William C. Goodridge - York, PA
N 39° 57.884 W 076° 43.549
18S E 352605 N 4425269
This marker is located on an old and historic residential street one block over from the Lincoln Highway. There are scores of other markers, signs and interpretives within a few blocks and even one across the street.
Waymark Code: WM98Q3
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 07/14/2010
Views: 5
The marker reads:
Here lived an ex-slave, born 1805, who became a prominent York businessman, 1824-1863. Tanner, newspaper distributor, barber. Erected York's first five-story building. His 13 rail cars operated commercially and were used in his work for the Underground Railroad.
The house is still there but I was unable to find the five-story building mentioned in the sign.
I found the following HERE
A free black man named William C. Goodridge was one of the leading businessmen in mid-18th century York, Pennsylvania, as the Civil War approached. He owned a large mercantile establishment on York's Center Square, providing a comfortable living for his family. He parlayed his growing wealth into a good social standing in the community, and lived in a fashionable and sturdy brick house on Philadelphia Street. His business interests included a private railroad freight company that hauled his merchandise and other goods from York across the Susquehanna River into Lancaster County and beyond.
Among his most valuable cargo he transported were escaped slaves, coming up from the South via the Underground Railroad network, which thrived among the Quakers in the southern tier of Pennsylvania. Other concerned citizens, including William Goodridge, assisted the process by providing food, shelter, comfort, and transportation for the hundreds of escaped blacks that are thought to have been taken through York County in the decades before the Civil War.
What was William Goodridge's motivation?
He was a former slave, and used his money and position in York's society to help those less fortunate than himself.