Lancaster County furnaces in the Conestoga Valley, Caernarvon Township, were owned by David Jones in 1736; old mines are still there that bear his name; in 1743 David Branson built the Windsor forges, in the same township; among his partners was Lynford Lardner, who married his daughter Rebecca. On the banks of Furnace Run, near Colemanville, may be seen an old cinder heap, which is all that remains of the Martic Furnace, built 1751-52 on 3400 acres of land, with the usual houses and shops; during the Revolution, round iron was drawn under the hammer at the forge, and bored out for musket barrels; negro slaves were always employed here; among the past owners of this furnace, from 1777-93, was a Philadelphia merchant, Michael Hillegas, who became first Continental treasurer in 1775; in 1777 he was appointed first treasurer of the United States and continued in that office until 1789. Near, just below Safe Harbor, in the Susquehanna River, is Indian Rock, with a number of inscriptions on it, the writing may be seen when water is low; same writing is found in Beaver County. The bridge over the Susquehanna River from Columbia to Wrightsville has been replaced several times, one was burned to stem the tide of the Confederates. At Elizabethtown are the Masonic Homes of Pennsylvania, on 982 acres, with Grand Lodge Hall, 437 feet long by 160 feet wide, seventeen dwelling houses, and other buildings. Georgian architecture, designed by Zantzinger, Borie and Medary. [Illustration: YORK COUNTY] V YORK COUNTY Formed August 9, 1749; named for the House of York, England. An agricultural region of great fertility. First authorized settlements were made in 1733. Before the white settlers came, the territory west of the Susquehanna River was hunting ground for the Conestoga Indians, a branch of the Mohawks, who migrated to New York State about 1750; also for the Susquehannocks and Conewagos, who had their village at present site of York Haven. When a treaty with the Indians at Albany, in 1736, gave Penn’s heirs right to the territory from west of the Susquehanna to the South Mountain, immigrants from Europe flocked into York County, in vast numbers, and proved a strong and influential part of the population. During the colonial period four companies of soldiers from this county assisted in driving the French and Indians from the western part of the province before 1758.