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Full-Text Articles in History
She Spoke For Those Without A Voice, John M. Rudy
She Spoke For Those Without A Voice, John M. Rudy
Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications
Statistically, about 50% of Adams County’s history has been women’s history since the dawn of time. But it can sometimes be painfully difficult to find out about the women of our county and their experiences. And as with most history, it is the troublemakers who stand out in the records. Luckily one of Adams County’s greatest troublemakers, Elsie Singmaster Lewars, is easy to find in the files of the Adams County Historical Society. Mrs. Lewars had the courage to speak for those without a voice. [excerpt]
Dan Sickles, William H. Tipton, And The Birth Of Battlefield Preservation, John M. Rudy
Dan Sickles, William H. Tipton, And The Birth Of Battlefield Preservation, John M. Rudy
Adams County History
Thirty years after the battle of Gettysburg, the small Pennsylvania town was once again besieged—only this time, the invaders were not rebels, but entrepreneurs with an unquenchable thirst for profit. The most visible sign of their voracious commercialism was an electric trolley line (“from which the shouts and songs of revelry may arise to drown the screams of the suffering”) belting the battlefield. The Gettysburg Electric Railway Company’s venture raised a host of new questions regarding the importance of battlefield preservation. Most significantly, it prompted Americans to ask if they had any obligation to set aside for posterity the land …
An 1858 Patent Office Report: The Joy Of Being Wrong, John M. Rudy
An 1858 Patent Office Report: The Joy Of Being Wrong, John M. Rudy
Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public
I love being wrong. I think every historian should love that feeling. Finding that one small piece of evidence that puts a crack in your perception of the past and makes you restructure your view of the flow of history is a joy.
I had one of those moments a few weeks ago at Adams County Historical Society, digging through the vertical files for random things. I go digging every week or so, simply immersing myself in the raw material of the past and seeing what floats to the surface. [excerpt]
Adams County History 2011-2012
Shedding New Light On A Pennsylvania Painter: Finding "R. Fibich" And His Graveyard, Judith S. Pyle
Shedding New Light On A Pennsylvania Painter: Finding "R. Fibich" And His Graveyard, Judith S. Pyle
Adams County History
The painting that would become known as the “York Springs Graveyard” (see cover illustration) was sold to Connecticut folk-art collectors Jean and Howard Lipman in about 1939 by Joe Kindig, an antiques dealer from York, PA. The 18” x 24” oil painting on canvas, of mid-nineteenth-century people and carriages at a cemetery, with cattle in the middle distance, is signed “R. Fibich.” The New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, NY, subsequently acquired the painting from the Lipmans. It was cleaned, documented, studied, and then exhibited at various venues including the Primitives Gallery of Harry Stone (1942); the Union College of …
A Century Of Brickmaking At Berlin Junction: A History Of The Alwine Brick Company, Duane F. Alwin
A Century Of Brickmaking At Berlin Junction: A History Of The Alwine Brick Company, Duane F. Alwin
Adams County History
The Alwine family name had been associated with brickmaking in York and Adams Counties at least since the early 1850s, when Peter Samuel Alwine started his first brickyard on a farm in Paradise Township of York County.1 He learned the trade of brickmaking during his youth and by the age of seventeen had become a skilled artisan. He learned how to make bricks by working in the spring and summer months at a brickmaking operation in Peach Bottom Township, located in the southeastern corner of York County. He did not set up his own brickyard until later, and following his …
"The Last Full Measure Of Devotion": The Battle Of Gettysburg And The New Museum In Schmucker Hall, Bradley R. Hoch, Gerald Christianson
"The Last Full Measure Of Devotion": The Battle Of Gettysburg And The New Museum In Schmucker Hall, Bradley R. Hoch, Gerald Christianson
Adams County History
Schmucker Hall offers an unprecedented opportunity to interpret the role of religion in the Civil War and the American expenment in democracy. In particular it can give palpable expression to major themes in Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address concerning the battle itself, the conflict as a time of testing, the sacrifices of those who fought here, and the hope these sacrifices bring to the young nation for a new birth of freedom.
