Documents filed with the Court of Common Pleas by municipalities in Lancaster County placing liens on real estate. The overwhelming majority were filed by the City of Lancaster. The next greatest number were filed by the Borough of Columbia. Other liens were filed by the boroughs of Adamstown, Ephrata, New Holland, Quarryville, Strasburg, and Washington. The liens show docket book and page numbers, the name of property owner, and then describe the location and size of the property along with buildings and improvements, the amount of money in question, and the cause for the assessment. These documents were recorded in Municipal Lien Docket Books 2 through 5, and are arranged in the order they appear therein. This leads to an oddity in filing order, in that the last 45 liens in Book 4 fall out of chronological sequence, overlapping and extending slightly beyond the dates of the liens in Book 5. Handwritten, plus a very few typewritten.
Preferred Citation: Title or description of item, date (day, month, year), Collection, Title and Object ID, Box #, Folder #, LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Information for each lien has been recorded in an Excel Spreadsheet which is available in the Research Center and the attached PDF.
Access Conditions / Restrictions
Please request at Reference Desk or Research@LancasterHistory.org.
Copyright
Copies of historic Lancaster County, Pennsylvania government records held by LancasterHistory may be published without special permission. There is no fee for publication. Proper credit lines are encouraged in the interest of good documentation.
Credit
Courtesy of Lancaster County Archives and LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Red velvet album in very poor condition. Gift of Susan Carver Buchanan. Album is that of Ellwood Townsend and his wife, Ida Diller, who were from Smyrna, Sadsbury Township, Lancaster County. Album contains cabinet cards.
