The Underground Railroad and Precursors to War Interpretive - York, PA
N 39° 57.755 W 076° 43.682
18S E 352411 N 4425034
This Civil War interpretive is part of a wonderful series called Pennsylvania Civil War Trails. This beautiful interpretive is located on historic Lincoln Highway, at the northwest corner of Continental Square, within the York Historic District.
Waymark Code: WM9C7Z
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 07/31/2010
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To learn more about this program and to view the other interpretives go HERE. The sign is bolted on the concrete. It is twenty-five feet from the Lincoln Highway. There are many of these signs and historic events and places featured along the Lincoln Highway. Although the events portrayed in this interpretive predate the Highway by almost fifty years, this events and all the other which occurred on this stretch of road may be part of the reason this street was part of the Lincoln Highway.
Anti-slavery activities & the Underground Railroad were among the events that helped drive the nation into Civil War, the most notable activity being the Christiana Riot. The sign reads:
Among the events in the 1850s that helped drive the nation into civil war, the Christiana Riot put a controversial new law to a bloody test. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 ordered federal officers to arrest suspected runaway slaves; it also threatened imprisonment to anyone aiding a runaway. In 1851, Edward Gorsuch, a Maryland farmer, heard that four of this escaped slaves had been seen in southern Pennsylvania. With an armed posse, Gorsuch arrived at William Parker's Christiana home, where the fugitives had been hiding. Parker, an escaped slave himself from Maryland, had passed first through York before settling in Christiana. After neighbors gathered to oppose the posse, Gorsuch was shot and killed. Federal authorities charged participants with treason, but al were acquitted. Southerners fumed over the verdict.
John Brown's 1859 raid on the Federal arsenal in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, lit the country's already short fuse. The federal force sent after Brown included York resident Lieutenant Michael P. Small. AMong Brown's raiders was Osborne Perry Anderson who escaped Chambersburg on foot. From there he turned to the Underground Railroad for safety. A local conductor, freedman WIlliam C. Goodridge, hid him in York. Anderson eventually escaped to Canada.
Address:
Continental Street, Northwest Quadrant
YORK, PA, 17315