The Story of the Creation of Adams County, Pennsylvania: And of the Selection of Gettysburg as Its Seat of Justice; As Address Before the Historical ... Anniversary, May 6, 1889 (Classic Reprint)

Book Synopsis: Excerpt from The Story of the Creation of Adams County, Pennsylvania: And of the Selection of Gettysburg as Its Seat of Justice; As Address Before the Historical Society of Adams County, on Its First Anniversary, May 6, 1889

Our centennial is but little more than ten years off. It is high time that we try to gather into compact and intelligible form, the story of how precisely the county and the county seat came into existence. These manuscripts are the very essence of those facts.

When the contest began, the area of York county was square miles, or 225 square miles larger than the present area of the largest county in our Commonwealth. When it ended, the area of York county was 921 square miles, or 21 square miles larger than Berks county now is, and only 52 square miles smaller than Lancaster now is. The division thus left York still one of the large counties of the State.

Two causes combined to produce this movement. The old York was not symmetrical in shape, but was highly irregular. On its southern line, it was sixty miles from east end to west. On its central line, through Yorktown, it was forty-eight miles from end to end. On a more northerly line, it was twenty seven miles, whence it ran triangularly to a point at present New Cumberland. North and south at the widest, it was thirty - three miles; at the narrowest, fifteen, if we except the triangle at the south - east corner, the apex of which lies on the Susquehanna. Besides, the county - seat was thirty - seven miles from the western boundary of the county, and but twelve miles from the eastern boundary. This irregular region, with its lop-sided county-seat, was inhabited, from the beginning, bya discordant people. The men of the west did not believe in, or work cordially, or readily confer, with the men of the east; and reversely. The two migrations were of different stock, came from different countries, spoke different languages, and had inharmonious training, ideas and tastes. Each nationality naturally sought settlement by itself, and both were happier when apart. Their politics differed, and both distance and diversity prevented fusion. Their points Of repulsion proved, in forty years of enforced association, stronger than their points of attraction. The inhabitants of the west end were the less numerous, and as antagonisms developed they were seized with a purpose to set up for themselves. To the motives mentioned, probably a hope of pecuniary advantage from a new organization and a new county-seat came in to strengthen the purpose, which was reenforced by a desire to secure a market more convenient than Philadelphia, now made possible by the opening Of north and south roads connecting the Cum berland Valley through the Marsh creek settlement with Bal timore. With an independent County organization, they ex pected to increase facilities for trading southward, thus getting clear of the barrier of the unbridged Susquehanna.

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