Stevens Smith Historic Site
Thaddeus Stevens was born in Vermont in 1792. A congressional leader known as the Great Commoner, and with the life-long assistance of Lydia Smith, an African-American woman, Stevens led the nation in the political and legal implementation of American equality during the reconstruction of the American Constitution following the Civil War. Stevens, the congressional sponsor of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, passionately fought slavery and discrimination in America from the 1830’s until his death in 1868. With Smith’s assistance, he was active in the Underground Railroad in Lancaster and Pennsylvania. The Stevens Smith Historic Site in Lancaster provides a unique opportunity to experience the profound forces shaping American society in a context that bore witness to its daily struggle. Archimuse, with the assistance of American History Workshop, has enlivened this experience with “story-telling, theater, and exhibitory.”
Two distinct areas of the Historic Site in Lancaster were planned to be developed into interpretive buildings for public visitation. The Stevens Smith Memorial Museum, an interactive education, exhibition, and retail complex, was to be a new 20,000 square foot building constructed on vacant land. The surviving historic buildings, the homes of Stevens and Smith, as well as Stevens’ law office, were be restored as the Stevens Smith Historic Site Museum.
In 2003 a group of archaeologists led by Jim Delle from Kutztown University and Mary Ann Levine from Franklin & Marshall College were commissioned by the Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County to dig in the courtyards between the historic buildings. What they discovered, in addition to thousands of 19th century artifacts, was an empty brick cistern beneath the courtyard between the Kleiss Saloon and the Stevens House, with a cast-iron spittoon inside, connected via a makeshift tunnel to the cellar of the saloon. This has been interpreted by the discovering archaeologists, and other experts , as indicating Underground Railroad activity under the agency of Stevens and Smith. This aspect of Stevens’ and Smith’s history, long suspected will constitute an important element of the Interpretive Center.
The Archimuse design for the Stevens Smith Historic Site and Interpretive Center consists of the restoration of historic buildings, including the excavated cistern, combined with new structures that make it possible to introduce large numbers of people into exhibits within the historic buildings and archeology.
