A good, honest, hard working man : William Christian Paulsen and his family - German immigrants who settled in Lancaster in the mid- to late-nineteenth century
"William Paulsen's story, although unique in its details, is generally typical of the stories of many other middle-class German immigrants in Lancaster. Together, these stories comprise an important part of Lancaster's history that may not be very well known because immigrants in the middle class, although in the great majority, did not leave as many traces in the historical records as did more affluent, well-known immigrants. As a result, the stories of middle-class immigrants are more difficult to piece together. However, in the case of William Paulsen and his family, we are fortunate to have extensive family sources of information to draw on, as well as a substantial number of historical records."
Appendix 1 : Founding members of the High German Church ; Appendix 2 : Members of the High German Church who were arrested for distrubing the peace during the riot on January 17, 1835. Charges were brought by Carl Schaeffer and George Milligsach, elders of the High German Church ; Appendix 3 : Pastors and members of the vestry of Zion Lutheran Church during its peak years in the late nineteenth century.
"May God have mercy on the deeply affected congregation" : the divisive 1825 language dispute at Lancaster's Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity
"The present work is a substantial revision of our earlier work entitled No Crooked Death, published by the University of Illinois Press in 1991"--Introduction.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 155-158).
Contents
"That quiet sabbath evening" -- "A conspiracy of silence" -- "A disgraceful travesty of justice" -- "To humiliate the administration of justice" -- "An American tragedy."
Summary
"On a warm August night in 1911, Zachariah Walker was lynched--burned alive--by an angry mob on the outskirts of Coatesville, a prosperous Pennsylvania steel town. At the time of his very public murder, Walker, an African American millworker, was under arrest for the shooting and killing of a respected local police officer. Investigated by the NAACP, the horrific incident garnered national and international attention. Despite this scrutiny, a conspiracy of silence shrouded the events, and the accused men and boys were found not guilty at trial. On the 100th anniversary of the lynching and the 20th anniversary of the books original release as No Crooked Death, authors Dennis B. Downey and Raymond M. Hyser bring new insight to events that rocked a community."--Page [4] of cover.