his almanac. 

Looking at June 1816, Cathcart says the month began fine and warm for a few days, then rained and became very cold.  From the seventh to 11th, there was frost in the mornings, then heavy rain and wind.  Warm and cold alternated the rest of the month, as it did the rest of the summer, with frost noted August 27.

 

Barnitz confirms Cathcart’s entries with a notation of frost written by the seventh to 11th of June; he also noted the wind.   The rest of his summer entries also show fluctuations of warm and cool, and he reports frost on two days near the end of August.

From these two records, it seems that although not as adversely affected as New England, New York and Canada, there was enough changeability locally to have been quite noticeable.  I plan to continue research on “the year without a summer,” and if anyone has access to original accounts or later recollections of 1816 weather patterns in this area, please email me at ycpa89@msn.com.           

Recently, a Yorker who grew up in northern Pennsylvania, near the New York border, told me that he was told, as a child, about “1800 and froze to death,” a term that also describes “the year without the summer.  That area would have been more affected than ours in southern Pennsylvania, but it is striking that the tale is still being passed down two centuries later.

Stettinius moved to Washington, D.C. around 1800 and Lepper had relocated to Ohio by 1808, with the last edition of their Hanover paper issued in early 1805.  Hanover was not without a printer for long, though, as Johann Philip Starck and Daniel Philip Lange soon took up the slack with the first issue of their German Hannover Gazette in April 1805.  Starck and Lange, and their successors, provided the Hanover area with their news, baptismal certificates, and other printing needs for the next 60 years.

My recent York Sunday News column below recaps the history of Starck and Lange’s business and some of the highlights of the interesting personal lives of these two printing partners.

More information on Starck and Lange, Lepper and Stettinius, and other Hanover printers who produced birth and baptismal certificates, as well as keeping the citizens apprised of the latest local and national news, can be found in my article on the subject in the current issue of Der Reggeboge, the journal of the Pennsylvania German Society.   If you are a member of the Pennsylvania German Society, you receive this issue of Der Reggeboge in the mail.  For non-members, a limited supply is available at a reasonable cost from the Pennsylvania German Society. Call 717-597-7940 for more information.

Starck and Lange, colorful Hanover printers

Newspapers in German and English made up most of the production of York County printing presses in the late 1700s and early 1800s.  I started researching the early area printers because they also printed  Taufscheine, birth and baptismal certificates.  It turns out that the personal lives of the printers were often quite as “colorful” as the certificates eventually were.

I previously wrote about Solomon Meyer, the founder and publisher of the German York Gazette from 1796 to 1804, and Daniel May, printer in York from 1829 to 1843.  Another column addressed Wilhelm Lepper and Samuel Stettinius; they were Hanover’s first printers, publishing Hanover’s first newspaper, Die Pennsylvanische Wochenschrift, from 1797 to early 1805.

The first issue of the German Hannover Gazette, published by Johan Philip Starck (d. 1825) and Daniel Philip Lange (1783-1856) came out in April 1805, reportedly produced with the press and type originally used earlier in York by Solomon Meyer for his York Gazette.  Both Gazettes were in the German language, but some other items were produced in English with a Roman font, showing they had bilingual capability.

Starck and Lange’s print shop also generated books and the usual broadsides, pamphlets and various forms.  Their first birth and baptismal certificate was in the popular three-heart horizontal format.  The large center heart with blanks for personal information was formed by small tailpieces of type, as were the two smaller flanking hearts with baptismal hymn verses.  Small decorative metal cuts of an eagle, flowers and small vignettes further embellished the certificates. They issued the three-heart Taufschein in 1811 and 1812.

Around 1813 Starck and Lange brought out a vertical Taufschein.  The rectangular text block was framed with small pieces of type, and that was flanked with woodcuts of a pair of graceful angels with a pair of large birds below them.  Starck left the partnership in 1816, but Lange kept printing the angel certificates until his retirement in 1850, shifting it to a horizontal orientation around 1825; the percentage printed in English increased as the years went by.  Lange’s successors, Schwartz and Gutelius and then V.C.S. Eckert, printed very similar certificates in the 1850s, only with the angels missing, replaced by turning the two birds sideways.  The angel woodblocks might have broken or been sold to another printer.

As were many of the other printers, Lange was an interesting individual.  He was quite active politically, serving in various offices with the county committee of the Democratic-Republican Party, antecedent to today’s Democratic Party.  He was the first town clerk of Hanover in 1815, serving in that post for decades.  Lange served as foreman of the 1851 York County Grand Jury that recommended a new jail, directed that the court house be made more secure and that a hospital addition for “those deprived of reason” be constructed at the county poorhouse.  He also did work for the county that included printing legally required notices in his paper and printing items such as 3,000 tickets for the 1824 presidential election.

