Abbeville, also known as Mt. Pleasant, is a historic home located at 1140 Columbia Avenue in Lancaster Township,

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Lancaster County (; Pennsylvania Dutch: Lengeschder Kaundi), sometimes nicknamed the Garden Spot of America or Pennsylvania Dutch Country, is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in the south central part of Pennsylvania. ...

. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1978.

History and architectural features

The property on which this historic two-story,

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

ed stone structure was erected dates to 1717 when

William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...

awarded a land grant of 1,000 acres near the

Little Conestoga Creek Little Conestoga Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed August 8, 2011 tributary of the Conestoga River in Pennsylvania. The Landis Mill Covered Bridge crosses the cre ...

in what would later become Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to Hans Brubaker and Christian Hershey. The original residence was built on the southern portion of this land between 1755 and 1756 by Christian Stoneman or John Stoner. Initially measuring twenty by seventeen feet, its original ceilings and fireplace were still visible at the time that this property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. In 1790, John Stoner, a successful miller, enlarged the home by erecting a large -story, five bay by three bay

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

style dwelling in front of the earlier section. ''Note:'' This includes The residence and property were then acquired circa 1825 by William Coleman, a prominent, 19th-century ironmaster whose daughter Ann Caroline Coleman (1796-1819) had been the fiancée of future U.S. President

James Buchanan James Buchanan Jr. ( ; April 23, 1791June 1, 1868) was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician who served as the 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861. He previously served as secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and repr ...

prior to her death in 1819. A

smokehouse A smokehouse (North American) or smokery (British) is a building where meat or fish is cured with smoke Smoke is a suspension of airborne particulates and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with t ...

, which is one of the contributing structures to this historic property, was also added sometime around 1825. Advertised for sale in the ''Lancaster Journal'' on November 2, 1825, as a "beautiful country seat and farm called 'Mount Pleasant,'" it was purchased in 1826 by

Langdon Cheves Langdon Cheves ( September 17, 1776 – June 26, 1857) was an American politician, lawyer and businessman from South Carolina. He represented the city of Charleston in the United States House of Representatives from 1810 to 1815, where he played ...

, who had served as the ninth

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives The speaker of the United States House of Representatives, commonly known as the speaker of the House, is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives. The office was established in 1789 by Article I, Section 2 of the U ...

from January 19, 1814, to March 3, 1815. Cheves subsequently added two side wings to each side of the 1790 section, and renamed the property as "Abbeville" in honor of his birthplace,

Abbeville, South Carolina Abbeville is a city and county seat of Abbeville County, in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It is located west of Columbia and south of Greenville. Its population was 5,237 at the 2010 census. Settled by French Huguenot settlers, it was ...

. When Cheves chose to return to South Carolina circa 1830, Coleman reacquired the property, and held it until 1835 when it was converted into the Abbeville Institute. Inspired by the educational methods of Dr.

William Augustus Muhlenberg William Augustus Muhlenberg (September 16, 1796April 8, 1877) was an Episcopal clergyman and educator. Muhlenberg is considered the father of church schools in the United States. An early exponent of the Social Gospel, he founded St. Luke's Hos ...

, co-rector of St. James Episcopal Church and the father of church schools in America, it subsequently became a prominent school for boys. Muhlenberg departed Lancaster in 1826 and founded his famous Church Institute at Flushing, Long Island, in 1828, but he had left a lasting scholastic legacy as founder of the Second Public School District in Pennsylvania. The school and land were then sold to businessman Christopher Hager in 1851, who owned Hager's department store and was responsible for building the

Fulton Opera House The Fulton Opera House, also known as the Fulton Theatre or simply The Fulton, is a League of Regional Theatres class B regional theater located in historic downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It is reportedly the oldest working theatre in the Unite ...

. A stable and

carriage house A carriage house, also called a remise or coach house, is an outbuilding which was originally built to house horse-drawn carriages and the related tack. In Great Britain the farm building was called a cart shed. These typically were open f ...

were built circa 1875; both are now considered contributing structures. In 1926, C. Dudley Armstrong, vice president of

Armstrong World Industries Armstrong World Industries, Inc. is a Pennsylvania corporation incorporated in 1891. It is an international designer and manufacturer of walls and ceilings. Based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, AWI has a global manufacturing network of 26 facilities ...

, purchased the home, which remained in the Armstrong family through at least the late 1940s. It was also later owned by Dr. John Farmer, and his wife, who were responsible for nominating the historic property for placement on the

on February 17, 1978. The property was then officially listed on the NRHP later that same year. Abbeville was then purchased by Robert and Ruth Ecklin in 1995."The Sky Is the Limit." Lancaster, Pennsylvania: ''Lancaster New Era'', August 14, 1995.

References

External links

*
Farmer: Dr. John L. Farmer, Abbeville Collection
(finding aid to a collection which includes property deeds from 1750 to 1929 and papers of C. Dudley Armstrong, who purchased Abbeville in 1929). Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Lancaster History, retrieved online October 9, 2019.
Langdon Cheves
(biographical sketch of one of Abbeville's owners), in ''Papers Read Before the Lancaster County Historical Society'', Vol. XI, No. 2, pp. 45–58. Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Lancaster County Historical Society (printed by The New Era), February 1, 1907. *

Lancaster Pennsylvania: Extraordinary Stories from an Ordinary Guy, November 22, 2016 (retrieved online October 9, 2019. {{National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Houses completed in 1756 Houses completed in 1826 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Georgian architecture in Pennsylvania Houses in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania 1756 establishments in Pennsylvania National Register of Historic Places in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania