Old Lancaster, with its Conestoga wagons, its story-and-a-half buildings, its colonial architecture, its historic associations, was the largest inland town in the colonies up to the time of the formation of the nation. It had 678 houses and 4,200 inhabitants in 1786. On its streets Robert Fulton played as a boy. The original Fulton birthplace is still standing in southern Lancaster County. The oldest continuous business firm in the county was the Steinman Hardware Company established in 1744 and closing in 1964. It was the oldest hardware store in the United States. The Demuth Tobacco Shop on East King Street, established in 1770, is the oldest tobacco shop in the United States. The Hager store is the oldest department store in America continuing on the same site and operated by the Hager family throughout the whole period of its history. One of Lancaster’s daily newspapers has been in existence for over a hundred and sixty-nine years.
Old Lancaster became New Lancaster when, after a period of seventy-six years under burgess rule, the town was incorporated as a city by a charter granted in 1818. John Passmore became the first Mayor of the city.
In the hundred and forty-eight years since its formation as a city, Lancaster has been the scene of widespread activities. It has developed into a progressive modern city under the leadership of men, many of whom have exerted a nation-wide influence. Foremost among these men was President James Buchanan, who first came into prominence as a young Lancaster lawyer in 1814, through a speech he delivered at a public meeting in this city after the city of Washington had been captured by the British. He was among the first to register as a volunteer with a company of dragoons, who marched from here for the defense of Baltimore. He represented this community in Congress when he was barely 29 years of age. From here he went to St. Petersburg under an appointment of President Jackson as Minister to Russia. Upon his return, he was chosen United States Senator and filled that office for ten years, after which he became Secretary of State under President Polk and later United States Minister to England under President Pierce. At the time of his election as the 15th President of the United States, he lived in the fine old colonial mansion known as “Wheatland” built in the suburbs of Lancaster. Few persons visit Lancaster for the first time without getting a glimpse of this historic spot, which has lost none of its generous hospitality. In Woodward Hill Cemetery, South Queen Street, five blocks from Penn Square, rests the remains of James Buchanan. The recently restored gravesite includes an exact replica of the marble tomb in granite. It is now a worthy shrine for Pennsylvania’s only native President. School children throughout the State contributed to the restoration, which was sponsored by the Pilot Club.
WHEATLAND
Restored Home of President Buchanan
A National Historic Landmark
Open to Visitors Built 1828
Lancaster has many associations with the Civil War. The first bloodshed in the United States caused by the Fugitive Slave Law, occurred in Christiana, Lancaster County.
President Lincoln, on his way to the White House from Springfield, stopped at Lancaster and delivered an address from the balcony of the Caldwell House, now the site of the Hilton Inn. When he passed through this city again on April 21, 1865, Lincoln’s body rested in a heavily-draped funeral car, and the sorrowing crowds stood with uncovered heads while the train passed. But between these two events, Lancaster showed its loyalty to Lincoln and his cause by a remarkable response to the call of the Union for troops in the war of the Rebellion. Soldiers from Lancaster County were found in sixty regiments of Pennsylvania. The well-known seventy-ninth regiment commanded by Colonel Hambright was composed wholly of volunteers. Shortly before the battle of Gettysburg, when General Early reached York and the brigade was sent to hold the bridge at Columbia, and the bridge was set on fire in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Southern Army, long lines of refugees passed through Lancaster. At Gettysburg, Major General John Fulton Reynolds, worthy son of Lancaster, commanding the Pennsylvania reserves, was among the first to lay down his life on his country’s altar. His body was carried to Lancaster and lies buried in the family enclosure in the Lancaster Cemetery. Every visitor to Gettysburg knows of the handsome statue erected to the memory of General Reynolds on that immortal battlefield.
On the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, now standing in Center Square, the names of the following battlefields are carved in high relief: Gettysburg, Antietam, Malvern Hill, Vicksburg, Wilderness, Chaplin Hills, Chickamauga, Petersburg. These names are a testimony to the martial valor of Lancaster County in the Civil War.
Lancaster has furnished many notable men and women to our national life. Thaddeus Stevens, the Great Commoner, lived in this city during the greater portion of his life. He was elected by the Whig Party to Congress in 1848, and threw himself into the arena as the aggressive foe of slavery. Throughout the Civil War he was one of the most strenuous advocates of emancipation and an able counsellor of President Lincoln. After his death in 1868, a noted historian said, “In the Congress of the United States from the time of its first officer, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, to this day, there was just one man who when he occupied a seat in that body held more power than any man in the government, and that man was a citizen of Lancaster County, Thaddeus Stevens.”
Among the many other notable personages associated with Lancaster were Benjamin West, the famous painter; Lindley Murray, America’s foremost grammarian; Lloyd Mifflin, one of the finest sonneteers of modern times, and Barbara Frietchie, who was born here.