Pennsylvania Hempland Security
A photo of the old historic Stoner House in Manheim Townsip of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania...The early Stoners of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania were well respected members of the community. Like all Lancaster County farmers, they cultivated hemp, as well as all the other common crops of their time.
Although my specific research did not reveal when the first Stoner came to Lancaster County, a man named John Stoner who died in 1750 in Conestoga Twp. was the first with hemp to appear in my records, having it listed as an item in his Estate Inventory. Around the same time, a man in Lebanon Twp. (which was at that time a part of the original boundaries of Lancaster County) named Jacob Stoner had "130 lbs. of Heckled Hemp" and "Hemp lying on the Rest". The inventory was taken at the time of his death in 1753.
The Estate Inventories are a great way to get a glimpse into the early culture of hemp in Pennsylvania. The Stoners were as common as the thousands of others in Lancaster County who were recorded as growing hemp. In 1758 Christian Stoner died in Lampeter Twp. and had the following items: "34 yds. of Hemp Cloth, 13 yds. of Hemp Cloth, 15 1/2 yds. of Hemp Cloth and One Hemp Stone".
When John Stoner died in Manor Twp. in 1773 he had, "Welch Corn, Hemp and Flax now growing". Jacob Stoner died in Leacock Twp. in 1782 and had "89 lbs. of Heckled Hemp, 15 1/2 yds. of Hemp Linen, Hemp Seed, 3 German Testaments and a Gun". Another man named Jacob Stoner died in 1783 in Conestoga and allowed in his Will for his wife to be provided every year with 25 pounds of "Good Hackled Flax or Hemp".
The inventory of Christian Stoner who died in Manor Twp. in 1783 revealed the following items "4 Hemp Breaks, 1 Stack of Hemp, 1 Gun, 1 Bible and 1 Martyr Book". Another Jacob Stoner died the same year in Conestoga Twp. listed with "An Acre and a Quarter of Hemp, 2 Hemp Breaks and 127 lbs. of Hackled Hemp".
Elizabeth Stoner died in Manor Twp. in 1785 and had "10 yds. of Hemp Linen and Hemp Tow Yarn". Another Elizabeth Stoner died the same year in Leacock Twp. with "Some Hemp Seed and18 lbs. of Hackled Hemp".
Christian Stoner died in 1801 but his Twp. is not listed. He had a "Hemp Break and a Lot of Hemp," both of which it was recorded that he had given to his widow. He also had "A Still and Apparatus".
David Stoner of Manheim Twp. died in 1806 with "25 lbs. of Hemp, 25 lbs. of Hemp, A Parcel of Rough Hemp and a Parcel of Hemp". Jacob Stoner died the same year in Lampeter Twp. with "11 lbs. of Heckled Hemp (Taken by widow), Hatchels, Old Rope Etc. and 1 Large German Martyr Book".
When Henry Stoner died in Manheim Twp. in 1812 he had "A Parcel of Hemp Yarn" and John Stoner of Manheim Twp. died in 1819 with "A Parcel of Hemp". In 1823 George Stoner died in Manor Twp. with "200 lbs. of Hemp, Old Sein, Wagon Cloth and Rope". Jacob Stoner died in 1832 with "Milled Hemp, Distillery, A Lot of Whiskey and a Shot Gun" in Manor Twp.
So, as you can see, the Stoners grew hemp all over Lancaster County for many years. The Stoners were no different though from thousands of other Lancaster County families that grew hemp. In a group, the Stoners would look like any other ordinary citizens of the Garden Spot of America. The Stoners were well liked in their community and commanded respect for their agricultural talents.
It's hard to believe that Pennsylvania won't allow us to grow hemp for all of its thousands of uses. It was grown so extensively here that the original Hempfield Twp. was named for the "Great quantities of hemp raised there", over 100 hemp mills in Lancaster County alone! Imagine the jobs!
Help us put the Hemp back in Hempfield. After all, if it was good enough for the Stoners, it's good enough for US!
Les Stark, Pennsylvania hemp historian and author of Hempstone Heritage
~ ~ ~ ~
Les Stark and Pennsylvania Hempland Security shared Pennsylvania Hempland Security's photo.
