the time, and only came to light a few years ago through the discovery of cer- tain legal documents drawn up at the time. Franklin had been doing much of the printing for the Ephrata com- munity before it procured its own press, and for the other religious sects in the State. Lancaster county was the

INTRODUCTORY. As was to be expected from a popu- lation so conglomerate as that which comprised the early and later set- tlers of Lancaster county and city, German, Scotch-Irish and Quakers, Protestants, Catholics, with a sprink- ling of Jews, and, perhaps, still other nationalities, it was a

EARLY LANCASTER TAX- ABLES--1754 r A document, entitled "The Return of the Borough of Lancaster, 1754," has just come to my hands. It has never been in print, and its contents are not recorded in any book of record in the Court House or elsewhere. It consists of five sheets of pa per, not bound

LANGDON CHEVES. Lancaster county is justly proud os the long roll of eminent men who have from time to time lived within her borders. These may naturally be divided into several groups. First, those who were born here and lived most os their lives elsewhere, like Robert Fulton, David Ramsey, the

family papers. In fact, it was with the hope of learning some new facts regarding our common ancestry that I studied it; and it was a great surprise to dis- cover that it gave considerable insight into the past history of one of the most remarkable characters in the medical profession in Lancaster—a man

man who was undoubt- edly one of the most brilliant scholars that ever lived in Lancaster. For the additional biographical material that has come to hand we are chiefly in- debted to the researches of Miss Mar- tha B. Clark and Samuel H. Ranck. The present writer in this instance lays ho claim to

prepared a full account, which has recently appeared in a prominent magazine and is also pre- served in a permanent vol- ume. There is, however, an earlier account, written by his wife in the form of letters to an intimate friend in Lancaster, and it is this which I take pleasure in presenting on the

pedigree os the Shippen samily may to found in Dr. Egle's an- nual volume of Notes and Queries, sor 1896, srom page 181 to 186, all the sacts having been carefully recorded by Judge Jasper Yeates, of this city, as they were given him by Edward Shippen, of Lancaster, on April 10, �1775, slx years before the