Societies of Local
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Littlestown Historical Facts
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George
Washington
George Washington passed through “Littles
town” on July 2, 1779.
He left “Tawny Town” at 4:00 AM and had Breakfast in
Hanover, before leaving for York.
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| Information from
Washington’s Diary in the Library of Congress
Page 167, 168 |
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General
Anthony Wayne
| General
Anthony Wayne, with a division of Washington's
Army, passed through Littlestown in May of 1781
on his way to Yorktown, Va. to capture Cornwallis
at the end of the Revolutionary War. |
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Slavery
in Adams County and Littlestown
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When
the first
United States census was taken in 1790, there
were 3,737 slaves listed for Pennsylvania. With
499, York had more slaves than any other county.
Most of these lived in the townships which became
Adams County 10 years later.
Patrick
McSherry in Germany Township owned five;
Alexander Brown in Tyrone, six; Andrew
Shriver in Littlestown, seven; Joshua
Russell in Franklin, eight; and George Brinkerhoff
in Straban, nine, etc. The record was held
by the Cochran family of Hamilton Township.
William owned 11 and James owned six slaves.
Other Slave owners: James
McSherry , George
Sherman
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Every
York County slave owner in 1790 knew that in
Pennsylvania slavery was a slowly dying institution.
As part of their program for change, those who
controlled the revolutionary government passed
what they called "an act for the gradual
abolition of slavery.
The last slave
in Adams County died in 1858.
Source
- Adams County Bicentennial Tibits, April
2000.
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York County was formed from
Lancaster County on July 17, 1749.
Adams County was formed from York County on January 22, 1800.
In January of 1838 a Bill was introduced in Harrisburg, titled “An
act erecting parts of York and Adams counties, into a separate county
to be called “Jackson”.
This county would have included Hanover, Jefferson, East Berlin,
Abbottstown, New Oxford, McSherrystown and Littlestown.
Former President Jackson was very popular and had carried very strong
support from this area of Pennsylvania. This was an attempt to honor
the former president. This bill had very strong support from this
area, but not from the rest of Adams or York county.
THIS
BILL WAS NEVER ACTED UPON.
Source
- Adams County Bicentennial Tibits, October
1999
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| Monuments
on the Mason-Dixon Line. The coat of arms of Maryland's
founding Calvert family is shown on one side. On
the other side are the arms of William Penn. (Crown
stone Markers) Plain Stone markers every mile.
Crown Stone Markers every 5 miles. |
The border conflict
was finally settled by the King of England sending
in Mason and Dixon to survey a line to determine
the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland and
Delaware. They started in November of 1763 and completed
all but 36 miles in October 9, 1767. They could not
finish because of the (Indian) danger in those last
36 miles.
Mason and Dixon surveyed just south of Littlestown in the middle
of August of 1765. |
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"The Mount
Joy Meteorite," said to be the largest meteorite
found east of the Mississippi River and one of the
largest ever found in the United States, was discovered,
in 1877 by Jacob Snyder on his farm near Two Taverns,
Mount Joy Township, while planting an apple tree
near his home. Snyder extracted the "stone" which
weighed more than 800 pounds. After it was determined
that the "stone" was a meteorite, Snyder
sold it to a private collector for $700. Parts of
the meteorite are today deposited in several museums.
The largest part of this meteorite is located in
the museum of Natural History, Vienna, Austria.
It is possible that what has long been called the Mt. Joy meteorite
fell from the sky during the meteor shower of November 1833. On the
previous Wednesday morning, wrote the editor of the Gettysburg Sentinel
(Nov. 18, 1833), "One of the most splendid and awful spectacles
the mind can conceive of, was witnessed in the heavens." He
had not the "gratification of observing it" himself, he
wrote, but he learned that it had lasted for two or three hours. "The
whole heavens appeared to be illuminated by countless meteors, of
different sizes, which darted frequently horizontally, leaving long
trains, but generally fell silently to the earth, resembling, as
some term it, large flakes of snow – or as it were ‘snowing
stars.’" Since reports from many other places echoed what
he wrote, the editor concluded that the shower must have been ‘general
throughout the country."
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Source
- Adams County Bicentennial Tibits, November 1999
and December 1999.
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Littlestown
Public Library
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exact date the Littlestown Free Library was created
by using various homes is not known. Eventually,
the Library was part of the Community Center. Today
it is affiliated with the Adams County Library system. |
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