I
am right now working on my speech for John Hanger's press conference
tomorrow. I am looking for good parts of previous writings and speeches
to use and I came across this, my unused speech from the Lancaster Hemp Freedom Rally.
When I got to the rally I decided that I would scrap my speech because it was too long and instead I would have more of a conversational tone and just talk from my heart.
The following is the speech that I had planned to use at the Lancaster Hemp Freedom Rally on Saturday, July 6, 2013:
Ladies and gentlemen, people of Lancaster, we stand on the threshold of historic change.
In case you haven't noticed, there is a real movement going on in Pennsylvania to legalize cannabis and hemp. We are in the pre-stages of real, true, profound and revolutionary change! This change will bring a restoration and a renewal of the greatness of our past merged with all the new possibilities of the present and the future.
Something profound is indeed happening. There is a real war of ideas being waged in Pennsylvania. It is refreshing but it is a tough fight. Many of us are on the front lines in the battles for change. I am proud to be around so many courageous patriots and freedom fighters here today!
There is a lot happening, right before our eyes. We are the witnesses and the participants in a great tidal movement of history that can not be stopped. Trying to stop this tremendously powerful idea will be as futile as trying to beat back the waves of a tsunami with batons and tazers!
Our movement can not lose because it springs from internal universal longings for freedom!
Some say that freedom is dead but it’s not, freedom lives in the hearts of each and every one of us!
We are free, beautiful and independent beings and we are free because GOD says that we are free! Don’t believe in God then how about this, the UNIVERSE says that we are free! We are free because our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution and Bill of Rights SAYS that we are free and we are free because WE say that we are free! Only natural law and the Rights of Man exists!
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These things are guaranteed to us in our Constitution and our sacred secular documents, our traditions and the fabric of our cultural identity. It’s one thing that all Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jew or any other race, creed, color tint or hue can all agree on – Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness! From our perspective, the Constitution settles the matter. There simply is no authority in the Constitution to stop people from being free!
So how did we get here? Well, in 1917, Pennsylvania followed the national trend and banned opium and cocaine. The act was amended several times and on May 22, 1933 It was amended to include “marihuana”.
In the 1930’s apparently smoking cannabis was growing to be rampant in society, affecting even small cities like Lancaster. A report from the 30’s says that Lancaster was one of the American cities where smoking marijuana was well known. This seems only natural because what else were they going to do, alcohol was illegal from 1920 until 1933. That entire time, it was perfectly legal to grow your own weed and smoke it and sell it, and plenty of people around here and throughout Pennsylvania did, enthusiastically.
Marijuana was made illegal in Pennsylvania just 5 months before the prohibition of alcohol was repealed in December of 1933. I don’t know about you, but to me there is something very curious about the timing of bringing in cannabis prohibition right before the repeal of alcohol prohibition.
We know that Pennsylvania authorities were finding acres of the good bud in various parts of Pa. with several reports coming out of Philadelphia of whole fields of it. Around here though, I don’t think people really got the word about the fact that their hemp crop had now become a crime.
76 years ago today, local citizens read the news of the very first “marijuana” arrest in the Lancaster County. His name was Enos D. Sheaffer and he was an 81 year old hemp farmer who admitted to growing the crop but said that he had no idea that it was illegal. As far as he was concerned, he was growing hemp and he was growing it for seeds for his chickens to eat. He lived right over by the McCaskey high school on the New Holland Pike but he was originally from Leacock Township, where he is buried near New Holland in the Zeltenreich Reformed Church cemetery.
On May 22, the 80 year anniversary of cannabis prohibition in Pennsylvania, I visited the grave of Enos Sheaffer. It was the first time that I have visited his grave site and I felt that he was telling me that he wants me to tell his story and that he has waited so long to tell his story. He told me, "Tell them".
I have often felt guided by the ancestors. All of them seem to speak to us from the grave. They will not let their honor be tarnished and want the record set straight. They do not approve of any ban on this plant.
