Henry James Seibert papers, 1779-1912 and undated
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Summary
- Creator:
- Seibert, Henry James
- Abstract:
- Lawyer, election clerk, and Virginia legislator, of Martinsburg and Hedgesville, Virginia (now West Virginia). Correspondence, account books, ledgers, and other professional, business, and family correspondence (chiefly 1820-1885), of Seibert and of his family. The collection relates to family matters, Virginia and national politics before the Civil War, migration into the Old Northwest, social life and customs, and slavery in Virginia.
- Extent:
- 15 Linear Feet
16,658 Items - Language:
- Material in English
- Collection ID:
- RL.01165
Background
- Scope and content:
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Spanning the years 1779-1912, the collection contains correspondence, legal and financial papers, and printed material of Henry James Seibert, Sr., Virginia state legislator, executor for numerous estates, and financial agent for emigrants to the Mid-West.
The correspondence discusses personal and family matters; internal improvements in Pennsylvania during the 1820s; salt mining in Pennsylvania; commodity and land prices in Ohio during the 1820s and 1830s; Ohio politics during the 1830s and the attitude of politicians towards the Second Bank of the United States; commodity prices in Illinois during 1838 and 1840; bank failures in Ohio, 1841; wages in Ohio, 1845; care of a ward of Henry James Seibert, Sr., in an insane asylum; the National Road in Ohio; presidential elections of 1840, 1844, 1848, 1852, and 1856; the National Democratic Convention of 1844; Henry Clay and the Whig Party; the slavery question in relation to the California Territory; improvement and construction of public buildings in Washington, D.C.; coal mining in Maryland; the Compromise of 1850; cholera in New Orleans, 1850s; internal improvements in Virginia, 1850s; control and sale of liquor and distillation of whiskey; slave trade in the United States; Civil War bounty; pension claims; and other matters.
Also included are bills and receipts; indentures; court summonses; account sheets; applications for pensions; prospectus, 1865, of The New Era, a newspaper to be published in Martinsburg, West Virginia; bulletin of Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, for 1879; pamphlets containing West Virginia laws in 1887 relating to public schools; advertisements for the Maryland Lottery Company, the Kentucky State Lottery, cooking and heating stoves, women's fashions for 1884-1885, and patent medicines; Reformed Missionary Herald, 1889; almanacs; price current sheets for Baltimore, Maryland, in 1867 and 1869; premium list of the annual fair of the Ogle County (Illinois) Agricultural Board in 1881; ballots for the Greenback Party, the Democratic Party in Berkeley County (West Virginia) in 1880 and 1888, and the National Prohibition Party in 1884; pamphlet of the National Prohibition Party; form letter, 1849, explaining the stand of the Society of Friends of Great Britain and Ireland on slavery; broadsides of a U.S. pension agency; and announcement and program of the 29th annual session of the Farmers' National Congress, Raleigh, 1909.
There are also many 19th century manuscript volumes - daybooks, ledgers, and account books - containing financial records of the general mercantile establishments of John W. Boyd and Benjamin R. Boyd; Hezekiah Hedges; Henry J. Seibert; and of William L. Seibert.
- Acquisition information:
- The Henry James Seibert Papers were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book Manuscript Library from 1948-1952.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by Rubenstein Library staff
Encoded by Ted Holt and Paula Jeannet Mangiafico, September 2008
Accessions 48-747 and 48-1334 were merged into one collection, described in this finding aid.
- Physical location:
- For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Subjects
Click on terms below to find related finding aids on this site. For other related materials in the Duke University Libraries, search for these terms in the Catalog.
- Subjects:
- Land settlement -- Northwest, Old
Migration, Internal -- United States
Slavery -- Virginia
Merchants -- Virginia - Names:
- Seibert, Henry James
- Places:
- Northwest, Old -- Emigration and immigration
United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
Virginia -- Economic conditions
Virginia -- Politics and government -- 1775-1865
Virginia -- Social life and customs
Contents
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Using These Materials
- Restrictions:
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Collection is open for research.
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- Preferred citation:
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[Identification of item], Henry James Seibert Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University