Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society ; v. 18, no. 4
Summary
This article features letters from James Buchanan to Henry A. Muhlenberg and letters from Simon Cameron to Muhlenberg indicating their support for him in the upcoming election for governor of Pennsylvania in 1844. Muhlenberg was nominated by the Democratic party for that position, but he died prior to the election.
"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.
"The saga begins and ends with two commonplace scenes: a teenaged immigrant alighting a ship in colonial Philadelphia with but two letters of introduction and three guineas to his name, and a gravesite ringed by a half-dozen black-clothed mourners. But during the century and a half that encapsulates these vignettes, a Pennsylvania dynasty rose and fell- and rose and fell again. From Robert Coleman of Castle Finn, Ireland, to Robert Habersham Coleman of Cornwall, Lebanon County, four generations of one family amassed several fortunes, monopolized Pennsylvania's ironmaking industry, created entire self-sufficient communities, befriended statesmen, entertained royalty and lived - and died - in an epic drama that still intrigues and fascinates." [from the text]