When Lancaster was resettled after the attack that destroyed the Rowlandson garrison during King Philip's War in 1675-1676, resident Philip Goss built a house on the same site. It was burned by the French and Native Americans in 1704. Years later, when the field was being plowed, the doorstep and hearthstone of the Goss house were uncovered. The Rowlandson Pine was planted in 1853 to mark the spot and to commemorate the town's 200th anniversary. It is a well-loved local landmark.
This locker was never part of the Rowlandson family's Lancaster furnishings. According to one tradition, it was brought from England by Mary's parents and came into her possession after she left Lancaster. Other research indicates that the chest may have been made in Connecticut and was part of the Talcott family's possessions. In 1876, the Lancaster Town Library purchased it with money donated by Lancaster native Mary Whitney.
Pictured here in the 1890s is a group of men at the Lyman B. Sanborn Blacksmith Shop, which was located on the southwest corner of Packard Street and Harvard Road in Lancaster Center.
This was the home of Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears, D.D., who wrote the well-known Christmas carol "It Came upon a Midnight Clear." Sears was the seventh pastor of the First Church on the Lancaster Town Green, serving from 1840 to 1847. The house was originally located on the corner of Flagg and Main Streets in South Lancaster. In 1944, it was divided in two and moved to the north side of George Hill Road. The dwellings have since been used to house faculty and students form Atlantic Union College.
The Lancaster Shinola Club Band poses here on the Lancaster Town Green on the Fourth of July c. 1900. As was their custom, band members would all dress in ridiculous clothing on that day. Standing third from the right, in the front, is photographer James McDonald with his trumpet.
Reaching people through the printed word was of particular interest to the school's founder, Stephen N. Haskell. Off and on through the years, the school operated printing establishments (in various locations) using student labor. Shown here on her linotype machine is a young woman on the job at the South Lancaster Printing Company.
Although Advent believers had been meeting in homes and various other locations in South Lancaster as early as 1856, it was several years before they had a designated meetinghouse. To accommodate their growing numbers, a frame structure was built and dedicated in May 1878. Several additions have subsequently been made to the building, which stands at the corner of Sawyer Street and Narrow Lane.
This is the South Station Fire House on Main Street in South Lancaster. Through a motion made by Nathaniel Thayer III at the town meeting in 1887, it was voted to spend $3,500 for its construction. The building has been used according to its original purpose ever since. It is on the National Register of Historic Places. Hose houses constructed at about the same time in the North Village and Deershorn area have since been converted into private dwellings.
This house (no longer standing), built in the 1850s, stands on the north corner of Main Street and Narrow Lane. It was one of the homes lived in by Adventist pioneer Stephen Haskell in the 1870s. At one time, Haskell was the owner of all the land fronting Main Street between Prescott Street and Narrow Lane and extending west to Goss Lane.
Built in 1881 as a Church of the New Jerusalem, this unique Swedenborgian chapel was designed as a reproduction of an English chapel, Queen Anne style. The building's rich interior was constructed using the wood of a large black cherry tree that once stood on the grounds. In 1923, the building was purchased by members of the Current Topics Club, which as been meeting there ever since.
The parsonage of Rev. Nathaniel Thayer, D.D., is shown in this painting. Thayer, a lineal descendant of John Cotton, had a 47-year pastorate in Lancaster. After he and his wife died in the mid-19th century, Nathaniel Thayer II (the banker) had the house razed and had his Victorian villa built farther back from the road. One of the features from the property that he was careful to retain was the well sweep shown on the right.