historical treatment of the Black community:4 African Methodist Episcopal Church. — On June 10, 1817, about fifty per- sons of color assembled at the house of James Clendening, and expressed a desire that the Rev. Daniel Coker and the other circuit preachers of the Methodist denomination should visit the

the ordinance as follows:2 An Ordinance Prescribing Regulations concerning free Persons of Color BE it ordained and enacted, by the Citizens of Lancaster, in Select and Common Councils assembled, That, from and after the 1st day of June next, every free Person of Color, who shall then be within the

met with the stated purpose of im- proving the condition of free persons of color in the United States, purchasing lands, and establishing a settlement in Upper Canada." This reversal in policy was well motivated. The colonization movement had not always used persuasion to obtain its colonists. The

case in Lancaster. The most that can be said with certainty is that when the �Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Strawberry Street burned in 1879, it was rebuilt at a cost of $2,300. 46 This is a very modest figure even for 1879; and furthermore, it is highly probable that in the wake of the

the committed, convict description blotters, lists of descriptions of clothing and wealth of prisoners, letter books, and pamphlets on public hangings. Quarter Sessions Court (Criminal court) records, when used carefully, yield important information on black community life. The original indictment

, each of the three kinds of municipality men- tioned here (borough, cities, and townships) derived certain powers from the Commonwealth. Townships have a quasi-corporate status, and generally are created by the county quarter sessions courts following petition of inhabitants involved. Rural in its

Antebellum Era in Pennsylvania was a period of crisis for persons of color. In his pioneer study of African-American communities in Southeastern Pennsylvania between 1780-1860 Carl Oblinger characterizes economic life in rural Pennsylvania in the following terms:' By mid-century, the new, and depressing

of color" in 1817, and in the 1850's assumed a leadership position among Lancaster City's Black popula- tion. Incorporated in 1848 as the "African Methodist Episcopal Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania" Bethel soon housed a "Free African School" and served as a meetingplace for a literary society

Mennonite Church Office of Stevens Greenland: 516 S. Duke Street #176 BLANK 13 Section B #177 Wm. and Marie Carr deded in 10/6/65 date of deed 6/4/59 (receipt fro $10 from Mr. Roy Carter for opening Mrs. Marie Nash) William Butcher died 3/22/86 in Lancaster, PA . Burial in Wm. & Marie Carr's lot Saturday

- ferred, was Salisbury township, Lancaster county, Pa. ; but the place was never positively identified, and his master remained unknown. A mysterious feature about his early life was, that when he made his advent to the vicinity of what was to be his Blue Ball home, besides using good English, with the