In Search of Image of Rosemire

Claysville Pa Nostalgia

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 (reprinted with permission)

In search of the image of the Rosemire
By HARRY FUNK
THE OBSERVER-REPORTER

We at the newspaper like to help people track down history.

So when Erma Thomas of Claysville asked a history-related favor, I said, "certainly."

Lois Elliott of Lititz, Lancaster County is looking for a photograph of the old Rosemire Inn, which stood along the National Pike near where McGuffey High School is located until its destruction by fire in April 1926. Her grandfather, James V. Elliott, was the last proprietor of the inn.

    She and some genealogy-minded relatives – "grandma sleuths," as they call themselves – also have a couple of queries about the Rosemire that someone might be able to answer:
   What did the building, the site of many social events in the Roaring Twenties, look like?
   And, why was it called Rosemire?

"I've been putting that question out for 30 years," said Lois, who has a vague recollection of a family by that name living in the area. But the sleuths so far have been unable to track down any solid information.

By whatever name, the Rosemire flourished until its demise, with the Elliott family correctly surmising the impact of the automobile on roadside businesses. In fact, James' son Henry – Lois' father – was ready to rebuild the inn based on that premise.

"Dad had the foresight and he was ready to grab his golden opportunity," she said. That is, until the coming of the Great Depression intervened. "He was in the right place at the right time, but the circumstances were wrong."

The Elliotts did run a restaurant, also named Rosemire, and an Esso service station along the relocated Route 40 for many years.

According to family history, the Elliotts originally settled in Washington County around the time of the Revolution. On another side of the family tree, Erma Thomas can trace her lineage back even further.

Turns out that her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents were John Alden and Priscilla Mullins Alden, the Mayflower passengers immortalized in "The Courtship of Myles Standish" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (another descendant).

Within that lengthy poem, we learn that the widowed Capt. Standish sends his aide, the much younger John, to visit teenage Priscilla with the message that "a blunt old captain, a man not of words but of actions, offers his hand and his heart." Priscilla, of course, falls for the messenger instead, and they live happily ever after – or at least happily enough to produce 10 children.

By all accounts, "The Courtship" is idealized fiction. For the record, John Alden was about 21 years old when he sailed from England and died Sept. 27,1687,

as the last surviving signer of the Mayflower Compact. About Priscilla, not much is known except that she was John's wife (such was the record keeping of that era when women were involved).
Record keeping in the 20th century was much better, of course, even if it doesn't seem to include pertinent information on Rosemire Inn. If you can help fill the gaps, please let me know and I'll put you in touch with Lois from Lititz.

Harry Funk is associate editor for the Observer-Reporter. He can be reached at hfunk@observer-reporter.com