and hardship under the Swiss Government and gave a long list of brutalities (do.). And this was the condition when the emigration to the Pequea in our own county began in 1710. Through these centuries the non-re- sistant Protestant Christians lived their miserable lives in Switzerland and Central

Assessment Lists and Other Doc- uments of Lancaster County Prior to the Year 1729. About the only original Lancaster county manuscript documents, now known, dating before 1729 are: A cer- tified copy of the petition for the erec- tion of our county, signed in 1728; the letters, drafts, surveys and

county, met all needs as they saw it; especially as assessment and taxation were only nominal here un- der that regime. It mattered little to them that there was very poor pro- tection here, so long as demands of governmental support were light. The less government, the better. Lais- sez faire was their

drowned. In an advertisement dated September 2, 1736, concerning a runaway ser- vant owned by Thomas Edwards, our second chief judge of the county, the kind of clothes worn in this locality is shown. It is stated that the lad, who was about twenty-one years of age, had on a homespun linen shirt and

Early Items of Lancaster County History A great deal of interest naturally attaches to the primitive affairs in our county and that is at present very rare—that is, because items have al- ready been written up. It is only by gathering up certain items that we can eventually expect to put together

out the entrails of the wolf." Surely there were Amazons in those early Cones- toga days! �A picture of the dangers and hard- ships of our forefathers here at home is given in the following item_ from the Gazette of May 11, 1731: "We hear from the county of Lan- caster that on the 10th of February

the hand. 1753. The issue of May 17, 1753, contains an account of the burning of several houses in and near Lancaster growing out of the dangerous practice of burn- ing off the woods in order to clear the land. The fire frequently spread and became unmanageable. Houses in Berks County were also so

planned, extending from the mouth of the Conestoga fifteen or twenty miles up the river and back eastward into the country; and throughout England he advertised the project and attempted to sell lots there. In ]701 he had executed a carefully de- tailed plan for the government of this town and county, and