The "The History Of Lancaster's Cabbage Hill" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Search for the oldest house on Cabbage Hill which is in the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania and was at one time nothing more than forest, farmland and pasture.  In 1762 Bethelstown was laid out on Cabbage Hill with 66 building lots on the first two blocks of Manor and High Streets.  By 1815 only 25 to 30 houses had been erected.  Most of the houses were one-story homes made of logs and rough-sawn wood.  Most of these original homes were later replaced with two and three-story brick houses which were built in the second half of the 19th century.  One house did last into the twentieth century before being torn down…a log house that used to stand at 442 Manor Street before it was razed in 1963 to make room for a parking lot.  So…what ever happened to the rest of the original 25-30 one-story houses from old Bethelstown?  Well, it was found that 27 of those houses still remain in the 400 and 500 blocks of Manor and High Streets.  Of those 27 homes, nine are single houses, fourteen are in seven house pairs, and four are grouped together in a connected row of houses.  Twenty of those 27 current one-story houses in the first two blocks of Manor and High were built in 1850 or later and are not old enough to be original houses from old Bethelstown.  Of the remaining seven that predate 1850, five were built in the 1840’s, leaving two, 433 and 435 High Street that are more than likely original Bethelstown houses. 

433 High Street

Deeds show that 433 High Street is a log house and was more than likely built before 1840 while the frame house at 435 High Street was built about 1814.  So who built these houses and who owns them?  Peter Bier, Jr., a shoemaker, may have built the house at 433 in the late 1700s. 

435 High Street

The house at 435 might also have been built around the same time by an unknown owner.  The log house at 433 appears to be the oldest surviving house on Cabbage Hill.  It appears to have been built no later than 1801, and possibly earlier.  The one story frame house at 435 High also is old, having been built around 1814.  These two surviving houses on Cabbage Hill are older by at least a couple decades than any other house on the Hill.  So, once again…who actually built these historic houses?  The early history involves a couple generations of the Bier family.  Peter Bier, Sr. was a German immigrant who arrived in Lancaster in 1748 with his son, Peter Jr., and settled in Lancaster in 1760.  Peter Jr. was a shoemaker in the city of Lancaster and owned several houses.  He may have built the house that now stands at 433 or it may have been built just before he bought the property.  Since he died six months after he bought the property, it is more than likely that the house already stood at 433.  So 433 High might have been built in the late 1700s.  Peter Jr.’s lot was inherited by his widow Elizabeth who perhaps rented the house to a series of tenants.  Then sometime later the home at 435 High was added next to it.  Both houses were sold multiple times over the lifetime of both of them.  Today, the one story home at 433 High is covered with vinyl siding and the one-story frame house at 435 is sheathed in gray form-stone.  Both houses have had their original doors, windows and roofs replaced.  Dormers have been replaced or enlarged and concrete steps how lead up to the front doors.  But…behind all the modern features, more than 200 years of history lie hidden!  It is believed that both residences are the only two houses that survive from the original 25-30 houses built in old Bethelstown between 1762 and 1815 and are the oldest surviving houses on all of Cabbage Hill.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. 

 PS - Many thanks to Mr. Jim Gerhart for providing the information for this story in his story titled: The Search for the Oldest House on Cabbage Hill.