This flagpole stood tall as big and controversial York County events happened at its foot

Historian Scott Mingus and I recently challenged ourselves to put together a York Civil War Roundtable presentation that featured unsung wartime sites.

We highlighted county Civil War places like Horse Thief Lane in West Manheim Township, a place tireless researcher Richard Resh has identified as a refuge for farm horses when Confederates raided the county in late June 1863.

We identified the general area near Detters Mill in western York County where six men lynched a Black man, who might have been one of those raiders known for their thievery of horses. But we’ll never know because they meted out their deadly version of justice with their trigger fingers.

And we told about exploring Emig’s Grove near Manchester, a religious camp meeting site where an unknown Union soldier was buried and largely forgotten. The campground, today’s Penn Grove Retreat, relocated to southwestern York County after a fire, leaving the soldier’s gravesite behind.

But not all off-the-beaten-track Civil War sites lay in remote places.

One of the places stood in the heart of York.

This patch of ground hosted a 110-foot flagpole that stood tall in the center of Centre Square, today Continental Square, in May 1861. The pole of pine played a support role to a 35-foot American flag, a banner documented in a famous drawing by noted folk artist Lewis Miller.

It was the flag the Confederates lowered after they marched into York’s square in the summer of 1863. But the flagless pole towered above the invaders, tall and straight.

The courthouse in the square

Our story about this flagpole starts 86 years before with a tale about its predecessor on that site, York County’s original courthouse. This judicial building hosted delegates to the Continental Congress as they were constructing a new nation in late-September 1777.

As part of that build, Congress had authorized the making of red, white and blue American flags with 13 stars and 13 stripes, representing the original states, just months before coming to York.

Sixty-four restless statesmen from those 13 quarreling states, the Continental Congress, entered the courthouse doors over the next nine months.

One delegate from Virginia, perhaps above all others, lived up to the ideal of a statesman.

The year before, Richard Henry Lee called for the Declaration of Independence. Congress responded on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia.

Now in York in the fall of 1777, the Continental Congress delivered on a second call from Lee: a constitution, the Articles of Confederation.

The United States of America, that Confederation, had a constitution, in part, because of Lee’s steady influence.

“(I)n this great business … we must yield a little to each other, and not rigidly insist on having everything correspondent to the partial views of every state,” Lee wrote Connecticut’s Roger Sherman. “On such terms, we can never confederate.”

Years passed, and that old brick courthouse was pulled down in 1841, an early land-use dispute that was controversial in its day. Two market sheds, positioned east/west in the square, covered some of that 45-by-45-foot foundation. The courthouse must go, but York’s place as the county’s market center would remain in that important crossroads.

Empty space remained between those large outdoor market houses, waiting two decades to be plugged on the occasion of another major moment in York County and American history: the Civil War.

Flagpole goes up

That divisive war called for a show of unity, and a pole and flag would mark the spot in York where north met south and east met west. The flagpole went up stubbornly and with a price. A prominent York resident, Dr. John Fisher was severely injured when a support hit him in the head in its standup.

And there it was with its flag two years later when men commanded at the top by another Lee marched into town. That Virginia-born family member was Richard Henry Lee’s second cousin, Robert E. Lee. And his men under the command of Gen. Jubal Early would undo what the elder Lee had so desperately fought for: confederation.

His men pulled down that big American flag, reminding everyone that the United States was no longer united. Their action indicated that if York countians and Americans wanted a true and proper confederation, they should drop opposition to the Confederate States of America.

That pole would not be empty for long. Another American flag would be run up there after the Confederates left.

The pole survived the war and welcomed the return of parading Union veterans.

Pole stands for a season

In fact, it was standing there in late June 1887 when another raid took place at its foot. In the middle of the night, those opposed to the market sheds roped the supports of the sheds and pulled them down.

Those sheds just had to go and some in the newly minted city of York weren’t going to wait to hash out this land-use dispute in court. Courts don’t meet at night, so it was an opportune time to take action. These tottering sheds were embarrassing to a new city, and stood in the way of the movement of goods and people in York’s burgeoning industries.

The market sheds might be down, but the pole offered one last use.

The 100th anniversary of the incorporation of York as a borough was set for September and that pole offered the height and prominence to act as a kind of May pole, with ropes and banners fanning out from its top to arches constructed for the celebration.

Red, white and blue again were everywhere around the pole.

The old pine was the last pole standing, testifying to those community-shaping events that happened under and around it.

After the celebration, calls went out to take it down. It was unstable, some said, and stood in the way of the trolleys.

“Take down the flag pole in Centre Square, Mr. Mayor, before it falls and kills a score of citizens,” The Democratic Age urged. That call eerily resembled the Berlin Wall speech by President Ronald Reagan 100 years later in which he exhorted: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

Those calls echoed until April 28, 1888, when a derrick moved into Centre Square, roped the tall pole and started to lower it. Then the guy rope broke and the derrick and stubborn pole fell to the ground. Only moments before, a horse and buggy had passed under the pole.

“Now with the Square properly graded and paved with Belgian blocks or sheet ashpaltum, it will be one of the finest diamonds in Pennsylvania,” The York Gazette observed.

Empty public square

That spot has remained unbuilt ever since, unless you count the trolley tracks that crossed there, but their termination came after trolley service ended in 1939 and they were pulled up.

This is York’s loss.

As you travel west from York, traffic flows around center squares in Abbottstown, New Oxford, Gettysburg and Chambersburg, giving those crossroads a special identity.

Today, a Christmas star hangs above Continental Square in season. Retired architect Richard Bono has called for the installation of a major water feature – a fountain - there.

A few years ago in Continental Square, county judges, their black robes blowing in the wind, painted the entrance to the 45-by-45-foot outline of the Colonial Courthouse with pavement as their canvas. That moment brought the story full circle.

So this site is unsung, but not forgotten. The story of the center of Continental Square is a story of York County. Every square inch has a story to tell.

Jim McClure is the retired editor of the York Daily Record and has authored or co-authored nine books on York County history. Reach him at jimmcclure21@outlook.com.

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: This flagpole stood tall as controversial events happened at its foot