boundary between the United States and the Spanish posses- sions on our southern borders. That work accomplished, Governor McKean, of Pennsylvania, in 1801, appointed him Secretary of the State Land Office, which he held until 1808. Lan- caster being at that time the State Capital, he moved to this place

maintained under the auspices os the Chicago University, and Henry Clay acknowledged that in his efforts to organize a United States bank he drew largely on Merrill's ideas. It was this Samuel Merrill to whom Thaddeus Stevens, besore he had de- termined to locate in Pennsylvania, wrote the sollowing letter

the new turnpike. That highway, the first of its kind in all the United States, was an object of much public interest and private concern, The in- spectors moved slowly and stopped over night at Hunt Downing's (now Downingtown), where they had "ex- ceedingly good accommodations;" they proceeded next

by many of them remaining residents and owners of real estate in that lo- cality ever since. Before the Phila- delphia turnpike—the oldest road of its kind in the country—was built, Jasper Yeates, one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, had large land ownings in common with the

How the Pennsylvania Railroad Came Through Lancaster. The casual purchase of a basketful of old books at a recent public sale threw into my possession three small manuscript volumes of rare local in- terest. They relate to an incident in the history of Lancaster city and os the public works of the