Many of you know that Hempfield Township was named when Lancaster County was formed in 1729, already known for the “Vast quantities of hemp raised there”!
Between the years of 1720 and 1870 there were over 100 water-powered mills for processing hemp fiber in Lancaster County alone and there were dozens more hemp mills in all of the surrounding counties. Those mills were everywhere, not just in Hempfield. They were in and around Lancaster, in Elizabethtown, Marietta, Columbia, Manheim, Lititz, Clay, Brickerville, Ephrata, Reamstown, Denver, Quarryville, New Holland, Churchtown, Bowmansville, Rotshville, Strasburg, Bird-In Hand, Intercourse and Paradise – in every early settlement!
They were found lining the banks of the Middle Creek, Hammer Creek, Muddy Creek, Swarr Run, the Conewago, Cocalico, Pequea, Chickies and the Big Beaver – in fact every single stream creek and river in the county and in every township, from one end to the other – fields and fields of hemp grown by many thousands of farmers!
Much of that hemp was brought from the surrounding countryside to merchants right here on the square where we stand. It was loaded up on Conestoga wagons, which themselves were covered in hemp canvass, and sent down to Philadelphia on this road right here, to be made into rope and canvass sails for the shipping industry.
Philadelphia had a large ship building industry and every ship that sailed the seas took up to 60 tons of hemp fiber for all the big thick anchor cables and all the rope rigging and canvass sails, that was all made out of hemp and all that hemp had to be replaced every couple of years thus ensuring an enormous and insatiable appetite for hemp from the interior of Pennsylvania. Lancaster County obliged and vast quantities of hemp were sent there for many years!
In 1747 Ben Franklin noted in a letter to Reverend Jared Elliot, “In your last you inquired about the kind of land from which our hemp is raised. I am told it must be very rich land. Sometimes they use drained swamps or banked meadows; but the greater part of our hemp comes from Conestoga, which a large and very rich tract of land on the banks of the Susquehanna, a large and fresh water river. It is brought down in wagons.
But we didn’t send all of our hemp to Philadelphia. A lot of it was used right here. If you go right down this street, up a few blocks to Mulberry St. you will be at the location of the historic Martin Ropewalk. It was a long low shack that extended for over a thousand feet to make long ropes and all sorts of rope products. It was in operation until the 1880’s.
Martin’s ropewalk was not the only rope factory in Lancaster, there were five of them. One of the ropemakers name was Jacob Metzger and he lived right here on King Street too.
In 1870 the Lancaster County Prison employed 85 prisoners to weave hemp ropes and nets and in fact prisoners often worked hemp from the beginning of the penal system in Pa.
But our ancestors didn’t just use the hemp for rope of course. They used it for grain bags, Conestoga wagon covers, rugs, curtains, table cloths, napkins, handkerchiefs, towels, sheets, pillow cases, bedding, pants, shirts, dresses and in fact the majority of their clothing was made with hemp. When the clothing wore out it was recycled and made into paper in one of the many local paper mills.
There were almost as many oil mills for processing hemp seed oil in Lancaster County as there were mills for processing the fiber, a way to make use of the many tons of excess hemp seed, a byproduct of the local hemp industry grown for fiber.
The oil was used in paints, varnishes, lacquers, lubricants, lamp oil and printers ink. The remaining seed cake was fed to the livestock and whole seeds were also used to feed poultry and sold for birdseed.
Thomas Paine visited and lived here for awhile. He saw and took note of all the hemp we raised around here and in his revolutionary pamphlet called Common Sense he observed that “hemp flourishes even to rankness here”!
George Washington too. Many people know that George Washington was a hemp farmer and grew hemp on his plantation in Virginia. Not as well known is that when George Washington was president he passed through Lancaster in 1794 on his way to Philadelphia, on this road, right here. He travelled down that road until he came to the town of Paradise where he decided to visit his good friend David Witmer.
Witmer ran a successful hemp mill in Paradise and Washington was very interested in building a mill of similar construction on his plantation in Virginia. The mill worker was so excited and nervous that the President of the United States of America, the hero of the Revolution was in the mill with him and while demonstrating how the hemp was flipped his arm was crushed under the weight of the ¾ ton Hempstone. It caused a big commotion and history was changed right there. Washington concluded that the mills we had in Lancaster County were too dangerous!
