Moments in History: Spring Garden Township’s First Police Officer Honored
Officer John A. Peters, Spring Garden Township’s first police officer and a Spanish–American War veteran, will be honored at the Court of Valor and Safekeepers Shrine ceremony and have his name engraved on the Safekeepers Shrine.
As part of York County Regional Police Department’s 'Moments in History' series for America250, the township recalls that rising automobile traffic along the Susquehanna Trail near Violet Hill led to John Adam “Adam” Peters’ 1923 appointment as Spring Garden Township’s first police officer. Peters enforced traffic on a motorcycle, survived a severe 1924 trolley collision, showed compassion by aiding a homeless man in 1936, and died on April 26, 1937, at age 57 behind the wheel of a fire truck while serving with the Grantley Fire Department after responding to a brush fire in Violet Hill. The ceremony at Prospect Hill Cemetery will also recognize three Northern Regional Police officers who died in the line of duty, and organizers proposed a joint police-and-fire wreath-laying to honor Peters’ service to both professions.