Guide to the Records of Butler County (Pa.), 1800 - 1907
- Repository
- Heinz History Center
- Title
- Records of Butler County (Pa.),
- Creator
- Butler County (Pa.)
- Collection Number
- MSS#49
- Extent
- 7 cubic feet
- Date
- 1800 - 1907
- Abstract
- Butler County, Pennsylvania is located in the southwest quadrant of the state and was carved out of Allegheny County in 1800. These records include juror lists and court action records, bounty records, receipts, tax records, administrative reports, election returns, lists of voters and taxable inhabitants, land sale and road building records, and other sundry items. The records provide rich documentation of the day-to-day administrative functions of the various offices of local government, including those of auditors, commissioners, constables, tax collectors, and treasurers. These records document the growth of the region throughout the 19th century and provide accounts of life in the Western Pennsylvania frontier.
- Language
- The material in this collection is in English.
- Sponsor
- This finding aid has been encoded as a part of the Historic Pittsburgh project a joint effort of the University of Pittsburgh and the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. Funding for this portion of the project has been donated by the Hillman Foundation.
- Publisher
- Heinz History Center
- Address
- 1212 Smallman St.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222
library@heinzhistorycenter.org
URL: https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org
History
Butler County, Pennsylvania is located in the southwest quadrant of the state and was carved out of Allegheny County in 1800. It was named for General Richard Butler, a lawyer, legislator, soldier and Indian agent who was killed in 1791 in a battle with the Miami Indians. Butler County is bordered by Allegheny County to the south, Beaver and Lawrence Counties on the west, Venango County on the north, and Clarion and Armstrong Counties on the east. Butler County originally consisted of four townships: Buffalo, Connoquenessing, Middlesex and Slippery Rock Townships. Within four years, it had added nine more: Butler, Centre, Clearfield, Cranberry, Donegal, Mercer, Muddy Creek, Parker and Venango Townships. More divisions followed, and by 1853, Butler had its current configuration of 33 townships.
The county seat of Butler County was established in 1803 at Butler, Pennsylvania, when surveyors and land speculators John and Samual Cunningham, along with Robert Graham, donated 300 acres of centrally located land to the county for this purpose. Butler became incorporated into a borough in 1817, and by the next year was an established third class city. Butler County is also noted for the Borough of Harmony, located near Zelienople in Connoquenessing Township, the first American home of Rev. John Rapp's Harmony Society. Arriving in 1805 from Germany, George Rapp established this phenominally successful community of religious refugees. By 1815, the Harmony Society had become so materially successful that its leader felt it was time for a new beginning. The group sold out to a Mennonite group from eastern Pennsylvania and moved to New Harmony, Indiana. They later returned to Pennsylvania to neighboring Beaver County, where the group eventually died out at Economy, near Ambridge, Pennsylvania.
Butler County contains the nation's first large tracts of land known as Depreciation and Donation Lands. In 1780 and 1783, two acts of the Pennsylvania legislature divided much of the lands north of Pittsburgh and west of the Allegheny River into parcels of land given as incentive to soldiers who enlisted in the Revolutionary War (Donation Lands), and to compensate for the depreciated value of the Continental currency used to pay the soldiers (Depreciation Lands). These lands comprised all of Butler County's land area except for a section in the northeast, which was considered unsuitable for farming. This northeastern section was removed from the roster of available land and came to be known as the Struck Lands. Ironically, the Struck Lands later proved to contain large deposits of crude oil, and such boom towns as Petrolia and Karns City sprang up and prospered. Butler County is now noted for its oil fields and natural gas sites. Other industries of renown in Butler County include the railroad freight car production facility of Pullman Standard, the world's largest builder of those cars. Pullman Standard was founded in 1902 with Diamond Jim Brady as its star salesman. The Forged Steel Wheel Company, a branch of Pullman Standard and started in 1906, is today Armco Steel, the county's largest employer. Saxonburg, Pennsylvania is where John Roebling, known primarily as the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge, settled after emigrating from Germany and the place where he first invented wire rope. Butler County also became home to another first, when in 1940 the country's first jeep was designed and built, the culmination of Butler County's pioneering lightweight automobile industry. From its beginning, Butler County has been ideally suited for farming and today is home to many dairy, cattle and poultry farms, besides being one of the nation's largest producers of fresh mushrooms. Over ten tons of mushrooms are produced daily in the vast former limestone mines in West Winfield, Pennsylvania, and an even larger facility is located near Worthington, Pennsylvania.