James Wright, Susanna Wright, General Edward Hand of the Rock Ford Plantation – they all grew hemp. They grew hemp where the Landis Valley Museum is and the Hans Herr House and it was grown by the people of the Ephrata Cloisters and the Moravians of Lititz. It was grown by virtually all of the early founders. Our only
President from Pennsylvania, James Buchannan rose to prominence as a state senator from Lancaster and one of his main causes as a senator was helping the hemp farmers of Lancaster and Pennsylvania by pressing for and getting increased tariffs on imported hemp.
At his request, he had the Secretary of the Navy rig half of an American Warship with hemp ropes and sails made with hemp raised in Lancaster County’s Salisbury Township by a man named Adam Hoar and the other half with hempen sails and rope made from Russian hemp. When the report came back in 1828 that Lancaster County hemp was the best in the world the local farmers cheered!
My great-great-great-great-great-
The importance, prevalence and scale of the hemp industry in Lancaster County can not be underestimated. It was a part of everyday life and no one could imagine anything different. It had been grown in all the old countries and was encouraged by William Penn since the founding of Pennsylvania in 1681. I don’t know about you but if it was good enough for William Penn it ought to be good enough for Tom Corbett!
Cannabis was used as medicine since the early days but cannabis medicines really started to become prevalent in the year 1840. That’s the year that Dr. Andrew Hershey of Marietta grew over 40 acres of hemp. Why would a doctor in Marietta grow so much hemp? Most likely because he wasn’t growing it for rope, he was growing it for medicinal cannabis.
In the mid 1800’s the local newspapers had numerous ads for the wonder drug cannabis indica and cannabis sativa. You could buy them in drug stores here in the city, right down here in fact on the corner was the store that offered the indica and you could buy the same in drug stores in Columbia, Manheim, Lititz, Ephrata and wherever there were pharmacist.
By the early 1900’s the hemp industry was virtually extinct in Lancaster County but medicinal cannabis was still being grown and hemp was also grown for fiber and seeds on a small scale that was not considered worthy of recording on the agricultural census anymore.
It is a huge story and it is quite shocking to contemplate how everything changed and got so bad. How they successfully demonized a plant that grew up with us since the dawn of time. But how did they erase the memory of hemp from the minds of the people of Lancaster County and from the pages of our history? How did such a huge part of our history get buried and why? They brainwashed the whole mass of people into hysteria against the crop of our ancestors and it just is not right!
But it was all a big mess. When Pennsylvania banned “marihuana” Lancaster County citizens did not really realize until it was too late that what was really banned was hemp. It was all part of this big conspiracy and a lot of the key players were right around here. Harry Anslinger was from Pennsylvania, Mellon Bank out in Pittsburgh, the Duponts right down there in Delaware. They conspired with others to outlaw the natural competitors to their chemicals and synthetic products. For this reason I say that we are in the belly of the beast and what better place to slay the beast than in the former hemp fields of Lancaster County?
It started in Lancaster County when they arrested an 81 year old hemp farmer named Enos Sheaffer in 1938. Years later in 1972 the popular former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, Raymond Shafer was appointed to head a commission to study the marijuana problem and the Shafer commission came back with the report that marijuana should be legalized or at the very least decriminalized! Governor Tom Corbett is no Raymond Shafer!
Today, Pennsylvania arrests over 25,000 people at a cost of nearly 350 million dollars. That means that over then next ten years Pennsylvania will ruin or severely disrupt the lives of 250,000 Pennsylvanians at a cost of nearly 3 ½ billion dollars! All while the people in the states of Colorado and Washington are living free – raising tax revenue, funding their schools while we are shutting down our schools and building prisons!
Is there any hope? Yes! State Senator Daylin Leach has introduced Senate Bill 528, also known as the Regulate Marijuana Act. It will allow for individuals to grow up to six plants, allows for the non-monetary transfer of cannabis, bars employers from off the job cannabis use and makes provisions for industrial hemp. If it is passed it will effectively end the 80 year war in Pennsylvania!
