Like Enoch Hastings, Thomas Houston served as a captain of Pennsylvania militiamen but Houston saw service at York from 1814 until 1815 and when he returned to civilian life and economic prosperity, he took the honorific title "Colonel" as was common for many of the nineteenth century gentry like "Col." Drake of Titusville and oil well fame!

Probably the most economically advantageous thing that the then 28 year-old war veteran did was to marry a well to do widow, Mrs. Catherine Brenneman, in York, on June 13, 1816. Catherine and her first husband, Jacob, had erected the stone mill that still stands on the Nissley Vineyards property and raised a family there. A date stone displays her name.

When she became a widow, she moved into Maytown and either purchased a house elsewhere in town or moved into what would one day become the Lutheran parsonage. In researching the house, many years ago, I continually ran into road blocks linking Thomas Houston to the property until I discovered that he did not actually own the house in which he lived his rich wife and her estate did!

Houston was considerably younger than his wife and they had no children together. He pursued several vocations, being listed at various times as a farmer or miller, but from the 1830's onward he tends to be called "private" which means that he was a member of the leisure class. As such, he accumulated money through bank account interest and the real estate market.

He was also active in local civic affairs, championing the cause of a second Columbia Wrightsville bridge in 1834, and politics, where he supported Democrat James Buchannan. Like most of his ethnic background and social standing at the time, he was a member of the Presbyterian communion and served as a "settler" on the session of Donegal Church, throughout the 1850's and 60's.

Societal pillar though he surely was, he was no stranger to some un conventional behavior when, having been a widower for several years, he had an affair with a plain woman in town named Maria Long (1819 1911) and, on February 24, 1858, a daughter was born to the illicit union of the 70-year-old man and 39 year old woman, named Marion. Marion would grow up to inherit the bulk of her father's considerable estate and marry Squire Johnstin a gentleman farmer who would serve the Lutheran Church as its Sunday School superintendent for half a century.

But getting back to the main focus of this history, the records of the Orphans Court show that in March of 1836, Col. Thomas Houston was appointed the guardian of the late John Hastings youngest son, Eli, who was a minor, and Col. Timothy Rogers was named guardian of John's orphaned grandsons, Henry and John.

By December of that same year, 1836, Eli was reported to have died without a will and with no heirs, and the court decreed that lot #3, together with the remaining unsold properties of the Hastings Estate be sold at auction on Saturday, January 28, 1837, at 2:00 P.M., and the highest bidders were to make their payments and acquire the land by April 1st.

I have already noted that William Campbell bought lot #2, but Thomas Houston bought lot #3, the future museum site, for $186. Houston owned the property for the rest of his life, and rented it out to people like Henry Klugh (in 1847 and 1852), Mr. Kline (in 1853), Rev. Crist of the Lutheran Church, in 1854) William Daily (in 1866), and lastly, Michael Keller.

The Lancaster Examiner and Herald reported in its October 25, 1871, Vol. XLV, No. 50 edition that Thomas Houston had died at his Maytown home, 8 West High Street, at the age of 84, on Wednesday, October 18, 1871, and that he was buried at Marietta Cemetery. The "colonel's" will, which was probated on October 30, 1871 (Vol. 2, Book A, pp. 330 l), decreed, among other things, that executors Christian Engle and Henry Houseal sell the bulk of the Houston real estate; and an audit conducted on April 23, 1873 revealed that the sale had resulted in a sum of $12,000, which would be held in trust for Marion until she reached her majority (Record Book 28, p. 319).

Part of Marion's legacy came from the sale of the former Hastings' house to tenant Michael Keller, who bought the property on April l, 1872, for $495. (Accounts and Records Book No. 28, p. 60) It is not yet clear to me if Michael Keller continued to reside in the small house, after he bought it, for the tax rolls show Horace Klugh living there in 1873 but I don't know where else Keller would have lived.

In fact, I know nothing else about Michael Keller only that he owned the house until 1897. (A conversation with Beryl Keller, who once lived in Maytown, yielded no information about him; indeed, she never heard of him and claimed that he was probably no relative of hers. Her branch of Kellers came from Adams County.)

The "probated" but apparently un recorded will of Michael Keller gave a l/3 share of the house to Mary Owen, who had formerly been known as Mattie Sload but who she was, I haven't the foggiest! (Sload was a big Maytown name at one time', however.) The remaining 2/3 was bequeathed to W.U.Hensel and B.F.Montgomery of Lancaster. (Was that the same W.U. Hensel who wrote the LCHS account of Sallie Hastings in 1906, already quoted in this history?)

The heirs quickly sold their legacy to Mrs. Mary Flick of Maytown on April 1 and 3 of 1897, with Mrs. Owen of Wilkes Barre (and her husband, John) receiving $183.33 l/3 and the Hensel/ Montgomery pair realizing $376.66 2/3 (Vol. 15, Book M, p. 99) Mary Flick (1865 1942) was married, but her husband, Henry (1855 1934) appears to have been somewhat shiftless, and he may have had some issues with alcohol.

Perhaps that is why the property was held by her rather than him in a normally patriarchal society. Local people called Mary "Mollie" , and they remember her as an extremely fat and rather listless lady who sat on the front porch a great deal in warm weather and stared out a window in cold.

