Seventy-Five Years of Publishing Lancaster County History by John Ward Willson Loose As the Journalof the Lancaster County Historical Society cele- brates its seventy-fifth anniversary, we are reminded it may be well to pause and to reflect on the history of that venerable publication. The

visitor was introduced to THE BOOK, the Holy Writ from the inspired hands of Saints Samuel Evans and Franklin W. Ellis, also known as the authors and �12 JOURNAL OF THE LANCASTER COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY editors of the Ellis and Evans History of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, published in 1883. It was

free from the cancer of vice and sin, the records of the Lancaster County Court state otherwise. Upright gentlemen of Lancaster could visit the towns along the Susquehanna River, but bawdyhouses were to be found scattered throughout the county. During the 1880s an effort was made in Lancaster to form a

literature available to Lancaster Countians 125 to 250 years ago. Lancaster County's antecedent was Chester County, one of Penn's original three counties. The first permanent community located in what was to become Lancaster County was settled in 1710. From 1710 until 1729 when Lancaster County was erected

affiliated with the Lutheran Ministerium of Penn- sylvania until 1953 when all (excluding the Missouri Synod churches) except Lancaster's Holy Trinity Church became members of the General Pennsylvania Synod during a realignment. Later the Lancaster church joined the CP Synod. Many of the rural congregations

, Jr., "The Geology of Lancaster County," Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pa.: Board of Commissioners for the Second Geological Survey, 1880) pp- 196-198. 2 Ibid, pp. 198-203. 3 B. L. Miller, "Lead and Zinc Ores of Pennsylvania," Pennsylvania Topo- graphical and Geological Survey