Peacock Hall and the Continental Congress
The farm added to Springdale in 1863 had been the summer place of James Smith, York's signer of the Declaration of Independence. Its farmhouse was called Peacock Hall, and tradition says Smith entertained members of the Continental Congress there.
In 1863 Margaret Jane Lewis Hersh bought the 65-acre farm immediately east of Springdale, carrying the estate’s boundary to what is now Queen Street. For many years it had been known as the Johnson farm, after its owner, a prominent York physician. Dr. Johnson had acquired the land from his father-in-law, James Smith.
Smith was a York attorney and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The farm’s buildings stood near today’s intersection of Springettsbury Avenue and Arlington Road, and the farmhouse had been Smith’s summer home. It was called Peacock Hall, for two large peacocks painted on the living-room wall above the fireplace.
For nine months in 1777 and 1778, while the British occupied Philadelphia, the Continental Congress met in York. It has long been the tradition that Smith often entertained members of Congress in the rooms of Peacock Hall.
So the corner of Springettsbury and Arlington carries two stories at once: a signer’s summer house, where delegates are said to have dined beneath painted peacocks, and a farm that became part of Springdale.