Built in 1832 and named for an abolitionist and founder of Gettysburg Seminary, Samuel Simon Schmucker, it is the original structure on the oldest continuously-operating Lutheran seminary in the …
Book Review: The Ordeal Of Thomas Barton: Anglican Missionary In The Pennsylvania Backcountry, 1755-1780, David L. Preston
Book Review: The Ordeal Of Thomas Barton: Anglican Missionary In The Pennsylvania Backcountry, 1755-1780, David L. Preston
Adams County History
The Ordeal of Thomas Barton is a highly informative read that I recommend for anyone interested in the history of eighteenth-century Pennsylvania. Scholars will find the book useful for its many connections to the histories of settlement, religion, politics, Indian diplomacy, and warfare on the Pennsylvania frontier. The book's author, Gettysburg College English professor James P. Myers, Jr., has written the most deeply researched account of Barton's importance in eighteenth-century religion and politics, and has contributed some of the finest overall scholarship on early Pennsylvania in recent years. Based in Huntington Township in what is now Adams County, and later …
Book Review: Expanding Horizons For American Lutherans: The Story Of Abdel Ross Wentz, Charles Hambrick-Stowe
Book Review: Expanding Horizons For American Lutherans: The Story Of Abdel Ross Wentz, Charles Hambrick-Stowe
Adams County History
Abdel Ross Wentz (1883-1976) of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg joked about his small physical stature but he was a giant of American Lutheranism, noted religious historian and theological educator, and exemplar of a great generation of church leaders working in national and world arenas from the 1920s through the 1950s. This biography by his son, himself a historian and seminary professor and president, traces Wentz’s life from childhood in Lineboro, Maryland through his significant career in Gettysburg and much wider circles to his retirement near the Seminary campus. Obviously a labor of love and written in a style …
The Lincoln Highway: Coast To Coast From Times Square To The Golden Gate, Wayne E. Motts
The Lincoln Highway: Coast To Coast From Times Square To The Golden Gate, Wayne E. Motts
Adams County History
The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate
By Michael Wallis and Michael S. Williamson (WW Norton, New York and London, 2007 293 pages includes bibliography)
The book is divided into chapters by state following the highway from east to west. It is lavishly illustrated with color images of stops on the journey from the early days to the present. Of course, the roadway in Adams County is today US Route 30 and passes through the borough of Abbotstown to the western end of the county near the Michaux State Forest. Adams County highlights include …
'A Beautiful Dream Realized': John S. Rice And The Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Of The Battle Of Gettysburg, Brian Matthew Jordan
'A Beautiful Dream Realized': John S. Rice And The Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Of The Battle Of Gettysburg, Brian Matthew Jordan
Adams County History
"We have real cause for being proud of our past and the heritage it has given us ... We have a rich past ... along with this heritage we have had thrust upon us a deep responsibility," John S. Rice said in 1959. Indeed, it was the same sense of deep responsibility that had motivated him in anticipation of 1938. That year marked the seventy- fifth anniversary of the cataclysmic, three-day battle that was waged in the fields and farm lanes surrounding the seat of his native Adams County, Pennsylvania. Rice's cognizance of the importance not only of the Battle …
Book Review: Thaddeus Stevens In Gettysburg: The Making Of An Abolitionist, Peter C. Vermilyea
Book Review: Thaddeus Stevens In Gettysburg: The Making Of An Abolitionist, Peter C. Vermilyea
Adams County History
Over a million and a half tourists visit Gettysburg every year, finding the quintessence of American history in the borough and surrounding battlefields. Had the great battle been fought elsewhere, it is likely that Gettysburg's legacy in American history would instead be the town where Thaddeus Stevens spent the formative years of his legal practice and political career. As the subtitle to Dr. Bradley R. Roch's new book, Thaddeus Stevens in Gettysburg: The Making of an Abolitionist, makes abundantly clear, it is also the town where the man often put forward as the most radical of Radical Republicans formulated his …
March Into Oblivion, Larry C. Bolin
March Into Oblivion, Larry C. Bolin
Adams County History
The Whiskey Rebellion often is assigned, even by historians, to an obscurity which belies its significance. Its importance was major not only to the people most affected by its cause and those most intimately involved in the playing out of the events, but also to the young federal government, which had to demonstrate its authority yet not trample its own citizens. The situation held a very real potential for tearing apart the fragile nation. President George Washington felt strongly enough about it to involve himself personally in the beginnings of the military action. In the last few years of the …
Jack Hopkins' Civil War, Peter C. Vermilyea
Jack Hopkins' Civil War, Peter C. Vermilyea
Adams County History
In the 1862 Pennsylvania College album there is a photograph of John Hopkins, who that year was entering his fifteenth year of service as the college's janitor. In one student's book, the portrait of Hopkins jokingly refers to him as the school's "vice president." This appellation speaks volumes about the life of the African-American custodian, for while it was clearly made in jest as a token of the students' genuine affection for Hopkins, it symbolizes the gulf between the white students and the black janitor. It goes without saying that the students found the picture humorous because they understood that …
Mt. Pleasant Church, Conewago Township, Larry C. Bolin
Mt. Pleasant Church, Conewago Township, Larry C. Bolin
Adams County History
About two miles south of McSherrystown and a similar distance southwest of Hanover, in Conewago Township, lies the small village of Mt. Pleasant. The community developed at and near the intersection of State Route 194, commonly called the Hanover-Littlestown Pike, and Legislative Route 01005, known in days past as the road from McSherrystown to Gitt's Mill and its segment south of the intersection called in recent times Narrow Drive. In the eastern quadrant of the intersection, a church was built in 1878; nearby and adjacent to the crossroads sat a public school, which had been built sometime before 1858. The …
A Visit To The Battlefield, Michael J. Birkner, Richard E. Winslow
A Visit To The Battlefield, Michael J. Birkner, Richard E. Winslow
Adams County History
This piece was transcribed and edited by Michael J. Birkner and Richard E. Winslow.
