EARLY HIGHWAYS

A Brief History of Dover - Canal Rd

To the Worshipful Justices of the County of Lancaster now sitting in the Borough of Lancaster:

The Petitioners having frequent occasion to go to the town of New York (meaning the new town of York) and no roads being made amongst us, it is very difficult for your petitioners to travel, especially in the winter, for reason of the swamps and savannahs that is betwixt us and said town of York.  Therefore, we, your petitioners, humbly crave that your worships would be pleased to grant an order for laying and making a road from John Nelson’s ferry to the aforesaid town of New York.

Therefore, your petitioners pray that your worship would be pleased to take the petition into consideration, and order your petitioners what you shall think proper, and your petitioners as in duty bound, shall pray.

May Sessions, 1749

Daniel Laverty                                                  John Nelson

Paul Martin                                                       Alex. Nelson

John Campbell                                                  Morton McHaffey

Edward Mahon                                                Finley Gray

Manasa Lamb                                                  James McCartley

Thomas Carson                                                Benjamin Saylor

John Carson                                                     Daniel Johnston

William Buchannan                                           Thomas Johnston

Charles Cadwell                                               James Anderson

Hugh Ross                                                        William Anderson

Matthew Long                                                  George Baughman

The names of these petitioners are all of English or Scotch-Iris origin, except the last, which is, doubtless, German.  They were some of the earliest settlers, having only been living there a few years.  The petition asks for a road from Nelson’, later McCall’s, ferry to York.  Action was taken by the court during the May sessions of 1749, and Charles Caldwell, John Campbell, Robert Smart, William Buchannan, Robert Morton, and Nathaniel Morgan appointed to view and lay out the road.  Their report was made and confirmed at the next session of the Lancaster Court.  Its courses and distances nearly correspond to the present Peach Bottom public road.

The honorable petition of the people, the inhabitants on the branches of the Bermudian, in Monaghan Township.

To the Honorable, the Court at Lancaster, now sitting, we, your humble petitioners, take leave to inform you of our great disadvantage we labor under, for want of a road being made or opened from our settlement to Yorktown, it being our highest and best way to Lancaster and Philadelphia, our placers of market, and likewise our court.  We humbly petition your court, that you would grant us an order from your court to open said road Sufficient for wagons to travel between Archibald McAllister’s mill to York, and that you would appoint such men as you see best as prospectors and overseers of said road.  We, remembering the favors granted to us by your honors, already, comfort ourselves in the hope of your granting in this favor, as we, as in duty bound, shall every pray.

April 7, Anno Domino, 1749

John Griest                                           Matthew Dill

Andrew Miller                                      Tho. Dill

Henry Wilson                                       William Underwood

Charles Coulson                                   John Hendricks

Thomas Petit                                        John Lease

Caleb Hendricks                                   Matthew Mellon

John Jesper                                          Edward Robbards

James Hendricks                                  Richard Cox

John Powell                                          Alexander Underwood

James Petit                                           Jacob Beals

Edward How                                        William Beals

Joseph Dennis                                      Samuel Cox

John Douglass                                      Abraham Nesbitt

John Brandon

Under York County Courts.

This petition being made the same year that York County was formed, the Lancaster Court deferred the matter, whereupon a similar petition, which was the first presented to the York Court upon its organization after the erection of the county, was granted, and the road ordered to be opened from “McAllister’s mill on the Bermudian Creek to the town of York.”  The viewers were John Beadles, William Cox, John Grist, Abraham Leer, John Lease and James Petit.  This route is the one at present know as the “Shippensburg road.”  McAllister’s mill was in the present area of Adams County.  The names were all signed in well written English. 

History of York County, Pennsylvania

Prowell     Vol 1  1907