THE AMERICAN RIFLE. Upon various occasions in the pro- ceedings of the Lancaster County His- torical Society, attention has been called to the importance of the rifle in the early history of the country, and to the fact that the city of Lan- caster, and its suburban water powers, furnished a centre

. Some day the whole of his notes will be found worth publishing—even if they never attain the classic eminence of Pepys or Evelyn. For my present purposes and your edification, I refer to them only to throw some light on a subject that should be of perennial interest to the Lancaster County Historical

preacher in Mercersburg on a first day had deprecated the war with England as a judgment and calamity. Whatever glory attached to Mr. Buchanan's early career—and it was certainly an illustrious one—belongs wholly to Lancaster county. None of it, we are confident, is to be shared by the "dark and bloody

A CENTENNIAL EVENT One of the oldest families and widest connections in Eastern Lan- caster county are the Slaymakers Their ancestors bought of and settled on the famous "London lands," along the old Strasburg and Gap roads, and they have illustrated the tenacity of the Lancaster county land-owner

County Relations. Since the foregoing was written and read, I have had additional evi- dence of the continuing interest of the Ramsays of South Carolina in their Lancaster county relatives. Follow- ing is a copy of a letter written al- most fifty years ago—and yet nearly a-half-century after the one

Wilson, assisted by Joshua Scott, C. E.—who, by the way, published, "far and away," the best Lancaster county maps ever produced —originally located the Columbia and Philadelphia railroad, it ran outside os Lancaster, on the north, and a lateral railroad was to be constructed from the city, to connect

balls in Lancaster at that period are as follows: "January 21, 1780. Learned that there was a splendid Assembly last night at the Court House, Lancaster; twenty-one ladies, double quantity of men, band of music, dancing, singing, gaming, drinking, carousing, &c., &c., It is said every subscriber Is to