South Central Pa. Genealogical Society

Hometown History: When Peach Bottom Welsh quarried slate to make roofs that seem to last forever
Speakers: Jamie Noerpel and Jim McClure

This program will be in-person and available on Zoom.  Registration coming soon.

In the 1840s, the Welsh came to the Delta-Peach Bottom area to quarry slate, as they had in Wales for generations. The quarries boomed for 75 years and then declined from the World War I era to World War II, but the Welsh influence remains today. When high school students from Wales visited Delta in 2023, some felt that they were in their native country. Some found their hometowns inscribed on tombstones in Slateville Presbyterian Cemetery. “The Welsh cracked the stone in one direction,” the region’s primary history book states, “and split it in the other to make roofs that seem to last forever.”

About the speakers
Jamie Noerpel –  ​After earning a B.A. from York College, Pennsylvania Jamie Noerpel taught high school history for ten years at Milton Hershey School. She now directs the York County Safety Collab, a coalition of law enforcement and the community geared toward youth crime prevention. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in American studies from PSU with a focus on history, environmental studies, and literature as well as a certification in folklore and ethnography. She co-founded a website called Witnessing York, writes a local history blog for YDR called Wandering in York County, operates a local history podcast called Hometown History, and launched Project Penny Heaven – an initiative to install a permanent monument in York’s potter’s field. As a born and raised York Countian and an academically trained historian and folklorist, she’s here to speak about Welsh from Peach Bottom.

James McClure is the retired editor of the York Daily Record/York Sunday News, after serving in leadership positions at the news organization for more than 30 years. In that time, he also served as USA Today Network’s state editor for Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, overseeing six daily newsrooms. He previously served as East Region editor for Digital First Media with oversight of 24 daily newsrooms. He is the author or co-author of 10 books on York County history, including “Never to be Forgotten” in 2024, an expanded and updated general history of York County. In 2025,  he was inducted into the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association Hall of Fame. He is a partner with Jamie Noerpel and Dominish Marie Miller in the streaming/YouTube series “Hometown History.”