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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.”