A group of Elizabethtown College students has been working hard to preserve the history of a property just south of Bainbridge. Through the college's Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE), four students recently helped to resuscitate the history and historic significance of the Billmeyer quarry property, which is adjacent to the Haldeman Mansion, located in the Locust Grove area at 230 Locust Grove Road. The project was carried out at the request of the Haldeman Mansion Preservation Society (HMPS).

"For the past several years, HMPS has been contacted by the CCCE, offering us an opportunity to propose projects for their students, faculty and staff to engage and deepen their involvement in service in local contexts," said Dale Good, a member of the HMPS board of directors.

This year's project was completed by four sophomore engineering students - Lauren Comly, Drew Riley, Ruth Jacob and Ethan Vallone - who teamed with Fay Landis Burke of Elizabethtown to create images of the original 211-acre farmstead and its Haldeman Homestead Mansion, which was demolished to make way for quarrying operations. Framed computer-generated images of the farmstead, the mansion facade and mansion floor plans were presented to HMPS. They will eventually be hung in the Haldeman Mansion, where the interior is being actively restored.

The students created the images from Burke's memory. When she was a young girl, her family resided on the quarry property, first in a small stone house built prior to 1758 and subsequently in the larger stone Haldeman Homestead Mansion, which had been built in two stages, prior to 1767 and circa 1798. While the quarry property mansion has vanished, the foundations of the small stone house and a barn remain after more than 250 years. The Billmeyer property is currently managed by Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority.

HMPS is a nonprofit organization with a vision to restore and renovate the Haldeman Mansion and its Locust Grove property for use as a community gathering place as well as a local history and Native American museum and educational center. The student-led project was a perfect fit for HMPS, Good said.

"This project relates directly to our local history museum and educational interests," he explained. "The Society's Locust Grove and Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority's Billmeyer properties are, with historic importance, linked through their Native American, Colonial and early American heritages. (The project) has added clarity to the relationship between the Haldeman Homestead Mansion at Billmeyer and the Haldeman Mansion at Locust Grove. ... The students' computer images help HMPS to visualize and chronicle an important part of northwest Lancaster County's history."