With fighting concluded at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, the enormous task of burying the dead, treating the wounded, and rehabilitating the town began in earnest. Although Gettysburg looked and smelled worse than it ever had or ever would again, thousands of people arrived on the battlefield in the days and weeks following General Robert E. Lee's retreat. Some came to minister to the sick and reclaim the bodies of neighbors and loved ones; others scavenged souvenirs of the battle. Of the many visits to the …
The Slave Birth Register Of Adams County
The Slave Birth Register Of Adams County
Adams County History
This record is from a book, deposited in the Prothonotary's office, which shows the dates of birth and registration of 109 children born to slave mothers between 1799 and 1820. Several pages at the beginning of the book are missing, including the page on which are recorded the names of slaveholders whose surnames begin with A. That register might not be the original record, however. [excerpt]
The Slaveholders Of Adams County
The Slaveholders Of Adams County
Adams County History
This catalog of slaveholder names includes all known slaveholders in Adams County both before and after its split from York County in 1800. Included with each name are the place or places of residence and the year or years of documented slave ownership. In order to achieve some conformity, in certain instances the spelling of surnames is arbitrary, based on experience with what the names actually were or have become.
Distribution Of Slaveholders In Adams County
Distribution Of Slaveholders In Adams County
Adams County History
This roster repeats the names of "The Slaveholders of Adams County," from this journal, separating them, however, by their places of residence. The aim is to give an idea of where in the county slavery was most prevalent and at the same time a glimpse at the national origins of settlers in different areas.
There is a considerable duplication of names, which reflects the movement of families within the county or the establishment of new townships and the incorporation of Gettysburg as a borough. An accounting is given for each distinct place an individual lived, whether by actual move or …
The Slaves Of Adams County
Adams County History
This compilation of named slaves surely does not represent anything near the total number who toiled in the county; without a doubt many are now irretrievable. Of those who can be isolated, a large number may be identified to some extent by age or sex or name of owner, or by a combination of those definers. This list, however, comprises only those slaves whose names are recorded. [excerpt]
Pennsylvania Legislation Relating To Slavery
Pennsylvania Legislation Relating To Slavery
Adams County History
The following acts have been taken, complete or in part, from the published volumes of The Statutes At Large of Pennsylvania and Laws of Pennsylvania. These extracts are not all-inclusive, but do cover the years 1725/6-1847, from the province's first general statement of the legal standing of blacks, full-blooded and mixed, and the treatment to be afforded them, up to the state's rewritten and strengthened prohibition of the kidnapping of free blacks and the seizing of fugitive slaves. Included are not only acts showing the status and the protection of slaves, whether residents or sojourners, but also those requiring resident …
Slaveholders And Slaves Of Adams County, Larry C. Bolin
Slaveholders And Slaves Of Adams County, Larry C. Bolin
Adams County History
A close study of the African-American community of Adams county waits to be written. By whatever standards adhered to, however, an in-depth investigation of the subject would be a daunting task at best, and in some areas an all but impossible one. Sadly, the early years, if seen at all, are often barely visible through the mists of repression and slavery. And yet, unfortunate and illogical as it might seem, slave owners very frequently offer the only glimpses of the downtrodden now obtainable....
This study consists of four lists, centered on the names of the county's slaveholders and designed to …