A History of the Early Fairfield Town Lots

In 1732 Charles Carroll of Maryland received a grant of 5000 acres of land in present Adams County, Pennsylvania, from the authorities of Maryland. Soon after, a survey of that land, known as “Carroll’s Tract” or “Carroll’s Delight,” was conducted. At that point in time there was still some dispute over the location of the boundary between the two states. A temporary line was agreed upon in 1739, and a more permanent line (very near that temporary boundary) was surveyed by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon during the 1760s. And even though it was established that Carroll’s Tract was in Pennsylvania, an agreement was made that Marylanders would retain their rights to the lands previously granted to them. But it is important to note that at an early date the people settling in this area knew they were in Pennsylvania. According to Charles H. Glatfelter, the most respected of local historians, “the widely held and long persisting notion that until many years later people did not know where the boundary line was and that it shifted from time to time has no basis whatsoever in fact.” [excerpt

Rural Fairfield Property Histories

Each lot history give the original lot number, original owner, the current address, the owner of the lot in 1860, a description of the lot or dwelling in 1860, a recital of ownership with as much detail as is known, a comprehensive lot history, any known residents in 1860 (may be different than lot owner), and any family notes on any residents mentioned in the lot history. The research is comprehensive, but not necessarily exhaustive. Thorough information for all lots was not always available to the researcher

Southeasterly Town Lot Histories of Fairfield, Pennsylvania

Each lot history give the original lot number, original owner, the current address, the owner of the lot in 1860, a description of the lot or dwelling in 1860, a recital of ownership with as much detail as is known, a comprehensive lot history, any known residents in 1860 (may be different than lot owner), and any family notes on any residents mentioned in the lot history. The research is comprehensive, but not necessarily exhaustive. Thorough information for all lots was not always available to the researcher

A Tour of Gettysburg\u27s Visual Battle Damage

A little-known aspect of the Battle of Gettysburg is the story behind the Civil War battle damage still present m some of the town\u27s buildings. During the first three days of July 1863, cannons fired over and into Gettysburg, and as a result some of the homes were inadvertently struck by the shells. As a battlefield guide, the author has driven by these structures everyday for the past few years, and a highlight of any tour is a stop in front of the Sheads house on Buford Avenue, where one can point up to an artillery shell embedded just to the left of its attic window. The loud Oehs and Aahs that emanate from visitors are more than ample evidence of the fascination experienced when coming face to face with battle damage caused more than 130 years earlier. It conjures up the frightening image of a family huddled in the corner of their cellar, while the cannon from both armies fire missiles of death back and forth across the town. For the Gettysburg civilians, this was the true horror of war, the constant fear that one of these shells might crash through their wall, explode in their home, and kill members of their family. It does not take a great knowledge of Civil War tactics to understand and appreciate that fear. [excerpt

Adams County in The Splendid Little War, April through August 1898

The Spanish American War lasted less than four months (April 25 to August 13, 1898). For the entire war, American casualties totaled less than 2,000 men, among them 345 killed or mortally wounded. Many more, however, died of disease (about 2000). Over the years, the war has been remembered as an event in which American interests and yellow journalism led to a conflict where the outcome was never in doubt. The nation of Spain, embroiled in internal dispute and civil unrest, was ripe for the picking and could do little to organize a defense of her colonies against a nation that was quickly becoming one of the world\u27s superpowers. Today, using hindsight, it is easy for us to view the war in this fashion, but the men involved had no such insights. In this, the centennial of the Spanish American War, it is important to take a fresh look at the struggle through the eyes of the men who witnessed the events firsthand. These men had no idea that the war would be over so quickly or that American forces would be so successful. Like the men of other wars, they did their duty and deserve to be remembered. [excerpt

Conduction in jammed systems of tetrahedra

Control of transport processes in composite microstructures is critical to the development of high performance functional materials for a variety of energy storage applications. The fundamental process of conduction and its control through the manipulation of granular composite attributes (e.g., grain shape) are the subject of this work. We show that athermally jammed packings of tetrahedra with ultra-short range order exhibit fundamentally different pathways for conduction than those in dense sphere packings. Highly resistive granular constrictions and few face-face contacts between grains result in short-range distortions from the mean temperature field. As a consequence, 'granular' or differential effective medium theory predicts the conductivity of this media within 10% at the jamming point; in contrast, strong enhancement of transport near interparticle contacts in packed-sphere composites results in conductivity divergence at the jamming onset. The results are expected to be particularly relevant to the development of nanomaterials, where nanoparticle building blocks can exhibit a variety of faceted shapes.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure