LANCASTER, PA — On Thursday, June 13, LancasterHistory inducted three individuals into its esteemed cohort of Fellows of the Lancaster County Historical Society. At the organization’s Annual Dinner, held at the Excelsior Lancaster, President & CEO Tom Ryan celebrated John H. Brubaker, III, Darlene A. Colón, and Dr. Leroy T. Hopkins, Jr. and awarded each a bronze medal, naming them as Fellows of the Lancaster County Historical Society.

According to LancasterHistory’s institutional records, the Fellows of the Lancaster County Historical Society were created in 1992 by incoming historical society president, Dr. Leroy Hopkins, Jr. The designation recognizes individuals who have contributed significantly to the community’s understanding of Lancaster County’s history over an extended period of scholarly activity, or who have had a significant impact on the vitality of the organization over an extended period of service.

The first recipients of the award, according to a Spring 1992 “Lancaster County Historical Society Newsletter,” were President James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens, awarded posthumously, and John W.W. Loose, the then outgoing president of the historical society. Since 1992, this honor has been conferred to 17 individuals over 22 years.

The following individuals have received the designation of Fellow of the Lancaster County Historical Society. Brubaker, Colón, and Hopkins join Michael Abel as the few remaining living Fellows.

• Michael L. Abel
• John H. Brubaker
• James Buchanan*
• Darlene A. Colón
• Marian R. Gerhart*
• John M. Gibson*
• Ralph Goodno*
• Clarke Hess*
• Leroy T. Hopkins, Jr., Ph.D.
• John Jarvis*
• Mortimer Kadushin*
• William E. Krantz*
• Gerald S. Lestz*
• John Ward Wilson Loose*
• Willis Shenk*
• Thaddeus Stevens*
• Stacy B.C. Wood, Jr.*

*Deceased

John H. Brubaker, III is deeply connected to Lancaster’s history, spending more than four decades writing for Lancaster Newspaper (LNP) as an investigative reporter and “The Scribbler.” He has written seven books, including Down the Susquehanna to the Chesapeake (Penn State Press, 2002) and Massacre of the Conestogas (The History Press, 2010). He is a regular contributor to Pennsylvania Heritage magazine. Brubaker has talked about his books and other historical subjects to more than 150 groups in Central Pennsylvania. Brubaker’s most recent book, Sons of East Tennessee: Civil War Veterans Divided and Reconciled, was published in 2022. Brubaker and his wife, Christine, a longtime conservationist, live in Lancaster.

Darlene A. Colón has woven history into her everyday life. Colón is a passionate and engaging educator, well-known and recognizable for her first-person, living history portrayal of Lydia Hamilton Smith, Lancaster businesswoman, property owner, and housekeeper to Thaddeus Stevens. Colón’s history is deeply tied to Lancaster, her 3x great grandfather and freedom fighter Ezekiel Thompson having participated in the Christiana Resistance on September 11, 1851, a pivotal moment before the outbreak of the Civil War. Colón is active with multiple historical organizations, including the Christiana Historical Society (where she serves as president) and the African American Historical Society of South-Central PA (previously serving as president and organization co-founder).

Leroy T. Hopkins, Jr., Ph.D. is one of the most prolific and well-known Lancaster County researchers and historians on Black history and the history of African Americans and Germans in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Hopkins graduated with a bachelor’s degree in German and Russian from Millersville State College (Millersville University) in 1966, and, in 1974, Hopkins received his Ph.D. in Germanic Languages & Literature from Harvard University. Hopkins served as the Associate Director for Program & Planning and then as Acting Executive Director of the Urban League of Lancaster County from 1976-79. He taught German at Millersville University from 1979 until his retirement in 2015. Hopkins has served on the board of numerous non-profits including LancasterHistory, the Lancaster County Library, the Southeast Health Center, and the Black History Advisory Committee of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC). He is a long-time member of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Lancaster, home of the Leroy T. Hopkins and Mary Taft Hopkins Study Center, named for his parents. He is also a founding member and former president of the African American Historical Society of South-Central PA, and a board member and past president of LancasterHistory.