"On April 17, 1865, eighteen year old John Rakestraw left the family farm in Bart Township, Lancaster County, to attend Unionville Academy, a small Quaker boarding school in Chester County. During the time he was away his two older sisters wrote to him regularly. Ten of those letters have survived and they provide a candid and often painfully honest glimpse of life on a Lancaster County farm in the 1860's. Diaries and ledgers kept by John's father, William I. Rakestraw , provide additional insight into that that time and place." [excerpt from the text]
On September 11, 1851, at Christiana, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the African-American community rose up in arms against attempted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. While attempting to save four men from the federal posse charged to re-enslave them, rioters killed the Maryland farmer who was trying to reclaim his "property."
