Following medical training at Trinity College, Dublin, Hand was enlisted as Surgeon's Mate with the 18th Royal Irish Regiment of Foot and sent to garrison Fort Pitt in America. He resigned from British service in 1774 and came to Lancaster to practice medicine. In 1775, Edward Hand married Katharine ("Kitty") Ewing, the niece of Jasper Yeates, set up a household in the city. Hand joined the Continental Army as Lt. Colonel of the 1st Battalion of Pennsylvania Riflemen in July of 1775. He led troops at Boston, Long Island, White Plains and Trenton, becoming Adjutant General to Washington in 1781.

Katharine was served by enslaved persons of African descent: a woman, Sue, a girl, Bet and a boy, Bob, who was entrusted to convey goods and money over long distances between General Hand and Kitty in Lancaster. After the war, Katherine Hand gave birth to five more children.

Hand returned to Lancaster at the War’s end and entered politics as a Federalist. He served in Congress, the Pennsylvania General Assembly and was elected Burgess of Lancaster. Edward Hand and his family moved to Rock Ford in 1794. The 1800 U.S. Census tells of fourteen members of the household. In addition to his immediate family, this list likely includes Katharine Hand’s mother, Edward Hand’s secretary, a free white laborer and one enslaved person, Frank. Frank, a person of African descent, was a farm hand who escaped shortly before Edward Hand’s death in 1802. Katharine Hand remained at Rock Ford with several of her children after her husband’s death. Lancaster County tax records indicate that she enslaved one unnamed person of African descent as well. Katharine Hand died at Rock Ford in 1805.