Shippensburg

Halloween Customs

Children in Halloween Costumes

All Hallow’s Eve--the night when witches and hobgoblins supposedly walk abroad. What began in the 1860s as a night of boyish pranks evolved into a county-wide celebration of parties, parades and fun.

James E. Holliday

James Holliday was born in Clark County, Virginia around 1835. He enlisted as a private in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on August 29, 1864, into Company E of the 127th U.S.C.T. He was 37 years old at the time, according to his Company Descriptive Book, and he stood at five feet nine inches, with black hair, eyes, and complexion. He was working as a laborer.1 His obituary states that he was enslaved until his enlistment.

Indentured Servants

1775 advertisement in Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Gazette

Indentured servants were men and women who agreed to work for a master without pay for a specified number of years, usually in return for having their passages to America paid. This 1775 advertisement in Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Gazette announced that the ship Hawke had just arrived from London and was lying off the Market Street wharf with a shipment of “a few likely healthy servants” of many different trades “whose times are to be disposed of.”

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