The Mechanics Grove Farmhouse of Horror
Doc Zimmerly's farmhouse in Mechanics Grove Situated in East Drumore Township, Lancaster County, is the rural village of Mechanics Grove. While its unclear when this village, just south of Quarryville, sprang into being, there are mentions of Mechanics Grove in Lancaster newspapers as early as 1847, and the 1864 Bridgens' Atlas of Lancaster County shows the village as a cluster of a dozen or so homes, shops and businesses. While it may seem strange that a tiny farming community devoid of factories should be named Mechanics Grove, at the time of its founding, the word "mechanic" was used to describe any type of tradesperson, from basket weavers to carriage builders. For most of its history, Mechanics Grove was a quiet, unassuming community amid the rolling farmlands, but things changed in 1935, when authorities uncovered a supposedly haunted "house of horror" owned by a disreputable physician known as as Doc Zimmerly. Born in Beaver County in 1868, Harr...
