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Paper on the ‘Life of Col. Samuel Miles’ in his own handwriting covering his life from 1739 – 1802. Colonel Samuel Miles (soldier, business entrepreneur, and more public servant) made his mark in Pennsylvania history serving the province and state and the city of Philadelphia, creating the iron industry in Centre County, PA, and founding the town of Milesburg, PA named for his family. He died in 1805. less

This digitized volume is a copy of John Churchman’s survey work of the Nottingham Lots. The location of the original is unknown. Gilbert Cope, a Chester more County, Pa. historian and genealogist, obtained access to Churchman’s personal papers and copied the volume from 1868 to 1873. John Churchman (1753-1805), a native of East Nottingham Township, Chester County, Pa., was a noted 18th-century surveyor and cartographer. Together with other members of his family, he is credited with compiling this volume recording information about the Nottingham Lots. For many years, Churchman held the official post of surveyor for Chester, Delaware, and parts of Berks and Lancaster Counties, Pa. In addition, he was a self-taught scientist, investigated magnetic phenomena in determining seafaring longitude, and was a member of the Society of Friends. Because Churchman eventually deviated from the Quaker “path of simplicity” and became involved in such assorted business activities as real estate investments and mining, he was dismissed from the Nottingham Monthly Meeting. Churchman’s publications include Variation Chart or Magnetic Atlas and a map of the Delmarva Peninsula (1778), which he dedicated to the American Philosophical Society. Churchman corresponded internationally; visited Copenhagen, Denmark, London, England, and St. Petersburg, Russia; and was elected to membership in the Royal Society of Arts (U.K.) and the Imperial Russian Academy. Churchman died at sea as he sailed home to America, having earlier suffered illness in London. The Nottingham Lots, consisting of 18,000 acres, were originally located in Southeastern Pennsylvania. They were created in 1701 by William Penn, who wanted both lands he could control and a settlement along the border separating Pennsylvania and Catholic-friendly Maryland. Penn's original tract was divided into 37 lots, each approximately 500 acres. It is believed that prospective owners made their selections by drawing lots; hence, the use of that descriptive word. Eventually, property ownership was disputed by Penn and his descendants and by Maryland’s Lord Baltimore and his descendants, chiefly over the location of the southern border of Pennsylvania and the northern border of Maryland. Much of this volume of 306 pages records handwritten text and precisely drawn maps relating to ownership of the Nottingham Lots, including owner’s names, lot locations, surveying data, and information dating from 1681 to 1875. Additionally, there are six other informative sections in the volume: - List of Nottingham Warrants (owners by surname) (pp. 128-149) - Contributors to Lancaster Meeting House (1759) (pp. 218-219) - Newlin Township (deeds, surveys, landowners, etc.) (pp. 242-248) - East Bradford Township (landowners) (pp. 251-254) - 4th Battalion, Chester County (1776) – militia list, etc. (pp. 292-299) - Chester County landowners (pp. 300-306) This volume was once part of the Gilbert Cope Historical and Genealogical Collection at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. In November 1952, it was deaccessioned and transferred to the Chester County History Center. Evidence suggests that prior to 1921, the volume was in the possession of two West Chester residents, William B. McCullough and Slater Russell. In addition to Churchman’s surveys, the digitized material includes a 16 page index of landowner names and locations mentioned in the surveys. Related records on the Nottingham Lots can be found at the Chester County Archives. less

This collection provides access to two rare dispensatories and receptures that illuminate the therapeutic practices and medical orientation of two dispensing physicians in the multilingual colonial more medical market of rural Pennsylvania. The overall objective is the preserve in their entirety and to make accessible to scholarly and lay audiences a body of writings that offer insight into some of the medical resources available to the North American colonial population: A bilingual (German and English) formulary, the Medicina Pennsylvania of George de Benneville, a French Huguenot physician and the record of the practice and of the receptures - entitled Remediorum Specimina aliquot ex praxi A. W[agner] - of a Schwenckfelder practitioner from Silesia. These manuscripts can be dated roughly to the period 1740 to 1780. Both drew on numerous 18th century continental European and English sources, explicitly in the case of the Wagner manuscript and unacknowledged but obvious in the Medicina Pennsylvania. Both offer copious highly technical receptures for the armentarium of chemiatric and botanical substances that were in general use at the end of the early modern period. Similar to other physician manuals of the period, they lay out medicinals and related procedures for treatment of major diseases and conditions, including female complaints and pre- and perinatal advise. A strong but eclectic orientation to chemiatric preparations is evident, matched by reliance on the traditional botanical and animal reservoir. less

