Pa Page 12 — SUSQUEHANNA TIMES Mr. and Mrs. Waller and their plants; the plant on the left is the newly-blooming Bird of Paradise, and the plant on the right is an orange tree. One orange is visible. Bird of paradise finally blooms after five years Five years ago this month Alberta Waller, of 20 West Elizabeth Street, Maytown, came back from a trip to Hawaii with an exotic bird of paradise plant. This plant, she found out, would not bloom until it had grown 10 or 12 leaves. Last week, with 14 leaves, the bird of paradise finally bloomed, producing one exotic and very beauti- ful flower, which does indeed resemble a bird. She took the plant to the United Church of Christ in Maytown last Sunday. Mrs. Waller collects un- usual plants—she has a rubber and an orange tree § also—as well as music boxes and plates. She and her husband, George, will soon travel to Switzerland j§ where she hopes to buy more of theses later items. The Wallers’ home is | decorated with some of the S50 plates and 45 music boxes they own. The Wallers are the parents of Mrs. Patricia resembles RE AE REE REE EE ERE EEE eam wa omew History: Bad Thomas Cresap Thomas Cresap was the toughest, meanest, orneriest man in Lancaster County. His wife was the toughest, meanest, orner- iest woman in Lancaster County. It’s hard to say which of them was worse. Mrs. Cresap may have been more dangerous. Once, when someone asked her to give some medical assistance to a man her husband had shot, she volunteered to rip the victim’s heart out with her bare hands, instead. Cresap moved to what is now York County in the early eighteenth century. At the time, Maryland claimed everything on the west bank of the Susque- hanna River. So did the Penn family. So did -some Indians. The Indians got along well with the Penns, who forbid white men to settle on the west bank. They also got along well with Cresap, an experi- enced Indian trader and born liar. He also found some support among the white people who had settled in York County, in spite of the fact that the Penns had forbidden them to do so. Most of these people were German farmers, and, al- though they were not fond of Catholic Maryland, they had no particular affection for Quaker Pennsylvania, either. Nobody else liked Cresap very much—at least, nobody who called himself a Pennsylvanian liked him. They suspected him of trying to claim York County for Lord Baltimore, and they were right. The government of Maryland thought it owned large chunks of Penn- sylvania, and was anxious to locate a few settlers here to substantiate the claim. (Maryland, in fact, claimed Philadelphia, from time to time, although nobody took that particular claim too seriously). Soon after Cresap set up a ferry service, crossing the river from what is now Washington Boro to the opposite shore, he had a very unpleasant experi- ence. He was thrown overboard by a huge slave, who happened to be owned by a Pennsylvanian. Cresap, who didn’t swim very well, clung to a rock for hours, until he was rescued by an Indian. When Cresap complained to a Pennsylvania justice of the peace, he was laughed out of the courtroom. Marylanders, the judge, in effect, said, were fair game - in Pennsylvania. That made Cresap- angry. He declared war on the entire Quaker colony. He almost won. In particular, he declared war on John Wright, the founder of Columbia, Pa.. With a gang of twenty men, women and children, armed with swords, pistols, rifles, and a drum, he invaded Wright's property and tried to steal his wheat. He did this twice. The first time, he ap- parently got away with it. The second time, Wright himself arrived on the scene. Wright was both a Quaker and a great orator. He talked Cresap’s army into going home without the wheat. Although he was a Quaker and a brave man, Wright was reluctant to fight only when he was outnumbered. He traveled up to Donegal, and enlisted the aid of the wild Scotch-Irish who lived here, to capture Cresap and bring him to Pennsylvania justice. Cresap appealed to the governor of Maryland for troops. Several battles were fought, but only one man was killed. The victim died in the following manner: a sheriff's posse of Penn- sylvanians cornered Cresap in his cabin and demanded that he surrender. Cresap refused, claimed to have twenty rifles in his cabin, and dared anyone who didn’t believe him to look between the chinks in the logs. One Pennsylvanian took Cresap up on his dare, and was shot in the foot. At this point, the posse retreated. The injured man later died of his wound. A more serious attempt to capture Cresap came later. This time, the Penn- sylvanians had a small army of deputies, and Cresap’s Maryland vol- unteers, who tended to come and go as they pleased, had all returned to Maryland for some reason. The posse set Cresap’s cabin on fire. He and his wife and his two young sons came out shooting, then tried to brain the Pennsylvanians with their empty rifles. Amazingly, no one was injured. The whole family was captured alive. (Mrs. Cresap, by one account, was more difficult to subdue than her husband, who seemed depressed by his capture. He had been hoping that the Penn- sylvanians would shoot him, and his whole family, he said. Anything was better than the disgrace of being captured). Cresap cheered up by the time he arrived in Philadephia, however. It was the fairest city in Maryland, he reportedly said. He was never brought to trial. A group of Maryland commandoes rescued him in the middle of a winter night. They tied up the jailer and his wife, stole the key to Cresap’s cell, and spirited him off to Maryland. Soon he was back in Pennsylvania, at the head of a small army. A slightly larger army of Penn- sylvanians chased him all over York County. Cresap’s army collected ‘‘rent”’ wherever it went—the soldiers smashed their way into houses and stole whatever they wanted, on the theory that southern Pennsylvania was really part of Maryland, and nobody had been paying taxes to Lord Baltimore. This made Cresap un- popular, and may have contributed to his downfall. He was re-captured. An agreement between the warring colonies was signed, and Cresap was sent back to his home colony. He stayed away from Pennsylvania after that, and became a hero of the Maryland frontier. A typical hymn of praise from a Maryland historian runs along these lines. Cresap lived in a time when soft hands, white collars, and the ethical nicities were neither fashionable nor useful.”
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers