In 1879, Franklin E. Witmer (1855-1931), at age 23, was the eldest son of Aaron L. Witmer, farmer of West Lampeter Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and his wife Mary Ann (Herr) Witmer. The household also included his younger brothers Abraham (Abram), 21, and Jacob Elam (Elem), 19; two school-age girls Sarah Dunlap, 13, an apprentice servant, and Hettie Fritz, 8, a ward of Mr. and Mrs. Witmer; and for part of the year a teen-age boarder-farm hand , Thaddeus (Thad) Brackbill. In Frank's diary, each person's activity was recorded daily, almost as if he had set himself a deliberate project to do so.
Mr. Witmer's truck farm embraced fields of grain (wheat, oats and rye), several acres of tobacco, a varied fruit orchard, a large truck garden, and a greenhouse for vegetables and flowering plants, a small herd of dairy cattle, some hogs and chickens; enough variety to make year-round weekly visits to market in Lancaster. During the year the family moved into a new house, raised a new barn, stables, hog-pen and chicken-house, and rented the old house and barn to a tenant farmer, Jacob Dieter.
The Witmers were Mennonites, regularly attending church in Lampeter Twp. and Strasburg, and occasionally in New Providence and Lancaster. Sarah and Hettie and briefly Elam, attended the Lampeter School. Their chief source of entertainment seems to have been visiting among their extended Witmer and Herr families and neighbors, although Abram and Elam sometimes attended "singing school" and the Lampeter Lyceum and did some "driving about" of an evening. Only Abram seems to have had a special girlfriend.
Although all the men of the family did everything in the way of farm chores, each of the boys also had a specialty. Frank, the oldest, had his own corn and tobacco patches to tend and market, Abram tended to concentrate on the greenhouse and truck-garden, and Elam helped his father provide veterinary services to other farmers in the area.
Frank Witmer married Mary Ann Herr on November 30, 1881; he continued general farming in West Lampeter Township, died there on December 10, 1931, and was buried in the Mennonite cemetery in nearby Willow Street, Pennsylvania.
This history was prepared by Dr. David H. Wallace.
"Pastor Croll was an accomplished historian and obviously made use of the best available sources for his text...he discovered, in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania,...the first history of Oley, the lengthy manuscript entitled 'Fragment of the past history of Oley', by Dr. Peter G. Bertolet...This was based largely on interviews with Oley Valley residents, many of whom were born in the 18th century....After several competent historical chapters on the settlement and early religious patterns and conflicts in the Valley, Pastor Croll concentrates on some of the major families of Oley." [forward]
The Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County 2010 tour.
Insert 1: C. Emlen Urban buildings : Chronological Record ; Insert 2 : Lancaster city architecture by C. Emlen Urban.
Includes local advertisements.
Summary
Book provides reader with a short biography of Urban. A brief description of the red brick architectural appearance of Lancaster up to 1880s. Urban's designs changed the colonial appearance of Lancaster because he had access to modern technology: structural steel, cast iron, plate glass which allowed him to design taller buildings with larger windows. Book identifies as Urban's designs: one market; one municipal building; two churches; three schools; four mansions (including Urban's home on Buchanan Ave). Each structure is identified with a description, location and year built; picture of structure; brief biography of person for whom building was named. One page provides the reader with architectural terms.Good reference book.
"Presents information on the people and areas of Lebanon affected by the Bridge over Norfolk Southern project. It provides a glimpse of the history of some families who lived in the bridge area; it also provides information on some businesses that were located on the sites where the new bridges will be constructed."--Page ii.
"John Piersol McCaskey (1837-1935) was a beloved Lancaster, PA, public school teacher and principal, editor of The Pennsylvania School Journal, mayor of Lancaster, publisher, journalist, and compiler of some of America's first songbooks and textbooks. This biography provides a glimpse into the beginnings of Pennsylvania's public schools, with McCaskey as a pupil, and then the system's evolution, with McCaskey influencing its curriculum and goals. Lancaster's history is interwoven in the text, particularly the Civil War years and McCaskey's mayoral years. A man of integrity who expected the same from his students, McCaskey held family and his Christian faith above all else." [from the publisher]