Submitted by Leona Baker, Historical Society of Salisbury Township

Tucked snugly to the west of White Chimneys in Gap is another inn built by Amos Slaymaker in 1798. Erected as a stagecoach stop, this edifice was named the "Sign of the John Adams" to honor John Adams the elder, then President of the United States. It was one of the more important taverns along the Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike.

The 5,000-square-foot offset T-shaped building has limestone walls that are 17 to 22 inches deep, with 16-by-16-foot rooms and 9-foot-high ceilings. The four rooms in the front were used as the bar/dining room.

Seven fireplaces kept the tavern warm, one a large walk-in fireplace in the rear office complex. The four rooms on the second floor provided separate sleeping rooms for men and women. Stagecoach drivers and their men slept in the open attic. There are many visitors' comments written in charcoal on the walls, one dated June 20, 1822.

The original springhouse, which supplied a cool drink to passersby until 1980, is today a workshop, built on the foundations of the springhouse. Houston Run flows north to the Pequea Creek between the John Adams and White Chimneys.

Amos, scion of upper-class society in Lancaster County and owner of White Chimneys, was elected as justice of the peace as well as tax collector and used the John Adams' rear rooms, with a separate entrance for his offices, a store and a bank. He also won the position of postmaster for Gap in 1806.

In those times, a landowner was responsible for the patch of roadway that went past his or her property. When the Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike was built in 1796, a brief portion of the pike passed Amos' properties. It just so happened that was where the tollgate was positioned, and Amos was commissioned to manage the gate and take tolls.

In those days the "post office" was a pigeonholed box with names of box holders on a tag beneath their respective pigeonholes. The "post office" was portable and kept in the postmaster's home or business. In this case, it was located at Amos Slaymaker's Sign of the John Adams.

The Gap Post Office was located west of the tollgate, and the citizens of the Gap area were east of the tollgate. As justice of the peace, Amos was used to dealing with petty bickering. But he found himself the target of protest, for those thrifty citizens were not happy to have to pay a toll to get their mail. After several landowners took their complaint to the Court of Common Pleas in Lancaster, Amos was forced to yield to his neighbors and give them free access to the post office.

When Amos died in 1837, his son Henry tried to hold on to the Sign of the John Adams, but Amos' debts were too great. Henry sold 32 acres with the building, which became a private residence. Subsequent owners were the Duffields, Stauffers, Himeses and Martins, down to Clinton and Anna Martin in 1925. They built the Stagecoach Motel on the west side of the property. Four generations later, that property was sold off.

Today, the Stagecoach Motel is gone, but the Sign of the John Adams remains, close to an ever-widening Lincoln Highway. The present owners are deeply devoted to the restoration of the old inn and its history.

Information was gathered from Joan Lorenz's 2002 book, "A History of Salisbury Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania" and the Pennsylvania Historic Resource Survey, 1983.