The very fact that Senate Bill 528 even exists calls for an immediate truce and cease fire in this war! We demand an immediate halt to ALL marijuana arrests in Lancaster City, in Lancaster County and in Pennsylvania! In 2013 it is no longer acceptable to put people in cages for enjoying the same plant that the people of Colorado and Washington enjoy freely!
Those holding on to prohibition are fighting a futile rear guard battle. They are like Hitler in the bunker in Berlin, refusing to give in as the city was destroyed all around him by the allied powers.
Make no mistake about it, we WILL win. Within each and every one of us is the power to achieve greatness and to change the world, especially when we band together! But as individuals who know the truth as we do now, we all have a responsibility to act.
Each and every one of us needs to ask our selves, should I be the one who stands up for freedom? Should I be the one who stands against injustice? Should I be the one who speaks the truth? Should I be the one who says NO MORE! END THIS 80 YEAR WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF PENNSYLVANIA! NOW! STOP ARRESTING PEOPLE AND THROWING THEM IN PRISON! STOP THE MADNESS NOW AND LET US LIVE FREE, LIKE WE WERE SUPPOSED TO IN AMERICA!
Today kicks off the Hemp Freedom Tour. 3 weeks from today we will hold the York Hemp Freedom Rally on Continental Square in downtown York on July 27. After that we are going to have the Reading Hemp Freedom Rally. The date will be announced on my Facebook page, Pennsylvania Hempland Security. Together we’re going to stop the 80 year war!
We do this because we love each other, because we care about each other, because deep down, we know that we are ALL one! We are all woven into the web of life and what one does to the strand it does to the entire web. We are all one family, one people. It’s about humanity and compassion. We are taking a stand so that no more lives are destroyed and no more families torn apart! Ever again! It ends with us and it ends now!
Thank you Lancaster, peace to you all and may all beings be released from suffering.
Make sure you check out the Facebook page, Pennsylvania Hempland Security and we will keep you informed as the revolution unfolds and discuss how each one of us can be a part of this historic change. Because ladies and gentlemen, CHANGE IS COMING TO PENNSYLVANIA!
When I got to the rally I decided that I would scrap my speech because it was too long and instead I would have more of a conversational tone and just talk from my heart.
The following is the speech that I had planned to use at the Lancaster Hemp Freedom Rally on Saturday, July 6, 2013:
Ladies and gentlemen, people of Lancaster, we stand on the threshold of historic change.
In case you haven't noticed, there is a real movement going on in Pennsylvania to legalize cannabis and hemp. We are in the pre-stages of real, true, profound and revolutionary change! This change will bring a restoration and a renewal of the greatness of our past merged with all the new possibilities of the present and the future.
Something profound is indeed happening. There is a real war of ideas being waged in Pennsylvania. It is refreshing but it is a tough fight. Many of us are on the front lines in the battles for change. I am proud to be around so many courageous patriots and freedom fighters here today!
There is a lot happening, right before our eyes. We are the witnesses and the participants in a great tidal movement of history that can not be stopped. Trying to stop this tremendously powerful idea will be as futile as trying to beat back the waves of a tsunami with batons and tazers!
Our movement can not lose because it springs from internal universal longings for freedom!
Some say that freedom is dead but it’s not, freedom lives in the hearts of each and every one of us!
We are free, beautiful and independent beings and we are free because GOD says that we are free! Don’t believe in God then how about this, the UNIVERSE says that we are free! We are free because our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution and Bill of Rights SAYS that we are free and we are free because WE say that we are free! Only natural law and the Rights of Man exists!
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These things are guaranteed to us in our Constitution and our sacred secular documents, our traditions and the fabric of our cultural identity. It’s one thing that all Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jew or any other race, creed, color tint or hue can all agree on – Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness! From our perspective, the Constitution settles the matter. There simply is no authority in the Constitution to stop people from being free!
So how did we get here? Well, in 1917, Pennsylvania followed the national trend and banned opium and cocaine. The act was amended several times and on May 22, 1933 It was amended to include “marihuana”.
In the 1930’s apparently smoking cannabis was growing to be rampant in society, affecting even small cities like Lancaster. A report from the 30’s says that Lancaster was one of the American cities where smoking marijuana was well known. This seems only natural because what else were they going to do, alcohol was illegal from 1920 until 1933. That entire time, it was perfectly legal to grow your own weed and smoke it and sell it, and plenty of people around here and throughout Pennsylvania did, enthusiastically.
Marijuana was made illegal in Pennsylvania just 5 months before the prohibition of alcohol was repealed in December of 1933. I don’t know about you, but to me there is something very curious about the timing of bringing in cannabis prohibition right before the repeal of alcohol prohibition.
We know that Pennsylvania authorities were finding acres of the good bud in various parts of Pa. with several reports coming out of Philadelphia of whole fields of it. Around here though, I don’t think people really got the word about the fact that their hemp crop had now become a crime.
76 years ago today, local citizens read the news of the very first “marijuana” arrest in the Lancaster County. His name was Enos D. Sheaffer and he was an 81 year old hemp farmer who admitted to growing the crop but said that he had no idea that it was illegal. As far as he was concerned, he was growing hemp and he was growing it for seeds for his chickens to eat. He lived right over by the McCaskey high school on the New Holland Pike but he was originally from Leacock Township, where he is buried near New Holland in the Zeltenreich Reformed Church cemetery.
On May 22, the 80 year anniversary of cannabis prohibition in Pennsylvania, I visited the grave of Enos Sheaffer. It was the first time that I have visited his grave site and I felt that he was telling me that he wants me to tell his story and that he has waited so long to tell his story. He told me, "Tell them".
I have often felt guided by the ancestors. All of them seem to speak to us from the grave. They will not let their honor be tarnished and want the record set straight. They do not approve of any ban on this plant.
Many of you know that Hempfield Township was named when Lancaster County was formed in 1729, already known for the “Vast quantities of hemp raised there”!
Between the years of 1720 and 1870 there were over 100 water-powered mills for processing hemp fiber in Lancaster County alone and there were dozens more hemp mills in all of the surrounding counties. Those mills were everywhere, not just in Hempfield. They were in and around Lancaster, in Elizabethtown, Marietta, Columbia, Manheim, Lititz, Clay, Brickerville, Ephrata, Reamstown, Denver, Quarryville, New Holland, Churchtown, Bowmansville, Rotshville, Strasburg, Bird-In Hand, Intercourse and Paradise – in every early settlement!
They were found lining the banks of the Middle Creek, Hammer Creek, Muddy Creek, Swarr Run, the Conewago, Cocalico, Pequea, Chickies and the Big Beaver – in fact every single stream creek and river in the county and in every township, from one end to the other – fields and fields of hemp grown by many thousands of farmers!
Much of that hemp was brought from the surrounding countryside to merchants right here on the square where we stand. It was loaded up on Conestoga wagons, which themselves were covered in hemp canvass, and sent down to Philadelphia on this road right here, to be made into rope and canvass sails for the shipping industry.
Philadelphia had a large ship building industry and every ship that sailed the seas took up to 60 tons of hemp fiber for all the big thick anchor cables and all the rope rigging and canvass sails, that was all made out of hemp and all that hemp had to be replaced every couple of years thus ensuring an enormous and insatiable appetite for hemp from the interior of Pennsylvania. Lancaster County obliged and vast quantities of hemp were sent there for many years!
In 1747 Ben Franklin noted in a letter to Reverend Jared Elliot, “In your last you inquired about the kind of land from which our hemp is raised. I am told it must be very rich land. Sometimes they use drained swamps or banked meadows; but the greater part of our hemp comes from Conestoga, which a large and very rich tract of land on the banks of the Susquehanna, a large and fresh water river. It is brought down in wagons.
But we didn’t send all of our hemp to Philadelphia. A lot of it was used right here. If you go right down this street, up a few blocks to Mulberry St. you will be at the location of the historic Martin Ropewalk. It was a long low shack that extended for over a thousand feet to make long ropes and all sorts of rope products. It was in operation until the 1880’s.
