In the coming weeks there will be two events celebrating the legacy of Thaddeus Stevens to be followed by the grand opening of the new museum about Stevens in Lancaster, PA on May 1 and 2.
The celebrations will start with a birthday party for Stevens on Saturday, April 4, at noon at the Stevens museum annex at 52 Chambersburg Street in Gettysburg, PA. Stevens was born in 1792 in Danville, Vermont. The Thaddeus Stevens Society will observe the occasion with a potluck picnic in the yard behind the museum annex. The Society will provide hot dogs, hamburgers, birthday cake and drinks. People are invited to bring a side dish or dessert to share. If you plan to attend this free event, please call, text or email the Society at 717-347-8159 or info@thaddeusstevenssociety.com
The second event will be on Friday, April 10, at 4:30 pm at the Shreiner-Concord Cemetery at the corner of Mulberry and Chestnut Streets in Lancaster, PA. It will be the annual ceremony at Stevens’s grave. Stevens picked this cemetery because it was the only graveyard in Lancaster at the time that was open to both Blacks and whites and he referred to this fact in his epitaph: “I repose in the quiet and secluded spot, not from any natural preference for solitude, but finding other cemeteries limited as to race by charter rules, I have chosen this that I might illustrate in my death the principles which I advocated through a long life: Equality of man before his creator.”
The ceremony will be followed at 6 pm by the Stevens Day dinner at the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology at 750 E. King Street in Lancaster. The dinner is free to members of the Thaddeus Stevens Society.
The grand finale of the Stevens celebrations will be the opening of the Thaddeus Stevens and Lydia Hamilton Smith Center for History and Democracy at 13 E. Vine Street, Lancaster, PA. Twenty-six years in the making, the $24 million museum will have a ribbon cutting at 9 am on May 1. Then at 12:30 pm the Society will have a special awards ceremony at the Shreiner-Concord Cemetery at the corner of Mulberry and Chestnut Streets. This will be followed at 1:30 pm of a tour of the nearby Stevens School Residences. The celebration continues Friday evening with a ticketed gala in the new and expanded Commons on Vine at the Lancaster County Convention Center, located directly adjacent to the Stevens & Smith
Then on Saturday, May 2, there will be a free block party from noon to 6 pm on Vine Street beside the museum celebrating the opening. The event will feature music, art, history-themed vendors, food and beverage trucks, family-friendly activities, and much more. Museum admission will again be free on Saturday, though advance registration for timed-entry tickets is strongly encouraged. More information about these events is available at this link: https://stevensandsmithcenter.org/events/
Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which operates the Thaddeus Stevens Museum at 46 Chambersburg St. in Gettysburg, PA. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the Society’s website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/
