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Articles 61 - 87 of 87
Full-Text Articles in History
Adams County Grave-Stonecutters, 1770-1918, Nancy Delong
Adams County Grave-Stonecutters, 1770-1918, Nancy Delong
Adams County History
Stonecutting in Adams county followed all the general developmental trends and stages exhibited by the craft in other parts of Pennsylvania. Adams county, nonetheless, evolved its unique approach to gravestone art, for rural early American stonecutters were by and large highly unique artistic individuals.
The earliest prominent stonecutters maintained high artistic standards as well as exhibiting a high degree of creativity. These were craftsmen of the Scots-Irish Bigham family of Marsh Creek and the Pennsylvania-German Meals family, centered at Bender's Cemetery, Butler township. A third outstanding Adams county stonecutter was the predecessor of Barnet Hildebrand of East Berlin. This artist …
"Not Only For... Material Progress... But For The General Good And Uplift": A History Of Guernsey And Its Humpback Bridge, Elwood W. Christ
"Not Only For... Material Progress... But For The General Good And Uplift": A History Of Guernsey And Its Humpback Bridge, Elwood W. Christ
Adams County History
The Guernsey or "Humpback" Bridge (see figure 2) is dying from neglect. Small saplings and briar bushes now cuddle its abutments that Mother Nature has bombarded with many wind and rain showers and baked with her sweltering summer suns. Several timbers are tattooed, seared by countless embers from wood- and coal-fired locomotives that have traveled underneath it along the Gettysburg Railroad line. Sections of several other timbers have rotted. Indeed, this little, single-lane span cannot withstand the weight of motor vehicles much longer. For this reason, in 1999 the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission ruled that the forlorn bridge was a …
The Gettysburg Battlefield, One Century Ago, Benjamin Y. Dixon
The Gettysburg Battlefield, One Century Ago, Benjamin Y. Dixon
Adams County History
In the fall of 1899, Colonel John Nicholson reported on the recent changes being made to the Gettysburg National Military park. The park held a dedication ceremony that July for a new equestrian statue to General John Reynolds erected northwest of town. It was a shiny goldenbrown, polished-bronze statue sculpted by Henry Kirke Bush-Brown (his second equestrian statue at Gettysburg in three years). The horse and rider, balancing on two legs stood on a large pedestal near the new avenue in his name. Reynolds Avenue and adjoining Wadsworth, Doubleday, and Robinson Avenues were new to the battlefield as well. These …
The Civil War Letters Of Jeremiah Mickly Of Franklin Township, Adams County, Eric Ledell Smith
The Civil War Letters Of Jeremiah Mickly Of Franklin Township, Adams County, Eric Ledell Smith
Adams County History
On December 2, 1862, just eleven days before the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, Jeremiah Mickly said goodbye to his wife and two children and reported for duty with the 177th Pennsylvania Infantry to become a Civil War chaplain. The only known photograph ofMickly shows him dressed in the standard chaplain's uniform of the day: a plain black frock coat with a standing collar and black buttons with plain black pantaloons. Like many other Civil War soldiers, Mickly re-enlisted for service after his stint with the 177th ended, becoming chaplain of the 43rd Regiment, United States Colored Troops. Impressed with the …
On The Trail Of Sidney O'Brien: An Inquiry Into Her Family And Status - Was She A Slave Or Servant Of The Gettys Family In Gettysburg? Was Her Daughter, Getty Ann, A Descendant Of James Gettys?, Elwood W. Christ
Adams County History
Like many Decembers in the greater Adams county area, the beginning of the winter usually is a collage of intermittent warm spells spliced amongst Arctic days with cold Canadian northwest winds. Amid the hoopla, as Gettysburgians prepared for the 1873 Christmas holidays during the week between the 17th and 24th of December, a person had, as Alfred Lord Tennyson so eloquently described, "Crossed the Bar." But in the local newspapers there had been no notice of declining health. No death notice appeared. Possibly the cost of five cents a line "for all over four lines- cash to accompany the notice" …
Some Early Adams County Communities, Their Churches, And Church Lands, Charles H. Glatfelter
Some Early Adams County Communities, Their Churches, And Church Lands, Charles H. Glatfelter
Adams County History
The earliest European settlers in today's Adams county were basically a religious people. While probably most of them should not be described as particularly pious, they did have the fear of the Lord in their hearts and wanted to have access to the services of some religious organization, either the one to which they were accustomed in Europe or one with which they had affiliated in America. If they belonged to groups such as the Quakers, Mennonites, or Brethren, it was easy for them to develop internally the leadership necessary to function successfully as a religious community. If they were …
Some Culp Family Members In The Civil War, David A. Culp
Some Culp Family Members In The Civil War, David A. Culp
Adams County History
In the 1860s Gettysburg had a population of around 2,400. The Culps had lived there since 1787, the year Christopher Culp purchased the farm, located on the east end of town, with its western boundry starting at Baltimore St. between Breckenridge and South Streets, going northeast to South Stratton St. and Wall Alley East, then on to East Middle St. between South Stratton and Liberty Streets. The town more or less ended at the farm boundary. Prominent on the farm and southeast of town was Culp's Hill. Five generations of Culps had lived in Gettysburg by the time of the …
"Raising Kane Takes Its Toll On The Old Chambersburg Turnpike": A Tale Of Photographic Detection, Elwood W. Christ
"Raising Kane Takes Its Toll On The Old Chambersburg Turnpike": A Tale Of Photographic Detection, Elwood W. Christ
Adams County History
Inquires to which the staff of the society responds fall into several categories, but all can be characterized as sensible, ludicrous, or somewhere in between. Most sensible requests focus on genealogy, old businesses, or some other facet of early Adams county history. Many other times, ludicrous requests are received from parties who want to know something about their ancestors from some foreign state who fought in the battle of Gettysburg. The society simply does not have that information.