Martin’s ropewalk was not the only rope factory in Lancaster, there were five of them. One of the ropemakers name was Jacob Metzger and he lived right here on King Street too.
In 1870 the Lancaster County Prison employed 85 prisoners to weave hemp ropes and nets and in fact prisoners often worked hemp from the beginning of the penal system in Pa.
But our ancestors didn’t just use the hemp for rope of course. They used it for grain bags, Conestoga wagon covers, rugs, curtains, table cloths, napkins, handkerchiefs, towels, sheets, pillow cases, bedding, pants, shirts, dresses and in fact the majority of their clothing was made with hemp. When the clothing wore out it was recycled and made into paper in one of the many local paper mills.
There were almost as many oil mills for processing hemp seed oil in Lancaster County as there were mills for processing the fiber, a way to make use of the many tons of excess hemp seed, a byproduct of the local hemp industry grown for fiber.
The oil was used in paints, varnishes, lacquers, lubricants, lamp oil and printers ink. The remaining seed cake was fed to the livestock and whole seeds were also used to feed poultry and sold for birdseed.
Thomas Paine visited and lived here for awhile. He saw and took note of all the hemp we raised around here and in his revolutionary pamphlet called Common Sense he observed that “hemp flourishes even to rankness here”!
George Washington too. Many people know that George Washington was a hemp farmer and grew hemp on his plantation in Virginia. Not as well known is that when George Washington was president he passed through Lancaster in 1794 on his way to Philadelphia, on this road, right here. He travelled down that road until he came to the town of Paradise where he decided to visit his good friend David Witmer.
Witmer ran a successful hemp mill in Paradise and Washington was very interested in building a mill of similar construction on his plantation in Virginia. The mill worker was so excited and nervous that the President of the United States of America, the hero of the Revolution was in the mill with him and while demonstrating how the hemp was flipped his arm was crushed under the weight of the ¾ ton Hempstone. It caused a big commotion and history was changed right there. Washington concluded that the mills we had in Lancaster County were too dangerous!
James Wright, Susanna Wright, General Edward Hand of the Rock Ford Plantation – they all grew hemp. They grew hemp where the Landis Valley Museum is and the Hans Herr House and it was grown by the people of the Ephrata Cloisters and the Moravians of Lititz. It was grown by virtually all of the early founders. Our only
President from Pennsylvania, James Buchannan rose to prominence as a state senator from Lancaster and one of his main causes as a senator was helping the hemp farmers of Lancaster and Pennsylvania by pressing for and getting increased tariffs on imported hemp.
At his request, he had the Secretary of the Navy rig half of an American Warship with hemp ropes and sails made with hemp raised in Lancaster County’s Salisbury Township by a man named Adam Hoar and the other half with hempen sails and rope made from Russian hemp. When the report came back in 1828 that Lancaster County hemp was the best in the world the local farmers cheered!
My great-great-great-great-great-
The importance, prevalence and scale of the hemp industry in Lancaster County can not be underestimated. It was a part of everyday life and no one could imagine anything different. It had been grown in all the old countries and was encouraged by William Penn since the founding of Pennsylvania in 1681. I don’t know about you but if it was good enough for William Penn it ought to be good enough for Tom Corbett!
Cannabis was used as medicine since the early days but cannabis medicines really started to become prevalent in the year 1840. That’s the year that Dr. Andrew Hershey of Marietta grew over 40 acres of hemp. Why would a doctor in Marietta grow so much hemp? Most likely because he wasn’t growing it for rope, he was growing it for medicinal cannabis.
In the mid 1800’s the local newspapers had numerous ads for the wonder drug cannabis indica and cannabis sativa. You could buy them in drug stores here in the city, right down here in fact on the corner was the store that offered the indica and you could buy the same in drug stores in Columbia, Manheim, Lititz, Ephrata and wherever there were pharmacist.
By the early 1900’s the hemp industry was virtually extinct in Lancaster County but medicinal cannabis was still being grown and hemp was also grown for fiber and seeds on a small scale that was not considered worthy of recording on the agricultural census anymore.
