Appraisements of real estate for inheritance tax. Some personal property appraisals are also included. Appraisals include: name of decedent; location and description of real estate; description of personal property; valuation of real estate and personal property; and assessed tax. May also include names of heirs. Arranged chronologically by year, then alphabetically by first letter of decedent's last name. Handwritten; from 1886, handwritten on printed forms.
System of Arrangement
Arranged chronologically by year, then alphabetically by first letter of decedent's last name.
The papers in this Pennsylvania Railroad Collection are largely the documents of legal actions against the Pennsylvania Railroad. Among the items are property records, agreements, a construction contract, correspondence, and a proposal for a footbridge.
Collection may not be photocopied. Please direct questions to Research Center Staff at research@lancasterhistory.org.
Permission for reproduction and/or publication must be obtained in writing from LancasterHistory. Persons wishing to publish any material from this collection must assume all responsibility for identifying and satisfying any claimants of copyright or other use restrictions.
Credit
Courtesy of LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Other Numbers
MG-131
Other Number
MG-131
Classification
MG0131
Description Level
Fonds
Custodial History
This collection was cataloged prior to 1997. Added to database 7 September 2021.
The Transportation Collection contains documents regarding turnpikes, railroads, Conestoga Traction Co., Conestoga Transportation Co., and the Red Rose Transit Authority. The types of items include correspondence, financial papers, business papers, stock certificates, tickets, schedules, maps of routes, and a blueprint.
Preferred Citation: Title or description of item, date (day, month, year), Transportation Collection (MG0123), Folder #, LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Access Conditions / Restrictions
Restrictions are noted at the item level.
Copyright
Collection may not be photocopied. Please direct questions to Research Center Staff at research@lancasterhistory.org.
Permission for reproduction and/or publication must be obtained in writing from LancasterHistory.
Credit
Courtesy of LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
This collection consists of business records for Whitson & Sproul of Christiana, Lancaster County and documents related to estate settlements. The business records include a ledger, letters and statements concerning the sale and purchase of various materials. One letter mentions the 1860 election of "Old Abe." The receipts and court documents consist primarily of receipts, releases, and sale agreements relating to the settlement of the estates of James Sproul and Moses Whitson.
The Temperance Collection includes convention programs of the Lancaster County Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.); a history of the group from 1884-1959; Pennsylvania State W.C.T.U. function programs; and a minute book from the Bart Chapter. Included are handwritten notes on some of the conventions, pro-temperance booklets and newspapers (Moral Reformer and American Reformer), and miscellaneous addresses and articles. Of special interest is a booklet "Operation Interview" in which 36 prominent Lancastrians comment on the question, "Is social drinking necessary for success?", and a newspaper article reminiscing on the temperance movement in Columbia, Pennsylvania.
This collection contains the legal and personal papers of Judge Henry G. Long. The first ten boxes contain notes of argument and notes of testimony for civil and criminal cases. The remaining papers include receipts for local businesses and services, accounts, documents relating to turnpikes, speeches, stock certificates, deeds, correspondence, and petitions.
Preferred Citation: Title or description of item, date (day, month, year), Judge Henry G. Long Collection (MG0283), Box #, Folder #, LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Folders 1-120, gift of The Long Home, 19 January 2001. Folders 121-126, purchased from dealer, October 2013. Folder 127 purchased from The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., August 2014.
The items in Folders 121-126 were originally part of the collection at The Long Home, but were separated from the rest of the collection and purchased at auction by the dealer who sold them to LancasterHistory.
Access Conditions / Restrictions
Restrictions are noted at the item level.
Copyright
Collection may not be photocopied. Please direct questions to Research Center Staff at research@lancasterhistory.org.
Permission for reproduction and/or publication must be obtained in writing from LancasterHistory.
Credit
Courtesy of LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Other Numbers
MG-283
Other Number
MG-283
Classification
MG0283
Description Level
Fonds
Custodial History
Boxes 1-15 processed by JM, finding aid prepared by HST. Added to database 7 November 2017.
This collection contains the papers of Lloyd Mifflin, including diaries, his poetry, typescripts, galleys with marginal notes, Mifflin family material, and a scrapbook of newspaper clippings. Lloyd Mifflin was a poet and painter from Columbia, Pa. He is best known as a writer of sonnets, publishing over 500.
Admin/Biographical History
Lloyd Mifflin (1846-1921), artist of landscape and portraiture, was also "America's greatest sonneteer." He was born and lived much of his life in Columbia, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania where he was free to wander the banks of the Susquehanna River and its tributaries.
His father, J. Houston Mifflin, of English Quaker descent, was Lloyd's first teacher in drawing and sketching. His mother, Elizabeth A. Heise, came from German heritage. She was born in Columbia and died when Lloyd was very young. His father, a kind and patient man, noted that Lloyd was a rather weak child and provided equestrian and water sports to improve his health.
