Davis, David, Farm

Along a farm lane in the limestone plain of central Lancaster County, the David Davis Farm is a working farmstead whose buildings were added to over more than two centuries. The original two-story stone house dates to about 1750, with a remodeling in 1787 and stone and frame additions from about 1815 to about 1890. The Classic Sweitzer stone bank barn is dated to about 1780, and a stone springhouse to about 1800. The farm was patented to David Davis, a Baptist from Cardiganshire, Wales, and later owned by Amish and Mennonite families, notably the Martins, who held it from 1796 into the twentieth century. Its significance lies in how clearly the layered construction records these successive groups. The family burial ground holds about fifty gravestones within an iron fence.