This seemingly successful businessman and community leader had some real financial and personal problems.  A September 1824 Sheriff’s Sale notice in the York Gazette notes: “The Printing office and establishment of the Hanover Gazette consisting of a variety of English and German Type, a Press and all the necessary apparatus for printing a German Newspaper, and executing English and German Job work,” were to be sold in October at Daniel Philip Lange’s house in Hanover.  That kind of sale was usually for debt, but Lange somehow avoided the loss, since he kept printing for over 25 more years.  His sister, Sybilla Stauffer, asked the court for more security on D.P. when he, as executor, was settling their mother’s estate in 1846, noting his insolvency.  Mother Elizabeth’s estate papers show he owned his mother money, so perhaps that is how he saved his printing business.

His troubled relationship with his estranged wife, Charlotte Christina Lange, was probably well known in the small community. The Lancaster Intelligencer reported in 1830 that the state had denied the divorce for which he had petitioned.  Charlotte also seems to have tried to get a divorce on several occasions.  D.P. Lange was indicted for adultery in the York County courts in 1842 in a case brought by Frederick Starck, probably on Charlotte’s behalf.  Lange was found not guilty when the case came to trial in 1845.

Lange’s former partner, Johan Philip Starck, and his family provided for Charlotte for many years.  Starck’s will  directed that a part of his estate be put in trust to support Charlotte Christina Lange for the rest of her life, any remainder to pass to Starck’s son Frederick.  Charlotte, age 73, was living in Frederick Starck’s household by 1850.  She died in November 1859 at the age of 83. 

I thought Charlotte was perhaps related to the Starcks until I looked at Hanover census records.  The 1850 census says she was born in Germany.  She is listed as black and the Starck family is listed as white in the same census.  In 1830, she is in her own one-person Hanover household, also listed as German born and a “free colored person.” 

Daniel Philip Lange sold the printing business to his brother-in-law and former partner, Augustus Schwartz, and Pastor Samuel Gutelius in 1850.  Gutelius left after a year and Vincent Conrad Sebastian Eckert (another interesting character) joined Schwartz before buying him out in 1852. Eckert printed editions of the Hanover Gazette in both German and English until the 1860s.

Lange died in October 1856 and was buried in the Old Reformed Graveyard in Hanover, leaving whatever estate he had to friend William D. Gobrecht, Esq. of Adams County.  Former colleagues Schwartz and Eckert served as appraisers, as shown in Lange’s estate papers on file at the York County Archives.

NOTE: I am still actively researching Pennsylvania German Taufscheine (Birth and Baptismal Certificates) created for York County area children, those born in York and Adams counties and adjoining northern Maryland.  Please contact me at ycpa89@msn.com if you know of any that I have not yet recorded.  I keep all ownership information confidential. 

 

The four men are current members of Canadochly Lutheran Church, whose present building is nearby.  Canadochly, like almost all the York County churches formed in the 18th century started out as a Union church shared by both German Reformed and Lutheran congregations.  The Canadochly congregations were granted land by the Penn family in 1753, meeting in a school house until the first church was built of log in 1763.  They continued as a Union church until 1907, when the Reformed congregation built a new building.

I immediately found the article “Four Good Men With Shovels” online.  I was very excited since I have many ancestors at Canadochly, and the article mentioned that the restorers had started with the older stones near the East Prospect Road.  I knew that one of my Revolutionary War ancestors, Johan Adam Schlott (later Sloat) is buried in that area and that his stone had been leaning precariously.  I visited the cemetery the day after the read the article, and was ecstatic to see that the gravestone of Adam Schlott was now standing tall, as was the adjoining stone of his wife, Catharina (Holder) Schlott.

As I strolled around, taking photos of many old stones, I saw that these four men and their shovels have made progress, but they still have more work cut out for them.  Some of the remaining stones are broken, and many are only partially legible after centuries of weathering.  (Fortunately, the York County History Center cemetery survey from the 1930s can be of help matching a partially legible stone with the inscription copied nearly 100 years ago.)

By now there are thousands of us descended from these early settlers; we all owe a debt of gratitude to these four men and other volunteers that have taken on similar projects in other old burial grounds.  Whether they are our particular ancestors or not, all of these people who have gone before us have shaped our history, so it is really gratifying when present day citizens honor their memory by restoring and maintaining their resting places.  Thank you!