Butler County was the home of many notable citizens, including pioneer David Dougal, an eccentric surveyor and land speculator who despite great wealth chose to live in near squalor. Other pioneers include William McCandless, a deacon in the Presbuterian Church; John McCandless, the first Sheriff of Butler County; John Negley, a successful miller and land speculator who was Butler County's first treasurer and later elected to the State Assembly; John Gilmore, a lawyer who before rising to State Treasurer, Speaker of the (State) House, and United States Congressman under President Andrew Jackson, was aide to Colonel Bradford and involved in quelling the Whiskey Rebellion; General William Ayres, who also first came to Butler County because of his involvement in the Whiskey Rebellion and stayed to become the first prothonotary of the county and a very successful judge and politician; and Dr. Detmar Basse Muller, founder of Zelienople, Pennsylvania, named for his daughter, Zelie. Christian Buhl was a hatter and Justice of the Peace, and his son, Henry was one of the early industrial pioneers of the area and partner of the Boggs and Buhl department store of Pittsburgh. Jonh Bredin, John Duffy, Hugh McKee, and Walter Lowrie all became famous for their roles as lawyers and politicians, the latter rising to United States Congressman and influential in the negotiations for the Missouri Compromise. Philip Passevant, son-in-law of Detmar Basse Muller, and Peter Duffy, brother of John Duffy, both became noted merchants in early Butler County. Of the more notorious residents of the county, Samuel Mohawk is remembered for his 1843 brutal murder of a Slippery Rock Towhship woman and her five children, and the sensational trial and near lynching that followed.
Scope and Content Notes
These records include juror lists and court action records, bounty records, receipts, tax records, administrative reports, election returns, lists of voters and taxable inhabitants, land sale and road building records, and other sundry items. The records provide rich documentation of the day-to-day administrative functions of the various offices of local government, including those of auditors, commissioners, constables, tax collectors, and treasurers. Ample genealogical information can be found in tax duplicates, voter and taxable inhabitant lists, and other records, especially of those who have held public office or performed some government service such as juror or road viewer. A glimpse into the judicial branch of local government can be seen through selected court records and depositions, while a more vivid picture of the economic and physical growth and development of Butler County can be gathered from tax duplicates, road petitions and remonstrances, land sale records, and repeated references to bridge builders, road viewers and disputed land titles. These records document the growth of the region throughout the 19th century and provide accounts of life in the Western Pennsylvania frontier. While most of the records are in good condition, some loose papers are somewhat fragile and some volumes have deteriorating covers or badly stained and faded pages, making them at times difficult to read.
Arrangement
This collection consists of three series. Series have been designated for Court Records, Administrative Functions and Physical Development.
The Butler County Records are housed in fourteen archival boxes and are arranged in three series.
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Acc.# 1935x
These materials came in one accession.
Purchased from David K. Webb in 1935.
Preferred Citation
Records of Butler County (Pa.), MSS #49, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania.
Processing Information
This collection originally processed by the Historical Society Staff circa 1935. The records were rearranged and the inventory was rewritten by Karen Hockenson on January 5, 1995.
Revision and rearrangement for the encoded version of the finding aid provided by Clay Redding on June 10, 1999.
Conditions Governing Use
Property rights reside with the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or publish, please contact the curator of the Archives.
Subjects
- Butler County (Pa.)
- Ayres, William S.
- Bredin, John, -- 1774-1851
- Buhl, Christian, -- 1776-1864
- Buhl, Henry, -- 1848-1927
- Dougal, David, -- 1778-1881
- Duffy, John, -- 1784-1864
- Duffy, Peter, -- 1798-1883
- Gilmore, John, -- 1780-1845
- Lowrie, Walter, -- 1784-1868
- McCandless, John
- McCandless, William, -- 1777-1850
- McKee, Hugh, -- 1783-1835
- Mohawk, Samuel, -- 1807-1844
- Muller, Detmar Basse
- Negley, John, -- 1778-1870
- Passavant, Philip, -- 1777-1853
- Rapp, George, -- 1757-1847
- Butler County (Pa.) -- Agriculture
- Butler County (Pa.) -- Commerce
- Butler County (Pa.) -- Courts
- Butler County (Pa.) -- Education
- Butler County (Pa.) -- Genealogy
- Butler County (Pa.) -- Officials and Employees
- Butler County (Pa.) -- Politics and Government
- Criminal Justice Personnel -- Pennsylvania -- Butler County
- Agriculture -- Pennsylvania -- Butler County
- Courts -- Pennsylvania -- Butler County
- Depreciation lands
- Donation lands
- Education -- Pennsylvania -- Butler County
- Elections -- Pennsylvania -- Butler County
- Harmonists
- Genealogy -- Pennsylvania -- Butler County
- Law -- Pennsylvania -- Butler County
- Real Property -- Pennsylvania -- Butler County
- Roads -- Pennsylvania -- Butler County
- Taxation -- Pennsylvania -- Butler County
- Transportation -- Pennsylvania -- Butler County