Lloyd was taught in the public schools in Columbia, including the Washington Classical Institute. The Mifflin family supported local education by bequeathing two houses from their estate, the cottage known as "Norwood" and the grand house, "Cloverton," as well as the estate itself. The school district annually planted a flower on his birthday, September 15, and read one of his sonnets, "A Picture of My Mother."
At the age of 14, Lloyd undertook drawing and sketching with his father. He also had Thomas Moran as an instructor in painting and worked with Isaac Williams of Philadelphia for a short time. In 1869, he traveled to Europe where he studied with Henry Herzog at Dusseldorf, Germany. His adventures also took him to Italy, France, England, and Scotland. He returned to Columbia from Europe and continued painting scenes from along the Susquehanna-from Cooperstown, NY to the Chesapeake Bay. As did most other painters of the time, he earned money from portraiture.
In his paintings, he captured the natural with refined color and light, which yielded firm and balanced forms. He preferred to capture the peacefulness of a woodland path or other quiet spots, rather than the noise of an industrial area. Later in his life he liked seasonal paintings, since they gave him a chance to probe deeper into a philosophical spirit.
Mifflin turned to poetry at the age of 51. According to what he wrote in The Hills, his first volume of poetry (1896), he claimed that the fumes of the paint made him sick. In his lifetime he filled twelve books of verse with two hundred poems and more than six hundred sonnets. He wrote more sonnets than William Shakespeare, John Milton, and William Wordworth. John Keats, however, was his favorite. He preferred Keats for his expression regarding the love of beauty, both real and ideal; his forms were always poised and dignified. During this time he also taught himself the art of etching, using this technique to illustrate The Hills.
Mifflin stressed a strong love of beauty in his poetry as he did in his painting. His imagination and beautiful sense of harmony characterize his verse. The main source of his ambition, inspiration and consolation are clearly seen in The Invocation.
He devoted his greatest efforts to the category of the sonnet, considering it the most distinguished and exalted of all forms of English poetry. He enjoyed the structure, the metrical and rhythmic beauty, the plan of metrical rhyme and diction. Mifflin found it much like a musical composition.
Sonnets bipartite in structure usually have a combination of eight lines followed by six. The rhyme schemes and diction include many metaphors and an extensive vocabulary. His one hundred and fifty nature sonnets emphasize the descriptive, not the intuitional. To sample his poetic styles, one should turn to his three hundred and fifty collected sonnets, published in 1905 with a second edition in 1907. A large number came from earlier books.
As a poet, Mifflin was an idealist and respected the ideal of Greek mythological beauty. In the Echoes of the Greek Idylls and Slopes of Helicon, we find no roughness of spirit. There was a conscience of a spiritual presence. His religious sonnets were grounded in the faith of a personal God which related more to his aesthetic feelings than to traditional Christianity. Themes of life and death occur in many sonnets. His poetry inspired faith, hope and deep emotion. These sonnets were more descriptive than philosophical.
Mifflin's personal ambition was to excel; he wanted to write the perfect sonnet. Like the classical Greeks, he hoped his poetry would obtain an immortality. Mifflin thought the world had largely ignored him, even though his poetry received high praise. At his life's end he changed his opinion and credited his readers with more accolades than he had earlier thought. Perhaps he was too hard on himself. Lloyd Mifflin carried the name "Hermit of the hills" who walked the 'world as one entranced' and 'in life's turbid wave', dropped ' the crown-jewel of his melody.'"
E. Hershey Sneath. America's Greatest Sonneteer. The Clover Press (Geo. D. Hall): Columbia, PA.,1928.
This record group contains canceled orders that were issued by the county commissioners for payment to be made by the county treasurer. The orders show date, order number, amount, name of payee, purpose, and signatures of the county commissioners. In the case of "poor children," teachers were reimbursed by the county for tuition and/or the supplies purchased for students whose parents were unable to pay. Orders include: Poor Children, Almshouse, Bridges, Coroners' Inquests, Prisons, Roads, Court House, and Tax Exonerations.
System of Arrangement
The record group is organized chronologically, then arranged by order number within each year.
A writ of habeas corpus is a procedure for obtaining a judicial determination of the legality of an individual's custody. This collection includes petitions for writs of habeas corpus and the writs themselves, showing the names of petitioners, persons to be brought to court, nature of dispute or alleged crime, dates of writs and accompanying documents, names of judges, and names of persons that the writs are filed against. Petitioners include indentured servants, Freedom Seekers, free persons of color, convicted prisoners, those awaiting trial, relatives of prisoners, parties in child custody disputes, and relatives of army recruits and draftees. Handwritten, handwritten on printed forms, and a very few typewritten.