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James Kences didn’t arrive in York by birth—but rather by a powerful gravitational pull toward the town’s history. The attraction was so strong that he landed on historic Lindsay Road, where he took up residence for many years. Today he is often seen on his bicycle and has become a fixture of York’s Colonial-esque landscape (and perhaps an honorary landmark himself).
Since his arrival in York, James has been at the helm of York’s historical revival. Through his monthly column in The York Weekly, his painstaking abstractions of historic documents in the Town Clerk’s office, and his work on both the Town Hall Historic Display Subcommittee and the Historic Marker Committee, James has shown the kind of dedication that would make even a colonial settler tip their tricorn hat in admiration.
But James’s curiosity doesn’t stop at the York town line. His knowledge reaches across Colonial, U.S., and world history—and then ventures further into geology, archaeology, anthropology, and theology. If it has a story, James wants to hear it, study it, and then generously share it with everyone else.
To those who know him, James is both a scholar and an inspiration—a man whose intellect can turn an ordinary chat into a masterclass on nearly any subject. Depicted on the mural, James strides from one century to the next, embodying the timeless spirit of curiosity, discovery, and the occasional historical tangent (which, with James, is always worth taking).
Submitted by Kevin Freeman