AREA HISTORY:  Wellsville, Warrington Township, York County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
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History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.

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WELLSVILLE – Page 668

This town was the direct result of the whip factory here and was started about 
the year 1843.  It is located on land taken up by William Ailes about 1737.  The 
land around it is quite fertile, and the village presents a neat and attractive 
appearance.  It was once visited by a destructive fire.  Mr. Harlacher is the 
village store-keeper and Dr. Garretson has recently been appointed postmaster.  
August 7, 1872, Wellsville was granted a money order office.  The population in 
1880 was 125.  The town is situated in the west end of the township on the road 
from York to Dillsburg. 

Well’s Whip Factory – This industry originated in York, in 1837, with McIntyre & 
Wells, Judge McIntyre and Abraham Wells forming the copartnership.  In 1841 the 
factory was moved to Wellsville, the home of Abraham Wells, and John E. Wells 
became a partner.  They also started a tannery.  In 1859 a branch establishment 
was started at Pittsburgh.  At this time William Riddle became a partner and the 
firm was changed to Wells, Riddle & Co.  This partnership ceased in 1865.  During 
the civil war this firm did an extensive business in making all kinds of whips 
for the general trade, and furnished the United States government with several 
large contracts of artillery whips and belts.  Sixty of the employees at 
different times during the war entered the Union army.  About this time, in the 
establishments at Wellsville and at Pittsburgh, 150 workmen were employed, and, 
on account of the scarcity of hands, boys from the House of Refuge of Western 
Pennsylvania were taken and trained to work in the whip factory.

When the business, in 1865, was discontinued at Pittsburg, the firm changed again 
to A. & J. E. Wells, and all the interests removed to Wellsville.  Abraham Wells, 
the senior member of the firm, died in 1870, and the business was then continued 
by J. E. Wells & Co., with James Gowen Wells, a son of Abraham Wells, as a 
partner.  In 1878 the Wells Whip Company was formed, under whose direction the 
present extensive business is conducted.  Twelve traveling salesmen are regularly 
employed.  The old building first used is still standing near by the new factory, 
which was erected in 1880.  A fifteen horse-power engine, and a thirty horse-
power boiler are used as a motive power to run the machinery.  The new building 
is heated by steam.  All kinds of whips now in use are made here, and a business 
of $100,000 annually is done.  About forty employes, men and women, are at 
present (1885) at work in the home factory.  The same firm, by a special contract 
with the legislature of New Jersey, have a leather whop factory in the State 
prison at Trenton, at which place about forty men are employed.  Thirty or forty 
of the employes at the home factory, at different times, have been boys from 
Girard College, Philadelphia.

The handsome, large dwelling house, of an excellent quality of native sandstone, 
was erected by Abraham Wells in the year 1868, at a cost of $12,000.  The manager 
of the factory, R. J. Belt, has recently built a cottage within a short distance 
of the factory.
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