At face value, however, some requests only border on the ludicrous. Such was one relatively recent inquiry which the author was asked …
Adams County In "The Splendid Little War," April Through August 1898, Timothy H. Smith
Adams County In "The Splendid Little War," April Through August 1898, Timothy H. Smith
Adams County History
The Spanish American War lasted less than four months (April 25 to August 13, 1898). For the entire war, American casualties totaled less than 2,000 men, among them 345 killed or mortally wounded. Many more, however, died of disease (about 2000). Over the years, the war has been remembered as an event in which American interests and yellow journalism led to a conflict where the outcome was never in doubt. The nation of Spain, embroiled in internal dispute and civil unrest, was ripe for the picking and could do little to organize a defense of her colonies against a nation …
Building A Battle Site: Roads To And Through Gettysburg, Elwood W. Christ
Building A Battle Site: Roads To And Through Gettysburg, Elwood W. Christ
Adams County History
On the morning of 1 July 1863, lead elements of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia advanced on the town of Gettysburg situated in the lush farm lands of south-central Pennsylvania just eight miles east of the South Mountain in Adams county. The Southern reconnaissance in force made early that summer morning was destined not only to change the history of the struggling Confederacy, but also to set the infant United States republic, indeed the world, on courses towards more democratic forms of government.
Although many historians have dwelled on those three fateful days in 1863, few …
Lavinia Dock: Adams County Suffragette, Mary Lou Schwartz
Lavinia Dock: Adams County Suffragette, Mary Lou Schwartz
Adams County History
In the aftermath of the anniversary celebrations held to commemorate women's right to vote, it is fitting to remember an Adams county resident who figured prominently in the most militant phase of the suffrage campaign-Lavinia Lloyd Dock.
Lavinia Dock was born February 26, 1858, the second child of Gilliard and Lavinia Lloyd Bombaugh Dock. Gilliard, who had attended Gettysburg College, was a well-to-do engineer and machinist. Both parents were liberal in their views. Lavinia said that "Father had some whimsical masculine prejudices, but Mother was broad on all subjects and very tolerant and charitable towards persons." Although the family, eventually …
The Bermudian Creek Tories, James P. Myers Jr.
The Bermudian Creek Tories, James P. Myers Jr.
