Lancaster Industrial School for Girls

Lancaster Industrial School for Girls occupies a landscaped campus southeast of Lancaster center, between Old Common Road and Still River Road. Established in April 1854 with a $20,000 legislative appropriation, it is described as the first girls' training school in the United States and the first in the world to give girls individual rooms instead of dormitory beds. The aim was less vocational than the healing of emotional troubles among girls the courts classed as delinquent, and life ran on honor principles. The district includes eight brick cottages, the first being Fay Cottage of 1855, along with a chapel, barn, shops and an infirmary. Three clapboard farmhouses from the late eighteenth century, such as the Thomas Safford House and the Abner Pollard House, were acquired for residences and offices. The land was once the town common, site of a 1705 meeting house, and was called Bridecake Plain. The grounds still serve penal and community programs.