The Conewago Mountains or Conewago Hills are a low range of mountain

Mountain

Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...

s in northern York County, Pennsylvania

York County, Pennsylvania

York County is a county in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. As of 2010, the population was 434,972. It is in the Susquehanna Valley, a large fertile agricultural region in South Central Pennsylvania....

. They run northeasterly across the county. They form the backdrop to Gifford Pinchot State Park

Gifford Pinchot State Park

Gifford Pinchot State Park is a Pennsylvania state park in Warrington Township, York County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The park contains wooded hillsides, reverting farm fields, and Pinchot Lake. It is near York and Harrisburg in the south-central part of the state.The park is named...

 and parallel Conewago Creek

Conewago Creek (west)

Conewago Creek is an tributary of the Susquehanna River in Adams and York counties in Pennsylvania in the United States, with its watershed also draining a small portion of Carroll County, Maryland. The source is at an elevation of , east of Caledonia State Park, in Franklin Township in Adams County...

.

The Conewago Mountains played a role in the early colonization and settling of the region, with settlers north of the mountains being predominantly Scotch-Irish and those south of the range being mostly Germans

Pennsylvania Dutch

Pennsylvania Dutch refers to immigrants and their descendants from southwestern Germany and Switzerland who settled in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries...

 from the Palatinate region. The mountains provided a source of timber and firewood, and small iron foundries dotted the valley below to smelt iron ore taken from the Conewagos. During the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, Confederate

Confederate States Army

The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...

 cavalry under J.E.B. Stuart

J.E.B. Stuart

James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart was a U.S. Army officer from Virginia and a Confederate States Army general during the American Civil War. He was known to his friends as "Jeb", from the initials of his given names. Stuart was a cavalry commander known for his mastery of reconnaissance and the use...

 crossed over the mountains at the hamlet of Mount Royal in Dover Township en route from the Battle of Hanover

Battle of Hanover

The Battle of Hanover took place on June 30, 1863, in Hanover in southwestern York County, Pennsylvania, as part of the Gettysburg Campaign of the American Civil War....

 to Carlisle

Battle of Carlisle

The Battle of Carlisle was an American Civil War skirmish in Pennsylvania on the same day as the Battle of Gettysburg, First Day. Stuart's Confederate cavalry briefly engaged Union militia under Maj. Gen. William F. "Baldy" Smith at Carlisle and set fire to the Carlisle Barracks...

. Scores of farms in the region were raided for horses, and many farmers hid their livestock in the Conewago Mountains to secret them from the passing Confederates.

Today, the mountains offer scenic views of York County and several fine homes and studios dot the hillsides.