Well, it might be another dreary January day in Pennsylvania, but at least it's the last one? Literally, of course, since tomorrow is the start of February. Rumor has it the temperatures might be going up a little bit soon - here's hoping. I'll be sending out the first monthly newsletter of 2024 tomorrow too, so if you don't already subscribe, now's the perfect time.
I'm slightly panicked because I now have just under two months until I return to my beloved Zenkaikon and give presentations about the history of Lancaster. This always happens to me; I jump at a chance to do something, then I get scared that I'm in over my head, and then somehow it all works out. Usually, anyway. So to get back into practice of telling Lancaster stories, we're going to spend today's quest learning about a gentleman who had a house there and contributed greatly to science and exploration back during the early days of our country.
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| The marker stands in front of the former Ellicott home at 123 North Prince Street |
In 1775, Andrew married Sarah Brown, a fellow Bucks County native, who became the mother of his ten children. Not long afterward, that little skirmish we call the American Revolution broke out, and despite his Quaker origins, Andrew enlisted in the Maryland militia. He ultimately rose to the rank of major by the time the war ended, and continued to use the title as an honorific for the rest of his life. Returning to his family in Ellicott's Mills, he remained there until 1784, when he was invited to participate in a surveying group that would finish the work to determine the Mason-Dixon Line - that is, the formal border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. This project brought him into the same circle with a number of persons in the Philadelphia scientific community, which would prove important later.
In 1785, Andrew and Sarah suffered a grave loss when one of their sons died young. They relocated their growing family to Baltimore, where he took a position teaching math at Baltimore University and also was elected to the general assembly. His success with surveying the Mason-Dixon Line brought him an invitation to survey Pennsylvania's western border with Ohio. Known as the Ellicott Line, this border would be an important step toward later surveys of the Northwest Territories. He became even more involved with the scientific figures of the day, including making the acquaintance of that most popular of founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin.
The District of Columbia, of course, became known as the city of Washington, after our beloved first President. Following his successful establishment of the territory's boundary, Andrew performed other surveys within the city borders. He also joined forces with Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the famous architect who designed the city. However, the two had something of a falling out, because Pierre had neither gotten the city plan printed as a map nor provided Andrew with a copy of the original plan. So Andrew and his brother Benjamin drew a revised version of it themselves, despite Pierre's objections. Although Pierre L'Enfant still to this day gets the credit for designing Washington, D. C. (and rightly so, since his was the first layout), it's actually the plan drawn up by the Ellicott brothers which was the basis for the city's development.
Returning to Pennsylvania, Andrew accepted more commissions for city planning and surveying. These include planning the city of Erie and the construction of Fort Erie, participating in a survey of the Spanish territories in Florida, and creating the border between Alabama and Florida. Much like his Washington survey project, the border was marked with engraved stones, and one of these - the Ellicott Stone - remains in a historical park in Alabama. Rather unpleasantly, the administration of President John Adams refused to pay Andrew for some of the work he did during this time, and until Thomas Jefferson became President and arranged for payment, Andrew had to sell a number of his personal property in order to support Sarah and their surviving children. Jefferson then offered to make Andrew the Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory, but Andrew declined. He was by then nearly 50 years old, and he didn't want to be away from his family any more than necessary.
When Lancastrian Simon Snyder succeeded Thomas McKean as Pennsylvania's governor in 1809, he dismissed Andrew from the post of Secretary of the Land Office. It's said this was due to political differences, in part because of an old disagreement between Andrew and one of Snyder's biggest supporters. (Snyder also has a marker in Lancaster, which I'll be sharing down the road.) Andrew then returned to private practice, including taking a surveying commission from the governor of Georgia in order to settle a border dispute between Georgia and North Carolina. Andrew's findings showed that North Carolina's claim regarding the border was the more accurate one, and the very annoyed government of Georgia refused to pay him for his work.
Andrew returned to Lancaster in 1812, and a year later accepted a post as mathematics professor at West Point Academy. He remained in West Point for the rest of his life, dying from a stroke in 1820, and is buried in the cemetery on the West Point Academy grounds. Sarah survived him until 1827 and is buried in the Shelby Center Cemetery in New York's Orleans County. Most of their children married and had children of their own, so they have surviving descendants to this day.
As for the house in Lancaster, where the marker sits as a quiet reminder of Andrew's contributions, it's known today as the Sehner-Ellicott-von Hess House. It was built in 1787, and restored in 1981. It's owned by the Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County and is only open to the public on certain occasions. Among other things, they often conduct "First Friday" open houses on the first Friday of the month, which includes self-guided tours of the home's interior. So if you're curious to see the inside, that's the perfect time! Just keep an eye on the events section of their website for the next one. (Adam Zurn of Uncharted Lancaster often shows up to those and sometimes does fun things of his own. If you see him there, say hi! He does a lot of neat stuff.)
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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