We have digitized three rare books by/about St. Frances De Sales. the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales are an international community who will obviously benefit more from online access to these titles. St. Frances De Sales wrote a great deal about education, so his works may be of interest to a wider community. less

Johann Heinrich Keppele was born in 1716 in the village of Treschklingen, in what is today's German state of Baden-Württemberg. In 1738, at the age of more 22, Keppele emigrated to America, arriving in Philadelphia, where he settled, and after beginning as an innkeeper, became a prosperous merchant and importer. In 1741 he married Anna Catharina Barbara Bauer (1725-1774), who was born in the village of Meckesheim, in Baden. They had 15 children, of whom 5 daughters and 4 sons survived into adulthood. Henry Keppele was a successful and well-known butcher, innkeeper, merchant, ship owner, and real estate entrepreneur. Keppele was also a one-term member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and an active member of St. Michael's and Zion Lutheran Church. On 26 December 1764 he was one of the co-founders of the German Society of Pennsylvania, dedicated to helping German immigrants; and he served as its first president, from 1765 to 1781. Keppele died in Philadelphia on June 1, 1797. The Henry Keppele family record book, written in Keppele's own hand, contains biographical information about himself and his family, including a list of his children, with their birth, death, and marriage dates. This is followed by copies of 8 poems in English, in a different hand, copied ca. 1839-1843. The book contains many blank leaves at the back. The Henry Keppele Geburtsregister is approximately 100 pages long. It begins by recording family information similar to what is contained in the Keppele family record book. The remainder and bulk of the book contains prayers and poems written by Keppele. The last entry is from November. 10, 1794, 3 ½ years before his death in June 1797. less

Miscellaneous papers of Lutheran clergyman Henry Melchior Muhlenberg from his later years, including two versions of a memorandum in his hand concerning St. Peter's Lutheran Church more in Barren Hill, Pa. (1774-1783), three letters addressed to him (1782-1786), and a copy of a marriage certificate signed by him (1771). less

Welcome to the Indiana University of Pennsylvania - Indiana Pennsylvania in the Civil War Collection, a part of the POWER Library: PA Photos and Documents. The Indiana more Pennsylvania in the Civil War Era project involves the digitization of primary sources including letters, diaries, and modern and historical photographs that document the experience of men and women of Indiana County, PA during the Civil War era which are now held in the collections of Indiana University of Pennsylvania's Special Collections or the Historical and Genealogical Society of Indiana County. Central to the collection will be the papers of the White family, including a diary kept by Pennsylvania State Senator Harry White, who fought for the North during the Civil War and was imprisoned in Libby Prison and a number of other prisons across the South, the letters of his father Thomas White, a prominent judge who was involved in the organization of the Republican Party in Pittsburgh, Richard White, a brother who also served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and letters to them from the Pennsylvania governor and high ranking representatives of the federal government. Also included will be other diaries of Civil War soldiers from the Indiana County area. Together these primary sources will provide a glimpse into the experience of Civil War soldiers and their families at home and political life during the war and hopefully making it easier for researchers to form a better understanding of the Civil War in Indiana County. Currently, access to the original resources is very limited. The HGSIC is open from 9 am to 4pm Tuesday through Friday and Saturday from 10am to 3 pm. and the hours of the Special Collections section of IUP Library are similarly restrictive. This project will make these materials available 24/7 to researchers with access to the lnternet. less

Welcome to the Keystone College Local History Collection, a part of the POWER Library: PA Photos and Documents. This collection a large number of photos and more documents from and about the local communities and personalities present in Factoryville, PA; Nicholson, PA; Dalton, PA; and other smaller communities dating from 1868 to the present. less

The Garden Club of Philadelphia was established in 1904 by Mrs. J. Willis Martin and Miss Ernestine Goodman to promote an interest in gardens, their design, more and management. The garden club held meetings, conducted horticultural research, attended lectures, and participated in civic endeavors. In 1913, several members of the Garden Club of Philadelphia joined with several women from other local gardening associations to form the larger Garden Club of America. This collection, comprised of more than 300 views on glass, most hand-tinted, focuses on individual private gardens in and around Philadelphia, eastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The images provide unique documentation of gardens that are either “lost” or have been significantly altered during the last half of the 20th-century and include multiple views of the estate gardens of Andalusia, Stenton, Highlands, and Ludington among many others. This digital project is supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. less

Materials by and about Benjamin Franklin from the State Library collection digitized in commemoration of his 300th birthday.

A selection of documents on the battles of Fort Necessity and Braddock's Campaign, along with background on French and English relations as well as their interactions more with the Native American tribes of the northeastern colonies in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Originally digitized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Necessity. less