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Summary
HISTORIANS HAVE TRAPPED William Henry of Lancaster (1729–86) in the identity of gunsmith. Though meant as a compliment— most accounts portray Henry as the most important gunsmith in the "rifle-making hub of colonial America," Lancaster County— - this confinement is ironic, since Henry escaped this occupation as soon as he was able. The term gunsmith, then as now, could describe men who repaired guns, who produced specialized gun parts (such as barrels or locks), who created an entire gun from scratch (lock, stock, and barrel), or who ran a factory that employed other men. Henry seems not to have engaged in any of these activities after 1760. By the last decade of his life, Henry had achieved a level of financial security (and apparently embodied the virtuous independence thought to derive from it) that led his peers to entrust him with positions of responsibility and that left Henry free to accept them. He served first in local and state governments and was later appointed an administrator and financier for the Continental army and elected twice to the Continental Congress. We have failed to register the shape of his career, the magnitude of his transformation; instead, historians have imagined that during all these varied activities, Henry continued to work as a gunsmith. Indeed, the belief that Henry "was engaged in the manufacture of firearms for over thirty years," that he produced the rifles or muskets carried by soldiers from the French and Indian War through the Revolution, has been central to stories about him. [abstract]
Shares reel with Lancaster county docket of cases, 1743-1749 and the Hamilton family letterbook, 1782-1790.
Labeled on box # 245 Part 1.
500 items.
Miscellaneous papers relating to local government and economic affairs of Lancaster County: letters, 1733-1740, of Samuel Blunston to the proprietors, deal with the disputes between the Maryland and Pennsylvania authorities, land transactions, Indians on the Susquehanna, politics, legal matters, etc; letters of Thomas Cookson, George Craig, William Parsons, Richard Peters, George Smith, and others, 1739-1764; material on Conrad Weiser, 1756; accounts of Indian massacres, 1755; petitions, court records, surveys, indentures, land warrants, tax returns; petitions and lists of names of tavern keepers, 1766, 1769; account of the plan of the town of York, 1749; list of books added to the Lancaster library, ca. 1770; list of subscribers for the relief of inhabitants of Boston, Mass., 1774; military accounts and muster rolls, 1776; wills, estate papers, broadsides, and other items.
Original manuscript in collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
For a photocopied index to this collection see LC 016 I38 Oversize.
Letters of Rev. Richard Locke and Rev. George Craig : missionaries in Pennsylvania of the "Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts", London, 1747-1752
