The "Lancaster Unearthed: Attempting To Visualize The Underground Railroad" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Just got back from the Marriott Hotel in downtown Lancaster.  A few years ago Lancaster's Watt & Shand Department Store, that was designed by C. Emlen Urban and built in 1898, closed in 1995 and was eventually demolished except for the historic facade.  In 1999 plans for a new hotel and convention center were unveiled.  In 2006 the site was cleared and construction began on a new Marriott Hotel.  It reopened as the Marriott Hotel in 2009.  To the rear of the hotel was constructed the Lancaster Convention Center and during the construction of the center, a special part of Lancaster's history was exposed.  

To the the right of the Convention Center stood this
double house, 45-47 South Queen Street,  which
was owned by Lancastrian Thadeus Stevens.
Click on images to enlarge them.

Sitting to the south of the convention center in the first block of South Queen Street were a few historic houses with one belonging to Thadeus Stevens.  He moved to Lancaster and acquired a home at 45-47 South Queen Street.  Mr. Stevens was a member of the United States House of Representatives and one of the leaders of the Republican Party doing the 1860's. He was a fierce opponent of slavery and discrimination against African-Americans and sought to secure their rights during Reconstruction, in opposition to U.S. President Andrew Johnson.  

During the Civil War he played a leading role, focusing his attention on defeating the Confederacy, financing the war with new taxes and borrowing, crushing the power of slave owners, ending slavery and securing equal rights for the Freedmen.  

The property as it looks today in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

On March 28, 1864 he introduced in the House the 13th Admend- ment to the Consti- tution which would abolish slavery.  Stevens employed a young woman by the name of Lydia Hamilton Smith to care for his residence in downtown Lancaster. Her mother was an African American and her father an Irishman.  She moved into the residence at 45-47 South Queen Street with her two young sons.

Information about the double home.

It was thought that Thadeus and Lydia were part of the Underground Railroad which supplied a safe place for escaping slaves to stay after crossing into Pennsylvania from the South.  When the convention center was being built, they found an underground area that would have been connected to the basement of the house at 45-47 South Queen Street; or the home of Thadeus Stevens. The Convention Center is trying their best to preserve this special part of our country's history and at present has begun to excavate parts of it.  I was able to take a few photographs, but nothing that was very good due to not being able to access the site.  

Photograph taken from the lower level of the Convention
Center.  The old building is allegedly the underground
cistern of 45-47 S. Queen. Part of the Underground Railroad.

For safety reasons I was not allowed to get any closer than anyone else.  But, standing above this historical site was amazing.  Just thinking of what must have happened in that enclosure in the mid-1800s was mind-boggling.  To stand this close to history and hear voices in my head and see visions in my brain of slaves encamped in this underground place to escape capture and perhaps death was thrilling.  This cistern, as it is called, will hopefully be preserved for a lifetime and beyond for it is part on local history as well as the history of our United States.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

A shelf hold glass remnants that came from the excavation.  Were they used by runaway slaves?

Another view of the excavation.

Another view of the 45-47 South Queen property.  This
view is looking North from the corner with the Convention
Center in the background.

The door at 47 South Queen.  Not only did Thadeus Stevens and  Lydia
Hamilton Smith use this door, but perhaps many slaves heading north to
escape slavery in Southern States.