"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.
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."
"A relationship between [Thaddeus] Stevens and...[Robert Boston] is an important counter narrative. Most traditional accounts of the local Underground Railroad activity emphasize the actions of white stationmasters such as William Wright in Columbia or Daniel Gibbons in Bird-in-Hand. African-American involvement while not ignored is generally presented as being of secondary importance. Each demonstrable piece of evidence of Black involvement in effort to combat slavery strengthens arguments for a tradition of Black agency and necessitates a reassessment of the lives and experiences of African Americans in the Antebellum Era."
"Lancaster had been a town a scant fifteen years when it had the honor of hosting the Treaty of Lancaster. From June 22 to July 4, 1744, representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy, (Six Nations) and the colonies of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia gathered in Lancaster's Centre Square courthouse in a meeting that was to have both immediate and long-range impact on colonists and natives."
"On of the most memorable episodes recorded at the 1744 Treaty of Lancaster was the appearance of the venerable Madame Montour as a distinguished guest. Though the name of Madame Montour is widely known to be associated with the history of central Pennsylvania, the facts of her life have long remained few and conflicting...Our search is rendered particularly difficult because Madame Montour's own words sometimes contributed to the confusion and mythology that has grown up around her name."
Jonah Davenport, an early eighteenth century Lancaster Indian trader, his son William Davenport, a Carlisle saddler, and grandson, Samuel Davenport, Trader General of the Tribes of Texas
"On the American frontier, there were men who always pushed the edge. These were often the Indian traders, solitary men who purchased great lots of manufactured goods, loaded them on trains of pack horses or mules and set out into the wilderness to trade with the Indians in exchange for skins and furs. Such a man was the Indian trader Jonah Davenport."
The following mills are discussed: Martic Forge Mill; Horse Hollow Mill/Pequea Roller Mill/Sickman's Mill; Burnt Mill; Millvale Mill/Baumgardener's Mill; and Goods Mill. "Although the Goods were primarily farmers, they were also involved in milling, lime burning, distilling, and taverns, and were involved in local and county government. John J. Good, known as Squire Good, was a Justice of the Peace. His courtroom was in a tavern he owned."
"By following the story of my great-grandmother Isabella Ford's life, and adding to it with information from available sources, I have been able to get a better understanding of the circumstances of Lancaster's free blacks. Her story provides a sense of life in mid-nineteenth century Lancaster County and shows how free black families held their own, despite an environment that was often unfriendly and that restricted their opportunities by both law and custom."
