Month: December 2013

A mere 17-miles over the Mason Dixon Line there is the quiet Pennsylvania borough of Christiana with about 1,100 residents.  In the 21^st century it is an idyllic, tranquil community on the northeastern edge of fine Lancaster County farm country.  However this modern  scene differs sharply with the disturbing violence that took place there a decade before the Civil War tore the country apart.

The town is off Route 41 and I have passed it many times, but never bothered to get off the highway.  However on a fine early autumn day it was time to spend some time in Christiana doing fieldwork to enhance classroom lectures on the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

The controversial Congressional Act strengthened the position of slave owners seeking to capture runaways, making it a duty of local authorities to arrest anyone suspected of being a runaway.  Areas along the Mason Dixon Line saw increased activity and in 1851 a Maryland slave owner, Edward Gorsuch, arrived at a home seeking to capture four fugitive slaves.  Accompanied by a posse and a federal marshal the group surrounded the farmhouse of William Parker, an African-American, but news of the confrontation spread and dozens of local people showed up.  When a skirmish broke out Gorsuch was killed and two other Marylanders were wounded.

In the aftermath of the Christiana Resistance, a detachment of marines were dispatched to this corner of Lancaster County, the town was put under martial law, and 141 people were arrested.  The Federal Government charged about 41 of them with treason under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act.  Southerners demand the hanging of those responsible, accusing them of making war on the United States.  The defense team led by Thaddeus Stevens defended the first case and after the jury deliberated for fifteen minutes a verdict of not guilty was returned.  By the end of 1851, all charges were dropped against 38 black men and 3 white men.

The incident did much to polarize the national debate over slavery as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was tested for the first time.  Today the Borough recalls this history in many ways and street banners for the municipality say “Christiana – Freedom began here.”  There are also many resources to help anyone interested in this disturbing incident and the local library has a strong collection of materials.  There is also the Christian Underground Railroad Center at Zercher’s Hotel, a building that played an important role in 1851.

 Moore’s Memorial Library, Christiana, PA has a local history collection related to the Christiana Resistance 

William Parker wrote about the incident in Atlantic Monthly in February 1866.

The Christiana Riot and the Treason Trail of 1851:  An Historical Sketch; by William U. Hensel, 1911, digitized by Dickinson College Archives & Special Collections

Christiana Underground Railroad Center at Historic Zercher’s Hotel.

Christiana, PA.– From Lancaster County Tourism

Whenever I start a new investigation one of my first stops is the local library as I begin the process of learning about a community and its history.  These unique institutions contain an astonishing variety of materials that help anyone puzzling together evidentiary traces of earlier times.  No matter how small, they always have local titles and a knowledgeable staff able to direct me to special resources and subject matter experts.  Many also have a room or stacks dedicated entirely to the region’s genealogy and history.

So whenever I am working on a Delaware project, I visit the many fine libraries from Claymont to Delmar and every place in between.  These institutions provide superior patron services, the materials are of great help, and I am often surprised by the treasures in special collections.

Recently the State Division of Libraries produced a video highlighting the ways the First State’s libraries help anyone delving into Delaware’s past, whether it is for a school paper, family history research, or something else.  There are plenty of treasures in those stacks and I was pleased to talk with the videographers at Content Delaware about the valuable resources I have used for my research while puzzling out the story about the past in our communities.

Community libraries are one of the great places to start when you need to know your history.

Governmental records at the state, county, and city level are important resources for studying the past and the documents are usually available in a state or local archives.  But when local bodies digitize public historical resources it makes the job of the researcher so much easier, increasing efficiencies for agency staff, and reducing custodial and preservation problems as paper ages and becomes fragile.

Recently I needed to do some work with the public records in Dover, DE. and I discovered that the city has done a fine job of making its paper records available electronically on the net.  Beginning in 1920, the Council minutes are online and those materials continue on to the present.  There are also archived minutes for many of the committees and commissions, though most of those don’t go back as far.

Thank you City of Dover for making public records available in such an efficient and helpful way.  Anyone studying the past in capital of the First State will find this to be a helpful resource.

Click here to access the records

 

At a rapid pace these days, old newspapers are being digitized and made openly available to researchers and as I work on projects I often found additional collections of these valuable publications.  That was the case recently, as I worked on the “Flight 214 Remembrance Program” to mark the passage of fifty years since a Pan American World Airways jet on approach to Philadelphia crashed.  The big jet was struck by lightning and everyone onboard perished.

Many of the passengers were from Southeastern Pennsylvania and South Jersey, so I needed to examine 1963 papers from those areas.  Many haven’t been digitized yet, but I discovered one very helpful resource, which I think will have value for other readers of this blog.  The Delaware County (PA) Library System has created high quality e-copies of products published in Chester.

The newspapers in the database are fully searchable and are excellent for gaining the local perspective on historical news or for researching your family history. The databases, provided to the Library System by the Newspaper Archive, includes, papers beginning in 1867 and running up to 1976.  The titles include the Chester Daily Times, Chester Evening Times, Chester Reporter, Chester Times, and Delaware County Daily Times.   Click here to access the Delaware County Public Library’s digital archives.