[1] The property on which this historic two-story, stuccoed stone structure was erected dates to 1717 when William Penn awarded a land grant of 1,000 acres near the Little Conestoga Creek in what would later become Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to Hans Brubaker and Christian Hershey.

The original residence was built on the southern portion of this land between 1755 and 1756 by Christian Stoneman or John Stoner.

Advertised for sale in the Lancaster Journal on November 2, 1825, as a "beautiful country seat and farm called 'Mount Pleasant,'" it was purchased in 1826 by Langdon Cheves, who had served as the ninth Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from January 19, 1814, to March 3, 1815.

[6] When Cheves chose to return to South Carolina circa 1830, Coleman reacquired the property, and held it until 1835 when it was converted into the Abbeville Institute.

[6] Muhlenberg departed Lancaster in 1826 and founded his famous Church Institute at Flushing, Long Island, in 1828, but he had left a lasting scholastic legacy as founder of the Second Public School District in Pennsylvania.