"By following the story of my great-grandmother Isabella Ford's life, and adding to it with information from available sources, I have been able to get a better understanding of the circumstances of Lancaster's free blacks. Her story provides a sense of life in mid-nineteenth century Lancaster County and shows how free black families held their own, despite an environment that was often unfriendly and that restricted their opportunities by both law and custom."
Appendix 1 : Founding members of the High German Church ; Appendix 2 : Members of the High German Church who were arrested for distrubing the peace during the riot on January 17, 1835. Charges were brought by Carl Schaeffer and George Milligsach, elders of the High German Church ; Appendix 3 : Pastors and members of the vestry of Zion Lutheran Church during its peak years in the late nineteenth century.
"A relationship between [Thaddeus] Stevens and...[Robert Boston] is an important counter narrative. Most traditional accounts of the local Underground Railroad activity emphasize the actions of white stationmasters such as William Wright in Columbia or Daniel Gibbons in Bird-in-Hand. African-American involvement while not ignored is generally presented as being of secondary importance. Each demonstrable piece of evidence of Black involvement in effort to combat slavery strengthens arguments for a tradition of Black agency and necessitates a reassessment of the lives and experiences of African Americans in the Antebellum Era."
"On of the most memorable episodes recorded at the 1744 Treaty of Lancaster was the appearance of the venerable Madame Montour as a distinguished guest. Though the name of Madame Montour is widely known to be associated with the history of central Pennsylvania, the facts of her life have long remained few and conflicting...Our search is rendered particularly difficult because Madame Montour's own words sometimes contributed to the confusion and mythology that has grown up around her name."
