The "Lancaster's Early Defense Of The City" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading the latest column that Jack Brubaker, aka "The Scribbler" had published in my local LNP Lancaster Online daily paper.  Story had to do with cannons, tanks, machine guns or other weapons that might have been displayed with a "Doughboy" in the city of Lancaster.  "The Scribbler" reported that a statue of a doughboy "the name for a U.S. soldier during WWI", was originally installed on the grounds of East End Junior High School on South Ann Street in 1921.  It was moved to the front of the Stahr Armory on North Queen Street in 1962 until 2013 when it was moved back to it's original location on South Anne St, but by then had been renamed the Jackson Middle School.  That sculpture was made of copper sheeting and included a non-functioning rifle that the Doughboy held in one hand with a dud grenade in the other hand.  In the center of Lancaster, Pennsylvania stands a Soldiers and Sailors Monument.  The cavalry officer's sword and the artillery man's ramrod, elements of the granite Soldiers and Sailors Monument are not real.  Both weapons were fashioned from copper.  As far as other larger weapons are concerned, Jack reports he knows of no tanks or machine guns in the county, but there are plenty of cannons which date back to WWII.  There are two cannons pointed in the direction of York County as you cross the Columbia bridge which might have been located at that location to stop a Confederate invasion.  The oldest Revolutionary War muzzle-loading gun along the East King St. side of Reservoir Park was an embedded, muzzle-down, in the curb in the first block of North Queen Street.  Now it is directed at the campus of Thaddeus Stevens State College of Technology.  

The most interesting cannons in Lancaster make up part of the Spanish-American War Monument on the Buchanan Ave. side of Buchanan Park.  The copper muzzle loaders flank a statue of "The Hiker."  U.S. soldiers in 1898 were called "Hikers."  The granite base of the monument was dedicatee ini 1913.  At that time it held a copper powder tank recovered from the battleship USS Maine.  Two piles of cannon balls were bolted on either side of the monument, next tooth cannons.

 That monument somehow disappeared, but was replaced by another "Hiker" statue, holding a non-lethal rifle.  In July 3, 1932 Lancaster Sunday News claimed 12 cannons were located in Lancaster parks and cemeteries.  Most of those have disappeared!  The oldest cannon in Lancaster City is a Revolutionary War muzzle-loading gun displayed along the East King Street side of Reservoir Park since 1924.  Today it's hard to find old weapons that still remain from the past that haven't been removed or taken from their sites in the city of Lancaster.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

Located in Buchanan Park near Franklin & Marshall College