Shrewsbury PA T-Shirt – Script Since 1834

Hand-drawn script and a simple line: Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania — Since 1834. Printed on a Bella+Canvas 3001 unisex tee, dark ink on the light colours and cream on Black, Dark Grey Heather and Navy.

The Railroad, and the Road to Freedom

Shrewsbury got its charter in 1834. What happened in the fifteen years after that charter shaped the town more than the charter itself did.

The Railroad Stopped a Mile Short

In 1838 the railroad came through southern York County — but not through Shrewsbury. The station went in about a mile west of the borough and down the hill, and a second settlement grew up around it. That settlement was called Shrewsbury Station at first. It is a separate municipality today: the borough of Railroad.

So Shrewsbury stayed a turnpike town while the trains ran past below it. The main street kept its shops and hotels, and the rail traffic built somebody else’s town a mile away.

Four Miles From the Line

Shrewsbury’s other distinction in those years came from its geography. The town sits a few miles north of the Maryland border, which made it one of the first places in a free state that people escaping slavery reached.

Off what is now Camp Road, in Shrewsbury Township, stood the home of Samuel and Mariam Berry — conductors on the Underground Railroad in the late 1840s and early 1850s. Their daughter Amanda later wrote at length about what the work cost the family and what it accomplished. The house is gone; the lane still dead-ends near I-83.

Why 1834 Anyway

The Pennsylvania General Assembly incorporated the Borough of Shrewsbury on August 9, 1834. The village itself was older — laid out along Joppa Road in 1797 — but 1834 is the year it became a town in its own right.

The Tee

Bella+Canvas 3001: 100% Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton, side-seamed, retail fit, ribbed knit collar and tapered shoulders. White, Athletic Heather, Dark Grey Heather, Black and Navy, sizes S–5XL. Printed to order in the United States.

Sources: Shrewsbury Borough – History; Scott Mingus, “Rediscovering York County’s lost Civil War/UGRR sites,” Cannonball (York Daily Record).