The "General Edward Hand's Name Is Tarnished Forever" Story

It wa an ordinary day.  Reading about one of my local heroes, General Edward Hand.  General Hand, a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania physician at one time, was also a farmer at Rock Ford along the Conestoga River in Lancaster County Central Park.  But, Gen. Hand also had a dark side to him.  He was a slave owner who looked on buying humans just as he did buying livestock and horses.  At one point during the Revolutionary War he wrote to his dear wife that he would not be sending a large sum of money to her since he was purchasing horses and slaves.  He saw buying horses and humans as the same.  Edward Hand was a Lancaster physician who at one time was the mayor or Lancaster.  He was also active in state government as well as farming his large plantation at Rock Ford.  Gen. Hand was known to enslave African Americans.  Some actually served as his servants, working on his family farm at Rock Ford, during the Revolutionary War. His slaves contributed to his economic well-being. His ownership of slaves was well known and was mostly swept under the carpet until a few years ago when his treatment of slaves became an issue in Lancaster County.  His name has become tarnished and was recently removed from a local Middle School in the south end of Lancaster City.  The name "plantation" was also removed from the title of his farm in southern Lancaster.  It is now known as Historic Rock Ford.  I always thought of General Edward Hand as a local  hero, but my opinion of him has changed somewhat during the past twenty or so years.  At some point local heroes that at one time were slave holders have to be held accountable and the word hero must be removed from their name.  Hero and slave-holder can't be used in the same sentence when describing someone.  Many people say that people such as General Hand didn't think that owning slaves was immoral, while others say he knew exactly what he was doing when he bought those slaves.  At what point do you have to hold a person accountable?  But, will we ever know what General Hand had in his head when he purchased his slaves he owned.  Abolitionists at the time made people aware of the immorality of slavery, but some refused to worry about it.  General Hand was one of those people.  I know...it is impossible to know what General Edward Hand was thinking when he purchased his slaves.  Perhaps he didn't recognize the insensitivity of owning another person, be he black or white.  Therefore, I feel that he must have known that what he was doing was wrong.  He had to recognize the insensitivity of owning another human being and treating him or her as his own.  It finally, after all these years, has come back to bite him.  His name has been tarnished forever.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  My story today was based on a story in the Lancaster Sunday News "The Scribbler's" column which is written weekly by Jack Brubaker.  Thanks Jack for your great coverage of Lancaster's historical events.