The "Mysterious 'Man With Red Collar' Without A Home," Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a story in my local newspaper titled "Mysterious 'Man With Red Collar' without a home."  The story was written by Jack Brubaker whom is known to Lancastrians as "The Scribbler."  He wrote that the Lancaster Public Library displayed 22 portraits of well-known Lancaster residents and other Americans on walls throughout the first floor of its former location on Duke Street.  Where have they gone?  Most have accompanied books and computers to the library's new location in Ewell Plaza on Queen Street.   They have been place in storage because there's little space to display the portraits in a building with so many glass walls.  Five of the more historic portraits, all painted b Lancaster County artist, are now displayed in LancasterHistoy's Research Center Library at President and Marietta Avenues.  These portraitures are of George Washington, painted by Bass Oti; Robert Fulton by Jacob Eichholtz; Thaddeus Stevens by John Augustus Beck; Gen. John F. Reynolds by Helen Thurlow; and Dr. Samuel Humes by Jacob Eichholtz.  Dr. Samuel Who?  Humes was a Lancaster physician who organized his fellow doctors into medical societies.  He served as first president of the Lancaster City and county Medical Society in 1844 and as first president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, founded in Lancaster in 1848.  A sixth portrait of John Beck, founder of the Lititz Academy fo Boys, went to the Lititz Historical Foundation.  A seventh portrait of Hans Herr went to the 1719 Museum (formerly the Hans Heerr House) in Willow Street.  The other 15 portraits will remain in store until appropriate nonprofit origination can be found to display them.  They include oil paintings of James Buchanan, Milton Garvin, Benjamin West, Lindley Murray, J.S. Kevin, George Ross, A. Herr Smith, DavidRmsey, James Hamilton, Col. Henry Hambright, William Henry ad Dr. John Atlee.  Also, two portraitures of Lancaster lawyer, author and library benefactor Lyman Windoph.  The most curious of the 15 leftovers is painting labeled "Man With Red Collar," The identity of this man, whose collar is bright red and whose nose and sideburns are unusually long is a mystery.  No one knows who painted him.  Two years ago, a delivery truck backed into the blue-and-gold Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's Conestoga Indian massacre sign on the West King Street side of the Fulton Theatre.  The truck driver sheared off the sign pole at the base.  The Fulton informed the state commission, which eventually said a replica sig would be placed by August of last year.  No sign yet.  What happened?  Because of ongoing supply chain issues, historical marker fabrication has been delayed, according to commission spokesman Howard Pollman.  "Although markers are still being manufactured, we are not accepting any new nominations for markers," Polman reports.  "We are also prioritizing new markers over replacements."  At the current rate of erecting new signs and replacing those destroyed, the Conetoga massacre marker may be on the street by the end of 2024.  Here's what the marker read: "The Lancaster Jail was located a half block to the north from  1743 to 1851.  The last remaining Conestoga Indians were held in protective custody in 1763.  They were killed by a vigilante group, the Paxton Boys.  No arrests were made."  The state originally erected a similar marker at that location in 1949.   It disappeared.  In 2015 the Circle Legacy Center, a local American Indian support group, paid for the replacement marker.  Drive past the location in the future and see if you can find it!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.