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===19th century=== ====Expansion, construction, and transportation==== [[File:Columbia Market House.jpg|thumb|Columbia Market House in Columbia]] English [[Anglicanism|Anglicans]], [[Scotch-Irish Americans|Scots-Irish]] [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]], [[Free people of color|freed]] [[Slavery in the United States|African slaves]], [[German people|German]] [[Lutheranism|Lutherans]], and descendants of [[French people|French]] [[Huguenots]] came to outnumber the first Quaker settlers within a generation. Columbia became an incorporated [[Borough (Pennsylvania)|borough]] in 1814, formed out of [[West Hempfield Township, Pennsylvania|Hempfield Township]]. The same year, the world's longest [[covered bridge]] was built across the Susquehanna to [[Wrightsville, Pennsylvania|Wrightsville]], facilitating traffic flow across the river and reducing the need for the ferry. The bridge was {{convert|5690|ft|m}} long and {{convert|30|ft|m}} wide, and had 54 stone [[pier]]s. After handling traffic across the Susquehanna for 18 years, it was destroyed by high water, ice, and severe weather in the winter of 1832. A replacement covered bridge, the [[Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge (Columbia, Pennsylvania)|Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge]], was built within two years. =====Public works===== In February 1826, the [[Pennsylvania General Assembly|Pennsylvania state legislature]] approved the package of legislation known as the [[Main Line of Public Works]] with the goal of connecting the width and breadth of Pennsylvania by the best and most reliable transportation known, water transport. The project started with the harder parts up the [[Juniata River]] and over the mountains being funded first. $300,000 in the funding was for the construction of a [[canal|navigation]] that would be called the [[Pennsylvania Canal]] along the Susquehanna's eastern shore to bypass [[rapids]] and shallows and make the river navigable anywhere along its route. Also, as conceived, another {{convert|82|mi|adj=on}} canal would be dug from the terminus in Columbia to connect towns to the east with a terminus on the [[Delaware River]] at [[Philadelphia]]. Across the [[Alleghenies]], another canal would connect the [[Allegheny Portage Railroad]] (crossing the mountains) to the [[Ohio River]] and the [[Mississippi River]], ensuring the Port of Philadelphia would dominate inland trade and manufacturing in the exploding trans-Appalachian territories. It was a brave, far-looking, ambitious vision. Like the [[Erie Canal]] which was completed in 1825, the very year the legislation package came to be filed, the overall scheme was envisioned when [[water transport]] was the fastest means of travel over any long distance, was the best way to ship heavy bulk goods or cumbersome loads—and was before railways came to the public eye and their technology had been refined enough to become working propositions. In 1836 there were probably fewer than six railways in the world. The [[Canal|navigations]] began in 1832 after several delays, and the work proceeded quickly. The [[Pennsylvania Canal]] began operating in 1833, beginning in Columbia and then stretching {{convert|40|mi}} north to the junction of the [[Juniata River]] with the [[Susquehanna River]]. The intent was that goods and travelers could use the canal system to go west from Columbia to [[Pittsburgh]], [[Lake Erie]], [[Ohio]], and [present-day] [[West Virginia]] along the Juniata Division, or by taking the main Susquehanna north to reach north-central Pennsylvania and [[Upstate New York]]. The plan encountered difficulties. Engineering studies found no reasonably feasible way to provide enough water to keep an 82-mile canal to [[Philadelphia]] wet, much less support lock operations. When that was reported, the Pennsylvania Canal Commission came up with a new plan, one using the right of way authorized to build one of these newfangled railways that were making news. Their solution was the [[Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad]], one of the first common carrier commercial railways to operate in the United States. Double-tracked, it utilized two [[inclined plane]] cable railways at steep rises near either end, and except for bypasses of that older technology unneeded with more powerful locomotives, the P&CR trackage is still in use today, as it passed to the [[Pennsylvania Railroad]] in 1857, along with most of the Pennsylvania Canal. Canal boats could often be seen at the Bruner coal wharf, operated by H.F. Bruner & Sons at North Front and Bridge streets. The canal was originally planned to extend south from Columbia