Rock Ford Plantation


Historic Rock Ford or the General Edward Hand House is an historic house in southeastern Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Although the property is surrounded by Lancaster County Central Park, it is privately owned and operated by the Rock Ford Foundation, a 501 not-for-profit organization. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 21, 1976. Edward Hand was an adjutant general to George Washington during the American Revolutionary War.

History

Hand bought the land on which the plantation was built in two transactions, first purchasing 160 acres in 1785 and later buying an additional 17 acres in 1792. In late 18th Century Pennsylvania, the word “plantation” was a term for land under cultivation—essentially synonymous with “farm”—and had not yet developed the close association with slavery that it has in modern parlance. Nevertheless, slavery was legal in all of the thirteen original states and existed in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania during the time of the Hand family’s residence at Rock Ford.
The Georgian-style brick mansion was built in 1794, and its architecture has since remained largely unchanged. All four floors conform to the same plan, a center hall and four corner rooms, as was typical of the period. Historic Rock Ford stands on the banks of the Conestoga River, southeast of the center of Lancaster. General Edward Hand and his wife Katherine Hand lived at Rock Ford with their seven children from 1794 until his death in 1802, and then her death in 1805.
After being sold from the Hand Estate in 1810, the property was operated as a tenant farm into the mid-20th century. The tenant farmers living here for about 150 years made almost no changes to the house.

Museum

Rock Ford was saved from destruction by the Junior League in 1958, the house was renovated and restored to become an historic house museum. Rock Ford Foundation was established as a nonprofit to operate the museum. Today, visitors can come to Historic Rock Ford for guided tours and learn what it was like to live there between 1794–1805. The house is set up to reflect the inventory of the house when Hand died in 1802. The mansion is on the National Register of Historic Places and is recorded in the Historic American Building Survey. Historic Rock Ford is widely considered to be one of the most important examples of Georgian domestic architecture surviving in Pennsylvania and the most intact building predating 1800 in Lancaster County. The mansion’s elegant rooms are furnished with an outstanding collection of period furnishings and decorative arts.