Three generations of the Gibbons family ran an Underground Railroad station near Bird-in-Hand. They helped move hundreds of freedom-seekers toward safety.
On April 22, the National Park Service recognized this contribution to anti-slavery history by naming the burial site of Quakers Daniel and Hannah Gibbons to its National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.
The Gibbonses are buried in the 1728 graveyard at Lampeter Friends Meetinghouse in Bird-in-Hand.
The National Park Service designation resulted from a years-long effort by members of Lampeter Meeting to gain recognition for the role some of its former members played in the Underground Railroad.
“It was a very uphill battle,’’ says David Morrison, a Lancaster lawyer, meetinghouse member and early leader in the effort. Lori Cabirac assembled information for the application.
The designation honors the graves of the most significant Quaker Underground Railroad operators in Lancaster County. Daniel Gibbons (1776-1853) and Hannah Wierman Gibbons (1787-60) processed nearly 1,000 freedom seekers.
Daniel Gibbons took charge of the logistics of the operation. Hannah Gibbons was a full partner in her husband’s work.
One might ask why the family’s small limestone grave markers in the meetinghouse cemetery have been designated part of the Network to Freedom instead of, or in addition to, the house where they lived and sheltered freedom-seekers.
That is because the Gibbons’ stone and brick Underground Railroad house, built in 1815 along Beechdale Road about a mile north of Bird-in-Hand, was destroyed nearly three decades ago by a temporary owner who believed he could obliterate a historic building without consulting anyone.
It continually amazes the Scribbler that this conservative county — that has preserved more farmland than any other county in the United States and has belatedly but enthusiastically embraced conserving forested land as well— cares so little for its built environment.
Lancaster city has ordinances to stop or at least slow demolition of historic structures. So do several other county municipalities. But most rural townships have no rules and do not regulate what new owners do to old properties.
Lancaster County has lost innumerable structurally sound 19th-century brick farm houses — especially in the eastern end — to a new owner’s self-indulgent desire to build a bigger house.
The reason for the Gibbons’ home’s destruction was different.
The Gibbonses and Brubakers, the Scribbler’s family, are related by marriage. The Brubakers eventually turned the Gibbons property — then called Beechdale —into a large duck farm. After the Scribbler’s grandfather sold that farm in 1961, a succession of wealthy, short-term owners used the place as a vacation destination.
In 1984, James Coson, a Fresno, California, businessman and carriage collector, purchased Beechdale. Coson and his wife, Angie, stayed in a large, early 20th-century stone house during their periodic visits to the place. They restored the exterior of the Underground Railroad building.
But then the Cosons reversed course.
One morning in the summer of 1986, Angie Coson woke up at Beechdale and decided the view from the stone house would be improved if the Underground Railroad house were removed.
Workers demolished the building by day’s end. A few years later, the Cosons sold the farm.
Should someone who does not live here full time have destroyed part of this county’s heritage on a whim — and without a whimper from Upper Leacock Township?
So we are left with Daniel and Hannah’s tombstones. Kudos to Lampeter Meeting and the National Park Service for recognizing their significance.
Jack Brubaker, retired from LNP | LancasterOnline staff, writes “The Scribbler’’ column every Sunday. He welcomes comments and contributions at scribblerlnp@gmail.com.