Adams County History
The history of the American Revolution which most Americans have learned and which is everyday reinforced in the public media is essentially but one of several competing interpretations of that conflict. We rarely think about this, so successfully has that particular history taken root in our culture. Common sense, however, should caution us that the British also possess a version or versions which differ in important ways from ours. The French, our allies during the Revolution, offer yet another construction, one stressing that war's place in their own long history of conflict with Great Britain. And had the northeastern American …
World War Ii: On The Home Front - M. Francis Coulson Interview, Jenny Sonnenberg
World War Ii: On The Home Front - M. Francis Coulson Interview, Jenny Sonnenberg
Adams County History
Americans love anniversaries. The fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War has afforded citizens an opportunity to remember with pride the great men and events of a war that saved the world from totalitarian tyranny. Happily, memories of World War II have not been restricted to recalling battlefield heroics or diplomatic intrigues. Across the United States, public libraries and local historical societies have commemorated the Home Front during the war years with exhibits that recapture the texture of life on farms, factories, in classrooms, and at home during what Studs Terkel has labeled "the Good War." These …
William And Isabel: Parallels Between The Life And Times Of The William Bliss Family, Transplanted New Englanders At Gettysburg, And A Nineteenth-Century Novel, 'Isabel Carollton: A Personal Retrospect' By Kneller Glen, Elwood W. Christ
Adams County History
By 3 July 1863, Union troops under the command of General George G. Meade and elements of General Robert E. Lee's Confederate army had struggled for two days over the rolling farm lands, ridges, and rocky crags around a small farming community and county seat known as Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Within the encompassing whirlpool ofbattle, however, smaller dramas had unfolded, and one of them is of interest to us here. The soldiers had been fighting for the possession of a house and barn situated equidistant between the battle lines about one and onequarter miles south-southwest of the town square. During a …
A Tour Of Gettysburg's Visual Battle Damage, Timothy H. Smith
A Tour Of Gettysburg's Visual Battle Damage, Timothy H. Smith
Adams County History
A little-known aspect of the Battle of Gettysburg is the story behind the Civil War battle damage still present m some of the town's buildings. During the first three days of July 1863, cannons fired over and into Gettysburg, and as a result some of the homes were inadvertently struck by the shells. As a battlefield guide, the author has driven by these structures everyday for the past few years, and a highlight of any tour is a stop in front of the Sheads house on Buford Avenue, where one can point up to an artillery shell embedded just to …
The Jameson Raid (1758) As A Focus For Historical Inquiry, Charles H. Glatfelter
The Jameson Raid (1758) As A Focus For Historical Inquiry, Charles H. Glatfelter
Adams County History
Each year the Adams County Historical Society receives inquiries either in person or by mail from persons asking for information about a young woman who with the rest of her family was seized and carried off from their home in what is now Adams county during the French and Indian War. She was the only member of that family who was not slaughtered as the raiding party and its captives moved into the western part of Pennsylvania. The subsequent life of this woman among the Indians was deemed of sufficient historical importance that she was chosen to be among some …
Anatomy Of A Log House In Adams County, Pennsylvania And Its Unspoken Language, Elwood W. Christ
Anatomy Of A Log House In Adams County, Pennsylvania And Its Unspoken Language, Elwood W. Christ
Adams County History
Sixteen years after the end of the Revolution, and on the eve of the formation of Adams county, the United States became embroiled in a "quasi-war" with France (1797-1801) which strained the federal treasury. As a result of the diplomatic disagreement, Congress approved several bills to fund America's military build-up. One of these, the U.S. Evaluation Tax of July 9, 1798, was signed into law to raise two million dollars in revenues. The direct or "window tax" was levied based on landholdings, buildings and the number of glass lights, and slaves-in essence, a federal property tax.
Although the "window tax" …
Funeral Practices In Upper Northeast Adams, Nancy Delong
Funeral Practices In Upper Northeast Adams, Nancy Delong
Adams County History
In 1994 in upper north-east Adams county, local people relate thoughts of death with advanced age, hospitals, and nursing homes. Occasionally, there is an accident or irreversible medical problem involving a younger person. These infrequent occurrences receive much attention from the community. Widespread fear of infant mortality is not manifest.
However, in this same area, from colonial times until about 1920 death occurred in a more widely dispersed fashion: far from being merely the prospect of the elderly, death's inevitability was the unseen companion of young and old alike. Death could occur at random. Mortality was a distinct possibility for …
Catherine Mary White Foster's Eyewitness Account Of The Battle Of Gettysburg, With Background On The Foster Family Union Soldiers, David A. Murdoch
Catherine Mary White Foster's Eyewitness Account Of The Battle Of Gettysburg, With Background On The Foster Family Union Soldiers, David A. Murdoch
Adams County History
Catherine Mary White Foster lived with her elderly parents in the red brick house on the northwest corner of Washington and High Streets in Gettysburg at the time of the battle, 1-3 July 1863. She was the only child of James White Foster and Catherine (nee Swope) Foster (a former resident of Lancaster county), who married on 11 May 1817 and settled in Gettysburg, Adams county, Pennsylvania. Her father, James White Foster, had served his country as a first lieutenant in the War of 1812. Her grandparents, James Foster and Catherine (nee White) Foster, had emigrated with her father and …
Preparations For The Forbes Expedition, 1758, In Adams County, With Particular Focus On The Reverend Thomas Barton, James P. Myers
Preparations For The Forbes Expedition, 1758, In Adams County, With Particular Focus On The Reverend Thomas Barton, James P. Myers
Adams County History
In the year 1755, two events occurred which left their impress upon the history of what was to become Adams county. One was momentous, and its consequences, like concentric ripples produced by a stone hurled into a large body of water, continued to move and shape the history of Pennsylvania's frontier long afterwards. By comparison, the other was insignificant, the mere, almost undetectable slipping of a pebble into the rushing torrent of Time. Yet this second happening eventuated in ways that profoundly contributed to our understanding of Adams county's, and Pennsylvania's, history during the years 1755-59.
The lesser of these …