Did you know one of Lancaster County’s most heated political disputes may have been defused by…red peppers on a stove?
In Seeing Lancaster County from a Trolley Window, Howard Kriebel recounts a wonderfully strange episode from Elizabethtown in 1843, when the fight over adopting the public school system turned chaotic. The town supported public schools. The surrounding township did not. After a three-foot snowfall disrupted the election, angry voters packed into a small office the next day, tempers rose, and it looked as though the whole thing might erupt into violence.
Then came the unexpected twist. Someone placed red peppers on the hot stove.
What followed was a room full of hacking, sneezing, coughing, and a rush for the door into the freezing air. The tension broke, the room cooled, the crowd settled, and the school vote was preserved.
It is exactly the kind of delightfully odd local story that makes Seeing Lancaster County from a Trolley Window such a fun read. Now available on Amazon.
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