Early Lancaster Pa photo

[DaveM]

For those interested in Lancaster Pa longrifles, this is a really great photo of the center of town taken in 1861. Many of the buildings you see are from the 18th century. It would be interesting to know if any of the early gunsmiths had shops in this area - if anyone knows where their shops were, please comment. This view is looking south on Queen Street through the main square. This is not a rifle post, so mods feel free to move if appropriate.

[JamesT]

Super!

[spgordon]

Looking through the square: so are the buildings in the center of the photograph the southeast corner of Queen Street and King Street? And Central Market, in effect, off camera to the right?

[DaveM]

Scott, yes that is my understanding. On the far left corner today would be the Marriott Hotel. I was curious if any gunsmiths lived on Queen Street in that vicinity. I assume if Jacob Dickert saw this photo, he would recognize where he was looking!

[gusd]

Melchoir Fordney,
 1822 Bought house on South Queen St.,  Sold it later after divorce.
gus

[scottmc]

The next street west of Queen is Prince.  If you go about 2 blocks north roughly, I believe that was the area of Leman's factory.

[spgordon]

Scott, yes that is my understanding. On the far left corner today would be the Marriott Hotel. I was curious if any gunsmiths lived on Queen Street in that vicinity. I assume if Jacob Dickert saw this photo, he would recognize where he was looking!

This, then, should be that same corner, photographed in 1889.

The Lancaster gunsmith John Henry, brother of William Henry, operated a gunshop two storefronts in on King Street from the square--so, in this photo, presumably where the Watt and Shand store is. The storefront right on the corner of Penn square was, people think, where Joseph Simon's store was--that is, Joseph Simon's and William Henry's store after 1760, when the two entered a hardware business together. (William Henry no longer worked as a gunsmith after 1760.) Presumably that building is the one with the harness shop.

If the photo that you posted shows that same corner, it may show the surviving eighteenth-century buildings on those spots. I don't know when the buildings in this photo below were built, but they seem to have replaced the ones in your photo.

[DaveM]

Oh wow that is really cool! The buildings certainly look very early to me. So, in my markup here, assuming that those are the early structures, I would see the second store front from the corner as being the early structure with the arrow. Then that would be where gunsmith John Henry had his shop. Do you think that is correct? The watt and shand looks to me like it would be where the third early structure sat from the corner based on guessing building widths.

[spgordon]

Hmm, not what I had thought but you may be right. There are maps of the original lots, which might resolve the/my confusion—but I’m in Boston so won’t be able to check until I’m home.

[Jdbeck]

This is too cool!

[DaveM]

Worth more research for sure. The harness shop building in the later photo looks like it replaced the two first early store fronts at the corner. But the harness shop building looks fairly early also?? When you return I would appreciate your thoughts, I will review further also.

[spgordon]

Dave, if you scroll down to p. 4 of this, you’ll find me trying to figure some of this out. But, as I say, I may have misjudged the width of the lots and so mistaken which was the site of John Henry’s gunshop:

https://www.jacobsburghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Winter-2018-45-no-1.pdf

[DaveM]

Scott, your article is a great start to working this out. The key would be to see a map of the original town lots, including the numbers, lot widths, and the original deeds of the Henry properties. This is what I did when researching Reading - the original lots were wider originally, 60-feet, in Reading then over time divided into halves, quarters. Unfortunately I don’t have any similar materials for Lancaster, but if you do we can figure out what was what.

My guess would be that in the early photo, the two adjacent structures at the corner are one original 60-foot lot in width, so both would be located on the first original town lot from the square. That assumes Lancaster’s lots were 60-feet like in Reading.

[DaveM]

According to this narrative, each original Lancaster lot had a width of just over 64-feet, slightly wider than the 60-foot lots in Reading. Lancaster was planned earlier than Reading. Deeds should describe transactions of entire lots as well as divisions of those lots (such as the sale of the “east half of lot #_”).

[DaveM]

Based on another early photo of the square, the photo shown in the OP is not the corner of the square that we thought. Although still a fantastic photo, these early structures on the far left of the square are not the buildings associated with John Henry or the Joseph Simon / William Henry store.