The River and the Ridge: 300 Years of Local History: Peach Bottom Township and Delta, Pennsylvania, Cardiff and Whiteford, Maryland [VINTAGE 2003] [SIGNED FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING]

Fine unread condition red linen boards with gold front cover and spine lettering contained in a very good condition non price-clipped photographic dust jacket. Includes List of Sponsors and Patrons; Foreword b y David B. Glenn, D.D.S.; Acknowledgments; The Most Important Events; Most Memorable People; Appendix A: "Wall of Honor"; Appendix B: Timeline; Bibliography and Index. Profusely illustrated with black-and-white photographs, maps, full page color plates and color illustrated front and rear endpaper maps. SSome small (1 inch or less) repaired closed tears at upper front jacket edge. All pages are in fine unmarked condition. Signed by the co-author, Roger B. Wilson, Ed.D., with black pen on the full title page. "Take a walk with us. Many houses in the Delta, Peach Bottom Township, Cardiff, and Whiteford area have both a slate roof and a slate foundation. The story of this slate is also the foundation of our history. A twelve-mile ridge of slate is our dominant landform. The discovery of roofing slate in 1734 is the beginning of a unique history. A little more than one hundred years later, in the 1840s, many people born in Wales traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to live here because of our slate. The Welsh cracked the stone in one direction and split it in the other to make roofs that seem to last forever. Our hard, beautiful slate is just part of the story. The Susquehanna River is a mile-wide, physical barrier forming our eastern boundary. Much of our history is connected to "the river." Delta Borough and Peach Bottom Township are in York County, Pennsylvania, with Muddy Creek forming the northern boundary of the township. The villages of Cardiff and Whiteford are in Harford County, Maryland. These two villages, one borough, and one township are the focus of this book. Starting where northern Maryland meets southern Pennsylvania at the Susquehanna River, the area extends about nine miles west, and three to five miles north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and about one mile south of that line. We have farmland, forests, river hills, soapstone, slate, serpentine, and Wissahickon shist. Upon this land we built farms, roads, houses, schools, factories, and memories. We have plowed many an acre and dug hundreds of feet deep for rocky treasures. We have treasured stories too. We have family stories, farm stories, school stories, dam stories, quarry stories, electrifying stories, and atomic energy stories. Many of these stories abut about how things change. Givien enough time everything changes. Shale can change to slate. The change into stone takes millions of years but eventually will have human consequences. Other changes depend on inventors who design new technology, bringing changeds to how we live. Europeans arrived here in ocean-crossing ships with clocks, books, and iron weapons. They found a people with canoes and tools of stone. The natives were changed forever and so was our region. Looking back at the important changes that affected us, it went like this: a slate ridge formed; the first people cane into the region; these people learned how to farm; Europeans came across an ocean; farms, villages, towns, cities, and the colonies were organized, and a dispute was settled with the Mason-Dixon line. And, in our area, many Scots-Irish came; slate was discovered; the first church was built, the first school, the first real road, and a stagecoach; later came the canal along the river; the slate industry; the railroad, and paved rads. Terrible, destructive wars came and went; the Great Depression; the slate industry declined; and a nuclear power plant was built. Telegraph, radio, and television spread across the entire nation, followed by cable TV, computers, and the Internet. This book is about the changes that chaped our region and created our history. Come take a book walk with us. - Roger B., Wilson, July 2003. " - excerpt from the inner front and rear jacket flaps.…