AREA HISTORY: McCall’s Ferry, Lower Chanceford Township, York County, PA
Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis
Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
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History of York County, Pennsylvania. John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
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McCall’s Ferry – Page 744
Early in our colonial history, this ferry was a prominent crossing place. Many of
the first settlers came over the Susquehanna here, and later, as described in the
chapter on “Early Roads” in this book, it was on the line of a leading highway from
Philadelphia to the south and west. The shad fishing interest was very extensive at
one time. William Kirkpatrick & Co., May 20, 1820, purchased a tannery and currying
establishment near the river, which did a large business for many years. There is
now a hamlet, with two stores and a hotel. The ferry is owned by Elias Fry.
Richard Porter, on the 4th of March, 1816, advertised at private sale his “noted
stand, in Lower Chanceford, on the great road leading from Philadelphia to the
Western country, via McCall’s bridge, about four miles from said bridge, seventy
miles from Philadelphia and forty miles from Baltimore. The tract of land contains
160 acres, on which is a valuable store and tavern which has been in use twenty
years.”
An act of the legislature approved April 2, 1811, appropriated money to, companies
thereafter to be formed, to build bridges across the Susquehanna at Harrisburg,
Northumberland and McCall’s Ferry. A company was formed and the bridge was built
here, between the beginning of the year 1815 and the close of the year 1816. In the
fall of the last-named year, Thaddeus Stevens, then a young man on his way from Bel
Air to Lancaster, narrowly escaped drowning by his horse taking fright while
crossing the bridge, “the superstructure of which was not quite finished.” A flood,
during the following year, took away the bridge and it was never rebuilt. The
bridge property was sold by the sheriff in November, 1819.