"On April 17, 1865, eighteen year old John Rakestraw left the family farm in Bart Township, Lancaster County, to attend Unionville Academy, a small Quaker boarding school in Chester County. During the time he was away his two older sisters wrote to him regularly. Ten of those letters have survived and they provide a candid and often painfully honest glimpse of life on a Lancaster County farm in the 1860's. Diaries and ledgers kept by John's father, William I. Rakestraw , provide additional insight into that that time and place." [excerpt from the text]
In: Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, v. 30.
Summary
The article focuses on a letter from Edward Shippen lll to his son, Edward Shippen lV (who would later become the Chief Justice of Pennsylvania). The letter contains advice on how to live a good and productive life both in business and family life.
James Buchanan; paper read before the Kittochtinny Historical Society of Franklin County, Friday evening, March 30, 1900, at the residence of Dr. Chas. F. Palmer, Chambersburg, Pa
Contains statements by various Pennsylvania officials.
Library holds the German original.
Attributed to Henrich Schweitzer, Philadelphia, printer based on typographical evidence.
Shaw and Shoemaker 14953.
Summary
This resource is a pamphlet concerning the 1808 Pennsylvanian gubernatorial election between Democratic-Republican candidate Simon Schneider (Snyder) (1759-1819) and Federalist James Ross (1762-1847). The writers of the pamphlet were alerting the public to what they believed were threats to their freedoms if Snyder were elected: "Free Voters of Pennsylvania! Read the following pages, and consider what to do before it is too late. The time is extremely important: be alert, otherwise your freedom will disappear for ever, and all the famous rights and privileges will be sacrificed on the alter of anarchy." The pamphlet includes testimonials from area persons who were worried that Snyder would call a convention to change the constitution in order to take away the rights of poor men to vote and to establish a military tribunal about the rights of conscience.
"By following the story of my great-grandmother Isabella Ford's life, and adding to it with information from available sources, I have been able to get a better understanding of the circumstances of Lancaster's free blacks. Her story provides a sense of life in mid-nineteenth century Lancaster County and shows how free black families held their own, despite an environment that was often unfriendly and that restricted their opportunities by both law and custom."