The marriage produced two children, Rebecca, who married a Mr. Saylor and lived from 1891 until 1984 being buried next to her parents in Maytown Union Cemetery, and Harry H. (1884 1953), better know in local folklore as "Hen" Flick. Hen was a mason of some skill one of whose works was the bird bath that currently tilts in the Frank's backyard; and he, himself, tilted quite a bit becoming famous as the town drunk.

Many were the nights that he could be heard, declaiming from the town square, about the virtues of the old past, or some lady, or FDR, or the old church with the cracked bell on top of the hill (St. John's, where his family were members.) Many more sober town folk were extremely intimidated and afraid of the fellow (people like Mary Clepper Loucks, for example, who lived next door in the Parsonage for a short time between pastors), but he seemed harmless enough to everyone except himself, of course.

Novagenarian Beryl Keller, who lived on West High Street as a girl, early in the 20th century, remembers quite vividly a day when Hen picked up his sister's baby girl, Mary, and ran out into the street carrying a shot gun which he threatened to use on the child terrifying the Kraut family who lived in the parsonage at the time. (The baby was not injured.)

Hen remained a bachelor and lived with his mother until she died on December 31, 1942. He then lived alone in the house for another decade, until he was found frozen to death at the kitchen table of 4 West High Street, by a concerned neighbor, Pastor Wilbur Moses Allison, who went looking for him after he had not been seen for some time. He died intestate and without issue or heir, on February 10, 1953 more or less.

Rebecca, by then a widow, sold the property to Elmer L. Gutshall on April 29, 1953, for $2,700 (Book Z, Vol. 42, p. 304). A legal nicety was resolved with a $1 deed "exchanged between" Elmer L. Gutshall and his wife Mary K. Gutshall, on February 18, 1965 (Record Book I, Vol. 54, p. 3261 although this non barrister fails to see the point of the legalese The Gutshall's sold the property to Anabel Smith Hawthorne of Bainbridge and Conoy Township on December 8, 1967, for $8,500. (Deed Book K, Vol. 57, p. 865).

According to her will and other documents filed with the Lancaster County Courthouse, Anabel S. Hawthorne was born on August 15, 1904, in Perry County, Pennsylvania I know that her parents moved down to our area, like so many from that neck of the woods, in order to find better farmland, and that her father, Orie Smith, was a devout member of the Maytown Church of God.

Anabel's siblings included one of my parishioners, the late Bill Smith, the late Hannah Engle, and the still living Mrs. Prescott. Anabel was a Public school teacher for a while, and she married Jay Albert ("Bustie") Hawthorne and lived her married life in Bainbridge. The couple produced twin girls, both of whom I knew, Joyce and Johanne.

The reason that Anabel moved to High Street in Maytown was because her husband had just died on May 9, 1967, and she wanted to be near her roots and her family. She died at St. Joseph's Hospital, in Lancaster, at 4:00 P.M., on February 19, 1976, due to heart failure. An inventory of her estate revealed that 4 West High Street, her residence, was valued at $11,800.

The Hawthorne will, which was Probated on March 26, 1976, called for an equal division of cash assets between the twin sisters and Joyce got the High Street house, while Johanne got a South River Street house that is still home to her son, Jesse Shank and his family.

The first tenant of Anabel's old house was Dorcas Dunnick, a single woman who was a native of Southern York County and who worked as a security guard at Armstrong's plant in Marietta. She lived in the place about two years, from 1976 until 1978, according to her sister, Phyllis Dunnick Hossler.

A formal $l style deed was executed on December 1978 and filed in January of 1979 (Book E, Volume 76, p. 219) making office the ownership of 4 West High Street in the hands of both Joyce Louise Hawthorne Embly and her husband, Jere. By then, I had moved into the Lutheran parsonage next door, and knew all the parties included in subsequent happenings.

Joyce, I should mention, who had a fondness for calling me "Bobby", was a feisty lady with definite opinions and a good sense of humor, who was very friendly and out going and heavily involved in boy scouting, Republican politics, family affairs, and church. Although raised by a Church of God mother, she was fairly broad in her religious views and was a communicant of both the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches in her adult life.

Her first marriage to a Mr. Leninger, had taken her to the Chicago area, and yielded two children, Bill and Nancy Beth. Back in our area, she married Jere Embly and became the mother of Kristofer ("Kip"), Jere ("Thorny"), and Sue. The family lived in a brick house with a large pool area in the back, at East Jacob Street, in Maytown, when I knew them, but they had lived at several addresses before that. Jere, Joyce's second husband, worked at his family's foundry to the north of Maytown and at several bars. He was also famous for his many pool parties and pig roasts.

When I arrived in town, on July 1, 1978, my neighbor was Joyce's daughter, Nancy, and her newborn daughter, Aarin. Nancy had just returned from service in the US Air Force in Okinawa, Japan, and she was doing a good job as a single mother with a beautiful, spunky child. Many were the meals that I shared with Nancy and Aarin, and we became fast friends at church as well. Nancy is one of the wittiest people I know.

Then, in April of 1983, I was privileged to officiate at Nancy's wedding to Rick Price of Bainbridge (she was 28 and he 27). They moved away from Maytown to the Landisville area, where they still live today (however, in a different house), though our paths sadly seldom cross. Nancy worked for AMP (now TYCO) for many years while Rick sells Toyotas. They are active in the Zion Lutheran Church in Landisville where Nancy sings in the choir. Son Adam is now in high school while Aarin, or "A" as I called her, is a nurse at Lancaster General Hospital and engaged to be married.