Lancaster County: Diversity of People, Ideas and Economy

Posted by John Loose on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lancaster County: Diversity of People, Ideas and Economy When Lancaster County was established on May 10, 1729, it became the proto­type for the sixty-three counties to follow. The original three counties­Philadelphia, Bucks and Chester – were created as copies of typical English shires. The frontier conditions of Ches­ter County’s backwoods, from which Lancaster was formed, presented knot­ty problems to the civilized English­men....
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Landis Valley Museum: The Legacy of Two Brothers Lives on!

Posted by Laura Callanan on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Landis Valley Museum: The Legacy of Two Brothers Lives on! There is an undeniable simplicity, a serenity, that pervades one of Lancaster County’s most fascinating visitor attractions, Landis Valley Museum. A visit to Landis Valley Museum, actually a complex of more than two dozen buildings and structures, offers a glimpse into the lives of those who settled in Lancaster County, beginning in the early eighteenth century. An assemblage of workplaces...
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Where History and Magic Converge: The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

Posted by James Alexander on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Where History and Magic Converge: The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania Visitors traveling east of Strasburg on Route 741 in idyllic Lancaster County suddenly encounter a wondrous array of locomotives hard by the road – steam engines, diesels, even an electric. One huge locomotive rests on a massive hundred-foot long turntable. A sign announces Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, beyond which a massive building stands as a memorial, a veritable shrine, to one of...
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Grave Sites, Petroglyphs, and Relics: The Turn of the Century Archaeology of David Herr Landis

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Grave Sites, Petroglyphs, and Relics: The Turn of the Century Archaeology of David Herr Landis Thousands of years ago, travelers from northeastern Asia­ – ancestors of Native Americans – followed the animals they hunted into what had once been inaccessible regions of Alaska. Over the newly-formed land bridge at the Bering Strait they came, eventually spreading across the North American continent, including the territory that became Pennsylvania. In the Commonwealth, as...
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Pushing William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” to Its Limits: Ephrata Cloister

Posted by John Bradley on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pushing William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” to Its Limits: Ephrata Cloister On the banks of the Cocalico Creek in northern Lancaster County a group of remarkable individuals established Ephrata, one of colonial Pennsylvania’s most unusual communities. A place of intense spirituality, unconventional way of life, literary and artistic brilliance, and medieval-style architecture, Ephrata was the center of a religious society whose principles gave William Penn’s...
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Shorts

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts Opening Sunday, August 26, at Lan­caster’s Demuth Foundation is “Ben Solowey: The Modern Impulse, 1925- 1935,” which explores the Bucks County painter’s impact on the modern art movement (see “Ben Solowey: The Thing Speaks for Itself’ by Peter Frengel and David Leopold, Summer 1990). Internationally known artist Charles Demuth (1883-1935) was inspired by his...
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David McNeely Stauffer’s Little Known Legacy to Lancaster

Posted by C. Moore on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on David McNeely Stauffer’s Little Known Legacy to Lancaster “Nothing con­tributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose – a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.” A passage from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s 1818 clas­sic Frankenstein may be a most unlikely source, but these words characterize the equally unlikely life of Lancaster County native David McNeely Stauffer (1845-1913). Born in Richland...
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