Landis Valley’s New “1865” Exhibit Opens Charter Day

LANCASTER, Pa. - March 2, 2015 - PRLog -- LANCASTER, PA – Come and touch an artifact that President Lincoln touched.

The statement is powerful and Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum will make it happen for the public, free of charge, on Charter Day, March 8, from noon to 5 p.m.  Landis Valley will invite visitors to touch an ornate balustrade that Lincoln once touched at the debut of the exhibit, “1865:  Lancaster County at the Close of the Civil War,” as well as offer demonstrations and wagon rides around the site.

“The year 1865 has special significance for Landis Valley, as it marks the 150th anniversary of our museum founder Henry K. Landis’s birth,” said site director James Lewars.  “The world was changing and we are seeking to re-create the feel of what life was like in Lancaster County back then.”

Though the exhibit will feature many artifacts from the Civil War, as well as newspapers that brought the war home, it will not entirely focus on that conflict.  Life went on:  visitors will see farming implements, clothing, and items related to ballooning pioneer and Lancaster native John Wise, as well as stereopticon images of Lancaster County at the time.  The museum will also devote a case to Thaddeus Stevens, his views on the Thirteenth Amendment, and his ideas of how to reconstruct the South.

The exhibit will also display artifacts from when Lancaster welcomed Abraham Lincoln in 1861 and when it said goodbye to his funeral train in 1865.  In 1861, when Lincoln was persuaded to stop his inaugural train in Lancaster and make a speech, a path was cleared from the train platform across Chestnut Street to the Caldwell House hotel by Henry Augustus Hambright, leader of the Jackson Rifles militia.  Two of his swords will be displayed, as well as the balustrade that Lincoln spoke behind.  Visitors will also see a window from Lincoln’s funeral train and the hat waved at it by Mennonite farmer Levi Landis in 1865, as it made its way back to Springfield, IL.

The scope of the event is not limited to the exhibit; visitors will see demonstrations of crafts and trades plied by early Americans throughout the site, as well as take rides on horse-drawn wagons.  In honor of the exhibit and the birth of the museum’s founder, the museum store will also give away copies of the book, The Photography of Henry K. Landis, to customers who spend $100 or more.

More information on Charter Day, the annual celebration of the 1681 land grant from King Charles II to William Penn, and other Landis Valley events can be found on its website,landisvalleymuseum.org (http://www.landisvalleymuseum.org/index.php/landis-valley...) or by calling (717) 569-0401.

Situated on 100 acres in Lancaster, PA, Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum is a living history crossroads village that collects, preserves, and interprets the history and material culture of the Pennsylvania German community from 1740 to 1940.  The museum is administered by the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission with the active support of the Landis Valley Associates, a registered charitable organization.