Martic Mystery: The Murder of Barney Short
1864 map showing location of the Short farm (Listen to the audio version here ) The village of Rawlinsville in Martic Township, lies in the eastern part of Lancaster County. The rural village has been settled for so long that no one is quite sure how or when Rawlinsville came into existence; in the 1883 History of Lancaster County, by Franklin Ellis and Samuel Evans, it is written: We have been unable to obtain any authentic data as to when the village was settled, but it was probably made the site of a village very early in the history of the township. Considering that one of the earliest settlers in the township, Matthias Kreider, built a cabin on the southern bank of Pequea Creek in 1691, it's a safe guess that the history of Rawlinsville goes back a very long time indeed. But despite its long history, few events were as noteworthy as the mysterious unsolved murder of Bernard Short in 1884. A Gruesome Discovery On the Friday morning of February 1, 1884, a teacher by the ...
