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Books by ROGER B. WILSON

One Room  One Teacher

From One Room Schools to the Consolidation of the South Eastern School District

ISBN 978-0-9790695-5-0 &ISBN 0-9790695-5-6

 

​This book will lead you from the beginning of public education in Pennsylvania to the formation of the South Eastern School District (SESD). The story spans more than 100 years (1834 to 1948) and includes the eight school districts that consolidated to form the SESD. Four townships and four boroughs, each being a school district, united to make one school district. The townships were Hopewell, East Hopewell, Fawn, and Peach Bottom. The boroughs were Stewartstown , Cross Roads, Fawn Grove, and Delta. Eight became one.

 

In those eight school districts there were 46 one room schools, eight two-room schools, and five schools three rooms or larger. There is also one private school in the book to make the point that all the rest were public schools. This makes a total of 60 schools in the book.

 

Too much ice cream  Not enough paint
Growing Up on a Pennsylvania Farm 1947-1958

LOC.GOV Card Catalog #99-76112

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In 1980 my older brother Donnie wrote me a letter suggesting we do something about collecting and saving our farm stories. We started a list of farm story titles and it soon grew to over 100. For years it was no more than a list, memories in capsule form. For Mom and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary on July 2, 1988, we picked fifty titles from the list of over 100 and "wrote them up."

 

In 1994 I wrote 30 more stories for a total of 80, in honor of Dad's 80th birthday. Now I have 'written up ' all the titles on the list and the total is 146. They were not written in any particular order. For the sake of organization they have now been placed in chronological order (as best as we can remember.)

 

The stories relate to events from 1947 to 1958. Those were the farm years, the period when we lived on 229 acres near Bridgeton, in York County, Pennsylvania. When we moved to the farm in 1947 Dad was 33 , Mom was 25 , Donnie a recent 8, I was soon to be 7, and Weston was l~. Mark, Joan, and Bonnie Sue were not yet born.

 

Our farm was a great place for exploring. It had buildings, meadows, fields, woods, big rocks, and several streams, including Muddy Creek. We had a large steel bridge that went over Muddy Creek. On the other side of that bridge, not quite on the farm, we had.the Ma and Pa Railroad. We had shrews, moles, mice, rats, squmels, groundhogs, opossums, muskrats, foxes, and deer; we had horses, pigs, chickens, and a cow; we had crows, buzzards, sparrows, and hawks; we had frogs, toads, snakes, insects, and fish. We had stones to skip, rocks to roll, and trees to climb.

 

The RIVER and the RIDGE
300 Years of Local History
Roger B. Wilson, Donald C. Robinson, James L. Morris & David. B. Glenn

ISBN-978-0-9790695-1-2

LOC.GOV Control Number 2003107552

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A river and a ridge have shaped our story. The river, the ridge, and our story all cross the state border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. Our story is set in southern York County, Pennsylvania and northern Harford County, Maryland. In many ways the history here is the same as any rural community in the East. For more than 300 years the same large forces have shaped most communities in the East: advances in agriculture, canals, railroads, and automobiles. Lives were changed by electric generators, electric motors, and electric lights. Formed by the Revolution, we were then shaped by the industrial revolution.

 

Everybody's story is both the same and yet unique. What makes our story unique? It's that ridge, a ridge of slate. A stone prized for roofing, and the Welsh people who came to "talk to the stone", make our story special. We have quite a slate story to tell: the earliest beginnings of digging out slate for roofing farm buildings in the 1730's, the industrialization of the process in the 1800'S, the decline in the 1930'S, and the demise of the slate industry in the 1970's. Our slate, known as Peach Bottom slate, earned a reputation of the highest quality. The slate is, we believe, the best in the world.

 

Centre Presbyterian Church History 1780 – 2000

Editors: Reverend James L. Biller and Roger B. Wilson

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Centre Presbyterian Church has a long history that dates back to at least 1780. This 321 page book has many photographs, excellent stories of early church life in the New Park area, and a 30-page detailed index that has hundreds of family names. The 6 x 9 hardback book is only $10.00 and can be purchased by calling Roger Wilson at 717-382-4993. All proceeds go directly to Centre Church.

 

Yesteryears In Southern York County Book II

 

Yesteryears is a pictorial history of Stewartstown, Pennsylvania and the  local area. Its 124 pages have over 200 photographs with detailed captions. The photos are large as this book is 8.5 x 11 inches. There are photos about agriculture, town and country life, churches and schools, sports, vehicles, children at work and play, and some called “one of a kind.” This $25.00 book may be purchased at the Stewartstown Historical Society, Fawn Grove Florist, Mason-Dixon Public Library, or Hake’s Feed and Seed (Winterstown.) All proceeds go directly to the Stewartstown Historical Society.

 

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