Inventory of the Henry James Seibert Papers, 1779-1912 and undated

Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University

Seibert, Henry James

Henry James Seibert Papers, 1779-1912 and undated

Material in English

16,658 Items

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.

Collection is open for research.

However, collection may contain materials to which the Acknowledgment of Legal Responsibilities and Privacy Rights form applies. Patrons must sign this form before using this collection.

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The copyright interests in this collection have not been transferred to Duke University. For more information, consult the copyright section of the Regulations and Procedures of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.

[Identification of item], Henry James Seibert Papers, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University.

The Henry James Seibert Papers were received by the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library from 1948-1952.

Processed by RBMSCL 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.

Descriptive sources and standards used to create this inventory: DACS, EAD, NCEAD guidelines, and local Style Guide.

This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.

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.

These are searchable subject entries for this collection. Performing a search on these subjects in the Duke University Libraries online catalog will bring up other related research materials.