to anything in the shape of a beer barrel. Down with "Bier" say I, or make the streets wider. Mercury Why "Mercury" decided the inebriated souls he witnessed were victims of lager beer we will never know. In the 1853 tax assessment records for Lancaster City are enter­ ed the names of six brewers

history was the late Colonel Henry Shoemaker of Harrisburg. The historical so- ciety's librarian, the late William Worner, promptly took issue with Col. Shoemaker, setting forth the facts that Lancaster County was erected in 1729, and Lancaster town was laid out in 1730. Col. Shoemaker's reason for the

at Philadelphia which requested a new county be erected out of western Chester County. The Governor, with the concurrence of the House of Representatives, ap- pointed a Commission of twelve men to set the boundaries and run the lines. On 2 May 1729 the commissioners presented their report, and eight

many generations; indeed, Lancaster County in 1790 was one of the largest slave-holding coun- ties in Pennsylvania. Newspaper accounts during the last century indicate Lancaster's Negroes were fairly well-integrated with the white residents of the southeast quadrant of the city. Census records reveal