Commissioners, empowered to erect Lancaster county, "shall purchase" a piece of land and erect "thereon a Court House, etc.," it appears that it was not completed for ten years later. Under date of No- vember 3, 1737, there is a record in the Commissioners' office that "The Com- missioners mett and considered

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

might possibly be required." On page 101. of the same Volume, a reprint from the Lancaster Miscellany, gives us additional facts on the origin of our town. The writer says that from examining documents, etc., that, "The first deed for lots in the town of Lan- caster, bear date 1735. We remark the names

regularly used as early as 1714, for "the peti- tion filed in Lancaster County Quar- ter Sessions Court to 'relay' it out in 1734 sets out that it has been in use for twenty years." These five terms were first Tuesday os August, 1729; first Tuesday of No- vember, 1729; February 3d, 1730; May 5th, 1730, and

Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Rhode Island were the colonies in which religious liberty was always prominent and always very effectively practiced, enjoyed and appreciated. The people who first settled Lancaster County were champions of religious freedom for 200 years before they landed here in 1710 ; and we

panic, and he was on the committee for the purpose of increasing that currency (3 V., 110). He also pushed the building of a Court House and jail for Lancaster �county, and was appointed by the Governor one of the committee to se- cure land for the same (1 A., 252). He was re-elected to the Assembly in

the history of Lancaster county, which bears his name, some of the earlier lists were in existence and likely seen by him,because on page 365, speaking of William Henry, he says that his name first appears on the as- sessment lists for Lancaster borough, in 1754, from which a fair inference arises

and proceedings begun in 1718, recorded in Volume 3 of the Co- lonial Records, page 43. Only a part of it was laid out by order of any Court. Therefore, naturally, there should be proceedings early after the birth of Lancaster county for the per- fecting of it, and we will now notice these. 1734—Under