I?—Lancaster Farming, Friday, January 27, 1956
Detectives at Oak Hill Turning to
Horses, Chase Thieves: Date? 1912
Here is the second of a
series of articles prepared »
for Lancaster Farming by
Charles Slentz of Quarry
ville. a look fiom years ago;
At the annual get-together of
the Detective Associations Union
at Oak Hill early in January,
1912, one very important piece of
routine business preceded ad
journment of the meeting of the
union which comprised ten com
panies. That item was “appoint
ing 14 horse-back riders, who
u ill be ready to mount their high
spirited hoises to run down
thieves ” , While there was no
publicized account of what thiev
eries were thwarted by these
ugilantes during 1911, the In
tercourse Detective Association
had a one-theft record for a 12-
month period, 19 years later.
Accordingly, this alert group,
conceded to be “one of the oldest
organizations of its kind in the
country,” virtually threatened to
go out of business when it re
viewed this inactivity at its 79th
annual report meeting, end of
1930 “Only one theft had been
reported during the year a
flock of chickens from the farm
of Benjamin Greider, near Gor
donville.” The 220 members, in
considering this unusual lull-in
pilfering, “agreed that times, in
deed. were changing ” In com
(trast, it was Said that “once up
on a time, the Intercourse De
tective Association rode almost
nightly upon the trails of horse,
chicken and livestock thieves,
with fairly good results” But
despite the fact that the “total
payout for the year (’3O) had
been $25 for Greider’s stolen
pullets the boys decided to
stick together, just in case”
. . • And so much for leaf
ing through pages touching
on protection for life and
property on farm and in
countryside.
Speaking of high spirited
faorses (and 'we were a few mo
ments ago), a local newspaper
paragraph of late Jan, 1907,
told about the makings of one
in this brief concerning “a wild
colt” The animal “owned by
Hany Roop which wtas chanced
off heie (Andrews Bridge neigh
borhood) on Thuisday night was
von by A B Simmons, Christi
ana "
The wild and spirited streaks
in horse flesh are ever a chal
lenge to riders and drivers. We
tiuly believe that "both horse
and driver in this particular piece
of news of mid-January, 1912, had
plenty of spirit, but judge for
5 ourself 'asS r ou read about this
farmers thrilling, though im
agined race “One of East Dru
more township’s prosperous farm
ers, while on his way home from
Quarryville recently, thought he
was racing down the pike It was
about dusk and it was the rat
tling-noise of the other wagon
(that he had tied on behind his
(that made it appear to him that
some one was trying to pass him
When near Unicorn the people
heard him coming like Jehu of
old, crying out ‘You can’t pass
me' Come on'. No, you did not 1 ’
He felt flat when he discovered
his mistake ”
Philadelphia to Unicorn
Another horse-rider newsflash
of January (this time. 49 years
©go) 'and the rider might well
have been U worthy mounted
candidate for any detective as
sociation, for note. “James Wat
son purchased a horse Phil
adelphia. riding it all the way
home” meaning, to Unicorn
Post-holiday week fires, in
1905. plagued both city and coun
ty In Lancaster, “flames broke
out in a frame stable at the
rear of the Hoifman House, front
ing- on West Mifflin St, and
quickly consumed the structure,
along with three horses and the
rolling stock owned by A. E.
Rudy, of the Standard Ice Cream
Co, who occupied part of the
building as a manufactory.” On
(two farms, Christmas time of the
{Same iyear, eight horses were
lost, as well as other stock, crops
and equipment. One fire result-
ed in the destruction 6i a “large
barn on the farm of Mrs Julia
M. D Lant,. halfway between the
Harrisburg Turnpike and the rail
read bridge over Little Conestoga
Creek ” In addition to two horses,
the following contents of the barn
were also burned- “20 head of
steers and cows, 20 pigs and 250
chickens, along with the year’s
yield’of corn, the year’s crop of
tobacco and all the farm equip
ment . . . They were able to
save only one horse and one
small wtegon”
The other fire leveled the
large born on the farm of Mr- I>a
vid W Jackson, one mile north
west of Bartville. This large
structure, almost new, Jioused six
horses,, one cow. 15 head of
steers, crops and farming im
plements valued at thousands of
dollars Everything was destroy
ed, the barn reduced to ashes.”
Something to Beef About
While destructive fires invari
ably give losers considerable
cause for lament, a man not too
far from the Octoraro neighbor
hood really had “something to
beef about,” just forty-four years
ago this month The m!an was
John B. Keene, of Green Tree,
and the story goes that he, “with
a few of his kind neighbors, at
tempted to butcher his beef one
the fence and made his escfape,
coming toward Green Tree There
he turned north and was lost to
The Weather Bureau’s 30-day outlook
for mid-January to mid-F-ebruary calls for
temperatures to average above seasonal
normals in the western half of the coun
try. East of the Mississippi generally be
low normal temperatures are indicated,
except for near normal in the Great Lakes
the posse on foot that were aft
er it. They returned home to
get teams to further trace it and
Tuesday afternoon- One who pro
The First Six Weeks Are The Hardest
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MILLER & BUSHONG, INC.
Manufacturers of Fine Feeds Since 1875 Rohrcrstown. Pa.
Precipitation Reports
fesses to be a crack shot missed
his mark and the beef imagined
what was on the move, scaled
on later accounts did not get
p
Phone Lancaster 2-2145
area and the Northeast.
Precipitation is expected to be subnor. |
mal in the southern half of the nation.
, Greater than normal amounts of rain and
snow are predicted for , the Northeast,
Northwest, and northern Rocky Mountain
States, with near normal elsewhere.
fresh beef for their supper. Last |
accounts were it was heading tor I
Gap, with the ownei in hot pur [
suit.” j
ends