GEORGE L. HEIGES 1860 - THE YEAR BEFORE THE WAR An exhaustive account of political ac- tivity in Lancaster County in 1860, the first year Countians elected a Repub- lican president, and the beginning of a tradition. One hundred years ago, with no TV or radio to report the national political

early life was spent in Lancaster. His father was proprietor of "The Fountain Inn." Aaron was born in the year 1827, and, after his remaining canvases, one landscape learned of his early life—he kept an inn of his own, called "The Cross Keys." His wife's name was Sarah Demuth. These few facts and three

Abraham Witmer' s Bridge At the period immediately succeed- ing the RevolutionaryWar, there was no bridge along the King's Highway over the Conestoga River. There was, how- ever, a public fording. A fording still exists, though now partly cover- ed over by the tracks of the Lancaster and Eastern