on the east side of the river, but local property owners objected. Instead, a two-tiered [[towpath]] was constructed along the south side of the bridge to transport boats across the river using horse and [[mule]] teams. The boats then linked with the [[Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal]] along the western shore at Wrightsville. This part of the canal system, which afforded passage to [[Baltimore]] or the [[Chesapeake and Delaware Canal]], opened in 1840. Several years later, a small dam was constructed across the river to form a pool that allowed steamboats to tow the canal boats. Canals could not be used in winter due to ice and floods, which caused damage that had to be repaired in the spring. These limitations, combined with an increase in railroad traffic, led to the decline of the canals. The Columbia Canal closed in 1901, the same year that Wright's Ferry ceased to operate. During this time, Columbia also became a stop on the [[Underground Railroad]]. [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|Slaves seeking freedom]] were transported across the Susquehanna, fed and given supplies on their way north to other states and [[Canada]]. To slave hunters from the South, the slaves seemed to simply disappear, leading one hunter to declare that there "must be an underground railroad here."<ref>Sheldon, 2006, p.53.</ref> Any idealistic view of [[abolitionism]] in Columbia is surely tested, however, by the occurrence of a significant [[race riot]] in 1834. The riot erupted in August of that year<ref>Worner, W.F. (2007). ''The Columbia Race Riots'', p. 177 https://archive.org/stream/columbiaraceriot00wornrich/columbiaraceriot00wornrich_djvu.txt</ref> when white workers revolted against working alongside Black freedmen. Citing a document drafted by the rioters themselves, historian [[David Roediger]] explains that typical of other race riots of the period, white rioters feared "a plot by employers and abolitionists to open new trades to Blacks and 'to break down the distinctive barrier between the colors that the poor whites may gradually sink into the degraded condition of the Negroes - that, like them, they may be slaves and tools'."<ref>Roediger, D. (2007). ''The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class''. London: Verso Books. p. 58</ref> The rioters' declaration called for "colored freeholders" to be "singled out for removal from the Borough".<ref>''ibid''</ref> The riot resulted in a large number of African American residents being forced from their homes and their property destroyed.<ref>Worner (2007), p. 181</ref> In 1834, another bridge was built by James Moore and John Evans at a cost of $157,300 (~${{Format price|{{Inflation|index=US-GDP|value=157300|start_year=1834}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US-GDP}}). This bridge also enjoyed the distinction of being the world's longest covered bridge. The same year, construction began on the first railway line linking Columbia and Philadelphia, which subsequently became part of the [[Pennsylvania Railroad]]. Named the [[Main Line of Public Works#Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad|Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad]], it officially opened in October 1834. By 1852, regular rail transportation from Columbia to Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg made the town the commercial center for the area halfway between the [[county seat]]s of [[Lancaster, Pennsylvania|Lancaster]] and [[York, Pennsylvania|York]]. ====Civil War==== In early 1863, as the [[American Civil War]] raged, a number of local [[African Americans|Black]] citizens enlisted in the [[54th Massachusetts Infantry]], a regiment composed of black soldiers serving under white officers. The unit achieved fame in an assault on [[Fort Wagner]] in [[South Carolina]]. [[Stephen Atkins Swails|Stephen Swails]], one of its members, may have been the first African-American officer commissioned during the Civil War. Other local citizens fought in various regiments of the [[United States Colored Troops]]. Some of these veterans are buried in a cemetery located near Fifth Street. On June 28, 1863, during the [[Gettysburg campaign]], the replacement covered bridge was burned by Columbia residents and the Pennsylvania state [[militia]] to prevent [[Confederate States Army|Confederate]] soldiers of the [[Army of Northern Virginia]] from entering Lancaster County. General [[Robert E. Lee]] had hoped to invade Harrisburg from the rear and move eastward to Lancaster and Philadelphia, and in the process destroy railroad yards and other facilities. Under General [[Jubal A. Early]]'s command and following Lee's orders, General [[John B. Gordon]] was to