Sep 22, 2018 at 4:15 AM
Highlights in History in the Sept. 9 Dispatch mentioned that Sept. 9 was the first time that the name “United States” was made official. Not only did I know that; but I know where that occurred. The answer: York, Pennsylvania.
When we lived in that pleasant city during the Centennial in 1976, we were told that the Continental Congress, retreating from the British, moved across the Susquehanna River to York.
The British, after conquering Philadelphia, were relaxing in that city (while Washington’s army was freezing and starving not far away) and presumably couldn’t be bothered to chase the colonists so far to the west. So the Congress met in relative safety for a year and a half.
York likes to advertise itself as “The First Capital of the United States” because it was the capital when that name was first used — instead of calling the nation something else.
A pleasant piece of trivia that I thought readers might like to know.
Michael Ellis, Hilliard