Henry Kehler’s Historic Locust Grove Inn

The property at 3985 Locust Grove Road in West Hempfield Township, between Columbia and Mountville, can be traced to William Penn. Penn gave land grants to the Kehler and Forry families and they settled in the area and began to develop the land. John Forry took up the land that would eventually feature the Locust Grove Inn as early as 1730. A few years after the completion of the Lancaster and Susquehanna turnpike, around 1803, John Forry Jr. built a large, two-story brick tavern one and a half miles east of Columbia on the south side of the turnpike. The road today is known as Lincoln Highway (Route 462).

Isaac Vaughen, from an old and respectable family in Chester County, moved into the building just before it was completed. He remained two years before moving to Columbia. Vaughen was succeeded by Joshua Kehler, who had been keeping another tavern on the Susquehanna River. Kehler successfully cultivated a farm on the plot, and raised cattle. He conducted the Locust Grove Inn in the building and kept it for 45 years. It was an era when people rode stagecoaches or horses – or walked. Soon, the inn became a “mecca” for travelers, according to a 1954 Columbia News article. The property predated the Union Stock Yards in Lancaster and it became an important rendezvous for cattle drovers. For lack of any other means of transportation, cattle were driven over the highway and humans and cattle alike found the inn a welcome overnight stopping place.

Joshua Kehler married Anna Neff of West Hempfield, a descendent of Francis Neff, the earliest American progenitor of the family, who emigrated from Switzerland in 1717 because of religious prosecution.
Kehler was a Mennonite, his wife a member of the German Reformed Church. The Kehlers had five daughters and one son, Henry. Henry N. Kehler was born in the inn/home in 1821 and lived his entire life there.

Henry Kehler took over the 140-acre farm, reportedly one of the best farms in the county. He converted the inn into “one of the finest private residences in the county,” according to Ellis and Evans’ History of Lancaster County. The original Kehler homestead was a distance north of the inn. It was a stone house on a plot of land on the north side of what is now the Lincoln Highway. It became a tenant house on the Kehler estate when the Kehlers closed the inn and moved into it as their living quarters.

“one of the finest private residences in the county,” according to Ellis and Evans’ History of Lancaster County

Kehler was a director in the First National Bank of Columbia for more than three decades. People looked up to him due to his intelligence, sound judgment and business integrity. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church. Prior to the Civil War, he was a Democrat, but switched to Republican. Generations passed the portals of the Kehler home at Locust Grove, regarding it as part of the terrain. A large K (for Kehler) is made from different-colored stone in the jagged rock wall at the corner of Locust Grove Road and Route 462. Through the years, the former inn building saw the advent and decline of the trolley, the installation of bus service, and the rise of the automobile.

Extra, extra! Read all about it!

It was front page news in the July 29, 1954 issue of the Columbia News when the heirs of the late Henry Kehler sold the landmark Lincoln Highway property outside the family for the first time in nearly a century and a half. Mr. and Mrs. Robert P. Williams of Mountville purchased the white brick building and surrounding property. Mr. Williams worked in construction with his two sons, Robert L. and Charles. The Williamses told the newspaper they were going to tear down the barns at the rear of the property and convert the main building into a 3-unit apartment building. Mr. and Mrs. Williams would occupy the first-floor apartment.

“The structure has a unique history with roots that penetrate deep into the life of the county,” the article said. “The architectural style of the house and the events associated with it over the years have imbued it with a personality” Williams hoped to preserve. He vowed not to change the contour of the house.

“The architectural style of the house and the events associated with it over the years have imbued it with a personality”

Robert P. Williams’ grandson, Mark Williams, said cattle were slaughtered at the farm and Mark remembers a cast-iron wood stove used for rendering. Mark’s uncle, Charles H. Williams, lived in an upstairs apartment for years and directed the Lancaster Red Rose Barbershop Chorus. A large stone fireplace still in the yard was used for corn roasts for the chorus’s annual picnic at the property for several years in the 1970s. Mark said a chicken house was across the street where the Susquehanna Fishing Tackle shop now operates. Mark and his wife Pamela lived in the then white-painted brick home with green trim from 1978 to 1981 until they had their first child. The fireplaces were gorgeous when I was there, Mark said. His family erected a Christmas tree near the fireplace in the main living room. “There was a bay window in the front apartment with a large window seat. I used to lay on the window seat when it rained, he said. “I want to duplicate it but I’ve never had a house I’ve been able to do it.”

” I want to duplicate it but I’ve never had a house I’ve been able to do it.”

A pumphouse still on the property supplied water before public utilities came to the area. There is a spring house, an attached smokehouse, an outdoor kitchen (in need of repair), a porch, and a handful of original interior features. The breezeway and extension house the remains of the old stockyard and smokehouse with an attic and an old wine cellar. Several tall trees grow on the lot, which has easy access to both Lincoln Highway and Locust Grove Road. The driveway is paved and there is plenty of room for parking, including wide vehicles. “You are not going to find too many places with that much yard and land around it,” Williams said. “It is a nice-sized lot.”

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