place Lancaster and the surrounding farming area "under contribution" for the Confederate Army's war supplies and to attack Harrisburg from the east side of the river, while another portion of Lee's army advanced from the west side. General Early was given orders to burn the [[Columbia–Wrightsville Bridge|bridge]] but hoped instead to capture it, while [[Union Army|Union]] forces under the command of Colonel [[Jacob G. Frick]] and Major [[Granville O. Haller]], hoping to save the bridge, were forced to burn it. Owners of the bridge petitioned Congress repeatedly for reimbursement well into the 1960s, but were denied payment. With the Union [[Army of the Potomac]] hastening northward into Maryland and Pennsylvania, Robert E. Lee ordered his widely scattered forces to withdraw to [[Heidlersburg, Pennsylvania|Heidlersburg]] and [[Cashtown, Pennsylvania|Cashtown]] (not far from [[Gettysburg, Pennsylvania|Gettysburg]]) to rendezvous with other contingents of the Confederate Army. The burning of the Columbia–Wrightsville Bridge thwarted one of Lee's goals for the invasion of Pennsylvania, and General Gordon later claimed the skirmish at Wrightsville reinforced the erroneous Confederate belief that the only defensive forces on hand were inefficient local militia, an attitude that carried over to the first day of the [[Battle of Gettysburg]]. ====Postwar growth==== After the wartime bridge burning, a [[tugboat]], ''Columbia'', was used to tow canal boats across the river. In 1868, yet another replacement covered bridge was built, but was destroyed by a [[hurricane]] in 1896. The next bridge, the Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge, was a steel open bridge which carried the tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a two-lane roadway for cars. It was dismantled for scrap by November 1964, but its stone piers, which supported the Civil War-era bridge, can still be seen today, running parallel to the Veterans Memorial Bridge on Route 462. The piers have become the site of present-day "Flames Across the Susquehanna" bridge-burning reenactments sponsored by Rivertownes PA USA. In 1875, a new three-story grand [[town hall]] opened, featuring a second-floor [[auditorium]] that seated over 900 and was used as an [[opera house]]. The second floor's ceiling was higher than those of the first and third floors; each level contained 60 windows. The building also included office shops, [[town council|council]] chambers, storerooms and market stalls. A {{convert|140|ft|m|adj=mid|-high}} [[bell tower]], holding the town clock, crowned the building. The clock was visible from all over the borough, and its bell was audible throughout the surrounding countryside. The building was destroyed by fire in February 1947, but was rebuilt as a one-story municipal building that exists today. [[Tram|Trolley]] service for the borough and surrounding area was established in 1893, allowing Columbians to take advantage of economic opportunities in Lancaster and other nearby towns. Between 1830 and 1900, the borough's population increased from 2,046 to 12,316. ====Flourishing industry==== By the mid-19th century, Columbia had become a busy transportation hub with its ferry, bridge, canal, railroad and wharves. It was a major shipping transfer point for [[lumber]], coal, grain, [[pig iron]], and people. Important industries of the time included warehousing, tobacco processing, [[Iron#Main industrial route|iron production]], [[clockmaking]], and [[boat building]]. Prominent local companies included the [[Ashley and Bailey Silk Mill]], the Columbia Lace Mill, and H.F. Bruner & Sons. From about 1854 to 1900, an industrial complex existed in and around Columbia, Marietta and Wrightsville that included 11 [[anthracite iron]] furnaces and related structures, as well as canal and railroad facilities servicing them. By 1887, that number had grown to 13 [[blast furnace]]s, all operating within a {{convert|3|mi|adj=on|0}} radius of Columbia. The furnaces, which produced pig iron, exemplified the technology of the day through their use of anthracite coal and [[hot blast]] for [[smelting]] iron ore, a process that dominated the iron industry before the widespread use of [[Coke (fuel)|coke]] as a fuel. Since [[northeastern Pennsylvania]] was a rich source of [[anthracite]] coal, anthracite-fired furnaces using locally available iron ores were built throughout eastern Pennsylvania, helping to make the state a leader in iron production in the latter half of the 19th century. Lancaster County also became a leader in pig iron production during this time, with the river towns' complex of furnaces contributing significantly to its output.
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