Lancaster Marriott Penn Square
25 N Queen Street
The hotel is built within the 110-year-old Watt and Shand building – a
Baroque-revival design dating back to the 1700s, and was four stories high, made
of buff brick and elaborate terra cotta and marble ornamentation. The structure
was demolished in 2006 but the Beaux Arts façade was preserved and became part
of the Lancaster Marriott and Convention Center.
Within the walls of the hotel is the newly excavated Thaddeus Stevens and
Hamilton Smith Historic site. Thaddeus Stevens and his housekeeper Lydia
Hamilton Smith aided fugitive slaves, who gained access to the basement to
Steven’s law office where he and Lydia Hamilton Stevens lived, by means of an
underground cistern that was adjacent to Steven’s brewery.
You can view the history museum on the bottom floor of the Marriott.
The William H Montgomery House was built in 1804, and has been referred to as
one of Lancaster’s great Federal Period Mansions. It has been renovated and is
used to host events at the Marriott. The architect for the house was Stephen
Hills, who also designed the first Capitol building in Harrisburg. William H
Montgomery was a prominent local lawyer.
The Marriott sits directly across the street from Penn Square, (formerly called
Centre Square) where the second and third courthouses of Lancaster stood.
In 1744 the Treaty of Lancaster was signed in the old Lancaster
Courthouse which stood on the site of the Monument. On September 27, 1777 the
Second Continental Congress met at that exact spot.
The Monument was dedicated July 4, 1874
the purpose of the monument was to pay tribute to Lancastrian Union Soldiers
killed during the Civil War. The monument has been listed on the National
Register of Historic Places since April
2, 1973.
Parking for the hotel
is in the convention center parking garage-max height 6’8, right out of
the hotel driveway right on Duke Street, right into the parking garage (approx.
½ block up). You can enter the
hotel from the 2nd floor of the parking garage.
For vehicles over 6’8 and under 8’2: right out of the hotel
driveway, turn right onto Duke Street and Left on E Mifflin Street.
(GPS address is 146 E Mifflin)
RESERVATIONS
Phone number is 1-717-239-1600
Give them the GROUP CODE of NSSAR
Rooms are $149 plus tax per night with a 48 hour cancellation policy.
These rates are good for the dates July 8 - 17, 2024.
The reservation link for the hotel to register on line is:
If you have problems please contact the NSSAR Congress Planning Chair, Paul
Callanan, 704-756-0363 or LTCMRSC@aol.com.