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

farm and forge to Peter Zimmerman, and thus, after an uninterrupted prosper- ity for three-fourths of a century, the finest estate in Lancaster county passed from the hands of the Jacobs family for all time. The old-time garden, the terraced lawn, the great pine trees, all have been obliterated. Ten

. Thomas Burrowes, the clockmaker, was born in County Cavan, Ireland, and, coming to this country, landed first in Delaware, in 1784, and came thence to Lancaster county in 1787. He had been educated for the Episcopal ministry in Ireland, but never entered the ministry. His- tory states that he settled at

Peace for said County Came Adam Sholly of Lancaster County Joyner, and made Oath upon the holy Evangelists of Almighty God—that on the 15th day of Septr last past this deponant was ordered by John Philip de Haas Esqr to assist in conveying a certain Laz- erus Stuart to Reading Gaol, which orders this

James Hamilton laid out the townstead of Lancaster, and when, on the formation of the county, it was fixed upon as the county town, necessity, of course, arose for more direct communication between the provincial capital and the new town. A movement was, there- fore, started with a view of securing a

present Bryn Mawr station of the Pennsylvania Railroad. John Downing became a tavern keeper about 1760; but after several years he quit that business, and was succeeded by Richard Cheyney. He kept tavern at the "Sign of the King in Arms." The Revolutionary Committee for Chester �county met at this place