It is a huge story and it is quite shocking to contemplate how everything changed and got so bad. How they successfully demonized a plant that grew up with us since the dawn of time. But how did they erase the memory of hemp from the minds of the people of Lancaster County and from the pages of our history? How did such a huge part of our history get buried and why? They brainwashed the whole mass of people into hysteria against the crop of our ancestors and it just is not right!
But it was all a big mess. When Pennsylvania banned “marihuana” Lancaster County citizens did not really realize until it was too late that what was really banned was hemp. It was all part of this big conspiracy and a lot of the key players were right around here. Harry Anslinger was from Pennsylvania, Mellon Bank out in Pittsburgh, the Duponts right down there in Delaware. They conspired with others to outlaw the natural competitors to their chemicals and synthetic products. For this reason I say that we are in the belly of the beast and what better place to slay the beast than in the former hemp fields of Lancaster County?
It started in Lancaster County when they arrested an 81 year old hemp farmer named Enos Sheaffer in 1938. Years later in 1972 the popular former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, Raymond Shafer was appointed to head a commission to study the marijuana problem and the Shafer commission came back with the report that marijuana should be legalized or at the very least decriminalized! Governor Tom Corbett is no Raymond Shafer!
Today, Pennsylvania arrests over 25,000 people at a cost of nearly 350 million dollars. That means that over then next ten years Pennsylvania will ruin or severely disrupt the lives of 250,000 Pennsylvanians at a cost of nearly 3 ½ billion dollars! All while the people in the states of Colorado and Washington are living free – raising tax revenue, funding their schools while we are shutting down our schools and building prisons!
Is there any hope? Yes! State Senator Daylin Leach has introduced Senate Bill 528, also known as the Regulate Marijuana Act. It will allow for individuals to grow up to six plants, allows for the non-monetary transfer of cannabis, bars employers from off the job cannabis use and makes provisions for industrial hemp. If it is passed it will effectively end the 80 year war in Pennsylvania!
The very fact that Senate Bill 528 even exists calls for an immediate truce and cease fire in this war! We demand an immediate halt to ALL marijuana arrests in Lancaster City, in Lancaster County and in Pennsylvania! In 2013 it is no longer acceptable to put people in cages for enjoying the same plant that the people of Colorado and Washington enjoy freely!
Those holding on to prohibition are fighting a futile rear guard battle. They are like Hitler in the bunker in Berlin, refusing to give in as the city was destroyed all around him by the allied powers.
Make no mistake about it, we WILL win. Within each and every one of us is the power to achieve greatness and to change the world, especially when we band together! But as individuals who know the truth as we do now, we all have a responsibility to act.
Each and every one of us needs to ask our selves, should I be the one who stands up for freedom? Should I be the one who stands against injustice? Should I be the one who speaks the truth? Should I be the one who says NO MORE! END THIS 80 YEAR WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF PENNSYLVANIA! NOW! STOP ARRESTING PEOPLE AND THROWING THEM IN PRISON! STOP THE MADNESS NOW AND LET US LIVE FREE, LIKE WE WERE SUPPOSED TO IN AMERICA!
Today kicks off the Hemp Freedom Tour. 3 weeks from today we will hold the York Hemp Freedom Rally on Continental Square in downtown York on July 27. After that we are going to have the Reading Hemp Freedom Rally. The date will be announced on my Facebook page, Pennsylvania Hempland Security. Together we’re going to stop the 80 year war!
We do this because we love each other, because we care about each other, because deep down, we know that we are ALL one! We are all woven into the web of life and what one does to the strand it does to the entire web. We are all one family, one people. It’s about humanity and compassion. We are taking a stand so that no more lives are destroyed and no more families torn apart! Ever again! It ends with us and it ends now!
Thank you Lancaster, peace to you all and may all beings be released from suffering.
Make sure you check out the Facebook page, Pennsylvania Hempland Security and we will keep you informed as the revolution unfolds and discuss how each one of us can be a part of this historic change. Because ladies and gentlemen, CHANGE IS COMING TO PENNSYLVANIA!
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