Save Hoke House , and stop Rutters from expanding! They want to tear down a historic home to expand their gas station and add a car wash! Don't let them destroy our small town and this beautiful historic home

 

"This evening I have learned of some discouraging news, Rutter's has filed for a permit to tear down a piece of Spring Grove history! Today its know as the "Hoke House" But 280 years ago it was one of the earliest businesses on the frontier, a Tavern along the Monocacy Trail and the 1st licensed business In what would become Spring Grove Pennsylvania . The tavern had a license 5 years before the Bloomary and Forge was started in 1755. Unfortunately the progress that it birthed here in our town has now surrounded it and destroyed all of its Farmland and outbuildings and now it too will soon belong to the ages.

 

 

 

  Now I am not making this post to bash Rutters. Rutters has every right as they own the property and have given ample time to find a renter for the building. They are a business and a business only works when it's making money. It makes me ill to the stomach to even think of this Ancient building that our town was built around may soon be gone, And that future generations will not see it, And may not learn from it, And to replace it with a modern gas station is not in my mind a great thing. I do believe we need gas stations and car washes, But to lose a treasure like this and replace it with that, is sickening! But at the end of the day if there is not money to save it, Or a will to do so, Then we shall have no choice but to watch progress overtake this old house. 

 

 

 

 Its story starts in the mid 1740's when the first half of the house was raised and by 1750 Thomas Wilson, an Irish immigrant , applied for tavern license. It would remain a Tavern until around 1806. This beautiful 18th century stone House was built along the Monocacy trail or the Great Valley Road as it was known. One of the earliest branches off of the king's highway, the 1st major roadway system in the colonies.

 

  We can only imagine the conastoga wagons that traveled past this great house in those days, the Iron Ore and Bloomary discussion over a pint Or perhaps the arguments of Revolution , the fall of New York and Philadelphia that surely would have been discussed in the tavern setting. In the 1770's thousands of hashin and British prisoners of war were marched past this place, also in May of 1781 when General "Mad" Anthony Wayne and a 1,000 troops with several battery of cannon would pass by after leaving York, headed for Yorktown Virginia, These forces would help surround Cornwallis and bring victory in the Revolution! Wayne would pass by again in 1792.

 

  George Washington would have passed by the tavern at least 4 times in his lifetime, Did he stop? Well that is a question I have never been able to answer, but on July 2, 1791 he was in Menges Mills and Nashville , And it is thought that he was met by the York deligation that day at the tavern , So it is hard to imagine that they would have not been stopped at the tavern for a drink or to switch horses .

 

 From the closing of the Tavern in 1806 The property would become a large working Pennsylvania German farm. In 1846 John and Elizabeth (Maus) Wiest had their 4th child, his name would be John Wiest . John would become very influential in the community becoming a Physician and Surgeon, he also would become a member of the state legislature, along with many other achievements presented a bill that would be passed appropriating $9,000 for the funding and beginning of what we know today as York Hospital! He ran a doctor's office in the Nashville area.

 

 

 

 War would come again to this old House when on the night of June 27, 1863 Confederate Lt.Col. Elijah White and the 35th battalion of Virginia Calvary would make camp on the Wiest farm using the house as headquarters the night before the Confederates would take York.

 

 From that point on the old farm would have a relatively quiet history it changed hands into the Sprenkle family in 1890 And then again into the Hoke family in 1904.

 

  In 1966 The property was sold to the Spring Forge Development Co. and so began the downfall of the farm and the progress of the town. Housing lots were sold off and the Spring Grove shopping center would soon be raised.

 

  The house itself would become the Spring Grove free public library building from 1967 to 1992. In 1987 The great barn was dismantled and repurposed on an Amish farm in Hinkletown Lancaster Co., a bank would be raised in its place. 

 

  In 2008 the property is Sold to Rutters and in Jan. of 2015 the outbuildings around the old house are demolished by Rutters Including the ancient summer kitchen which was built of log construction.

 

  When this great house was built It was on the frontier in a British colony, It was approximately 30 years old when we declared independence from Great Britain, It saw the great conastoga wagon trains and today Hundreds of tractor trailers passed by everyday moving the country's goods. It has seen some of the greatest and most progressive times in world history, And now progress threatens it's very existence. 

 

  Will this be the end of the story,? It is sad to know the oldest house in town , soon may meet its demise.

 

 - Shawn D Carbaugh"

 

 

 

"The Hoke House in Spring Grove, which I know is more than 250 years old (built in 1750 or thereabouts) and the oldest remaining building in or near Spring Grove. It is one of the oldest structures still standing in York County.

 

 

 

That alone would be enough for me to support its preservation for historic purposes.

 

 

 

Add to that, however, the fact the house served as a tavern stop on the Monocacy Trail between Wrightsville and Frederick, Md., in the mid-1700s.

 

 

 

Consider, too, that this country's first president, George Washington, is said to have met with a York delegation there in July 1791.

 

 

 

And, almost 150 years ago, on June 27, 1863, the 35th Battalion of Virginia Cavalry, known as White's Comanches and led by Confederate Col. Elijah V. White, camped on the Hoke farm just days before the Battle of Gettysburg. The 35th was part of the Rebel invasion of Wrightsville and was one of the first Confederate units to arrive on the Gettysburg Battlefield several days later.

 

 

 

In my mind, all of that constitutes historical significance.

 

 

 

There is a difference between something being old and something being old and historically important.

 

 

 

The Hoke House is historically important to Spring Grove, to all of York County.

 

 

 

It's worth saving.

 

 

 

And I hope it can be done.

 

 

 

Since you asked, that's where I draw the line.

 

 

 

Columns by Larry A. Hicks, Dispatch columnist, run Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. E-mail: lhicks@yorkdispatch.com. ~The York Dispatch"