Historic Driving Tour - Hans Herr House Museum

2013 Historic Driving Tour
Saturday, September 14, 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM.

Take your family back in time: drive, bike or even walk between sites near Lancaster’s County’s first permanent European settlement.

The 2013 tour will focus on historic Lampeter, Pennsylvania. Sites include the 1815 Henry Miller house in downtown Lampeter, which has served as a tavern, printing shop, clothing store and smorgasbord restaurant. In 1837, the first edition of the Martyrs Mirror, an important Anabaptist chronicle, was printed there.

Docents will meet visitors at each location but participants may travel in the order and at the pace they wish. Pick up a badge, map and directions at the 1719 Hans Herr House.

The first English edition of the Martyrs Mirror, an important Anabaptist chronicle, was printed in Lampeter in 1837.

Some places on the tour—and other local historic sites you may drive by every week—are included in this fascinating booklet Pequea Settlement 1710: Self-Guided Tour, available here through the 1719 Hans Herr House Museum Store.

From the 2012 Tour

Edisonville Mill, a rare log barn, a little-known Reformed Mennonite Church, Brackbill Cemetery, Strasburg Mennonite Church, and the beautifully preserved home of Martin Mylin IIII were the six sites on the Herr House's 2012 Historic Driving Tour.

The "self-propelled" tours will start at the 1719 Hans Herr House, where participants pick up a badge and driving directions. People may drive, bike or even walk to each site in the order they wish, and tour guides will meet visitors at each location.

Last year's tour saw nearly 300 people visit sites like Lime Valley Mill and the home of former Pennsylvania state senator, Amos H Mylin.

Local builder and historian Clarke Hess researched the Martin Mylin III home for this year's tour.

“It is an exceptional example of a Lancaster County Georgian Germanic farm house,” he said. “The main house is probably 98 percent intact from when Mylin built it.”

“The interior woodwork was finished by John Bachman, one of the most famous 18th-century cabinet makers in Lancaster County. There are two built-in corner cupboards and three corner fireplaces. The balusters in the stair rail and the raised panels under the stairway are original.”

Mylin was the grandson of 1710 immigrant Martin Mylin. His wife, Barbara Baer, was the granddaughter of Christian and Anna Herr, the 1710 immigrants who built the 1719 Hans Herr House.

Later, the Mylin house became the childhood home of James S. Herr, founder of Herr Foods.

“It has been a very prosperous house,” Hess said. “In its day it would have been called a mansion house.”

The Hans Herr House Museum Store will sell copies of Pequea Settlement 1710: Self-Guided Tour, which includes more than forty additional sites with GPS addresses, pictures and maps of Lancaster County’s original land patents.