LANCASTER. A city and the county-seat of Lancaster County, Pa.. 6S miles west of Phila delphia; on the Conestoga River. and on the Reading and Columbia. the Philadelphia and Reading. and the Pennsylvania railroads (Map: Pennsylvania. E 31. It is the seat of Franklin and Marshall College (q.v.). with the Theologi cal Seminary of the Reformed Church in the Vnited States, and has the Lancaster General Hospital. Saint 'Joseph's Hospital. the Children's and Stevens's homes, the Mechanics' and several other libraries. The First Pennsylvania State Normal School is at Millersville, near Lancaster. other features are Lone Park, the Sol diers' Monument. and Witmer's stone bridge. The city. situated in a fertile farming and to bacco-growing region. is the centre of a large trade in tobacco and produce. and has numerous tobacco warehouses. cigar and cigarette factories. cotton-mills, cork-works, caramel factories, iron works. and manufactories of brick machines. emery wheels, umbrellas. carriages and watches. The government is administered by a mayor elected every two years. and a bicameral council which controls elections to most of the subordi nate offices; the executive's power of appoint ment, which in these cases is subject to the con sent of the council. extending only to police of ficers, police turnkey. and city-hall janitor. The
city spends annually, in maintenance and opera tion, about $235.000, the main items of expense being $77,000 for schools, for municipal lighting, $25,000 for the water-works, $17,000 for the polite department, and $16.000 for the fire department. Population, in 1890, 32,011; in 1900, 41.459.
Settled about 171S, and at first called Hickory Town, Lancaster received its present name in 1729, was chartered as a borough in 1742, and became a city in 181S. In December, 1763, the `Paxton Boys' massacred a band of neutral In dians here. While Philadelphia was occupied by the English in 1777, Congress sat in Lancaster for a few days; and in 1784 a band of soldiers marched to Philadelphia from here to force Con gress to provide for paying the Continental army, in consequence of which mutiny Congress adjourned to Princeton. Lancaster was the capi tal of the State from 1799 to 1S12. It was the birthplace of General John Fulton Reynolds (q.v.). in whose honor a monument has been erected. Consult Mombert, An Authentic History of Lancaster County (Lancaster, Pa.. 1369). and Pennsylvania Ilistorical Collections, vol. i. (Phil adelphia, 1S53 )