Scope and Contents

Philip Winebiddle's personal financial papers contain accounts, bills, and receipts from his farming and coal mining businesses and taxes, including correspondence concerning the sale of hay to the U.S. Army during the Civil War. The series also includes a small amount of legal material, generally summonses and court decisions concerning property disputes. Most of these disputes were resolved in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. The bulk of Philip Winebiddle's papers consists of property records, 1769-1873, including abstracts of title, agreements, deeds, leases, surveys, letters, and related documents for parcels of land, principally in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh and Erie, Pennsylvania. Of particular note are drafts and copies of an 1861 letter to President Abraham Lincoln, offering, on Winebiddle's behalf, land for an arsenal in either Erie or Pittsburgh. There is also a small amount of legal material concering the division of Philip Winebiddle's estate and property holdings in the city's 19th ward. The subseries includes a few personal and business letters, both sent and received, of Philip Winebiddle, including an 1848 letter from his nephew, James Scott Negley, describing his efforts to release himself and William Cunningham Winebiddle from Army service in the Mexican War.

Scope and Contents

The personal papers of Lafayette Winebiddle include a number of account books and daybooks, 1840-1862; most of these records document his coal hauling business, though one additional volume contains a record of his tax collection activities in Peebles Township in 1840-1841. One folder of receipted bills, accounts, and miscellaneous financial material, including accounts from his estate, is also included. In addition to financial papers, the subseries includes Lafayette Winebiddle's student manuscript mathematical exercise book, 1823-1824, illustrating accounting and educational practices of the period, and several letters addresed to him, principally from his brother, William Cunningham Winebiddle, documenting his movements, activities, and request for discharge from service in the 1846-1848 Mexican War. Lafayette Winebiddle was also a captain in the Allegheny County Light Dragoons, and the subseries contains one folder of rolls, 1836-1841, and related documents, listing members of the militia unit and their attendance at periodic training sessions in the area.

Scope and Contents

Rebecca Roup Winebiddle Phillips' papers include a number of personal letters from her sister, Olive Newton Winebiddle Brown, discussing family matters, particularly her 1855 marriage to steamship captain William Y. Brown, their life in St. Louis, Missouri, and Brown's death in the explosion of the Pennsylvania on June 13, 1858. The subseries also includes an 1857 class roll book from a Sunday School taught by Rebecca Roup Winebiddle and an 1866 legal petition, filed by her husband, Enoch P. Phillips with the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, concerning Philip Winebiddle's mental incompetence and inability to manage his financial affairs.

Scope and Contents

William Cunningham Winebiddle's papers include an account and receipt book and some miscelleaneous papers concerning financial, legal, and property matters, notably surveys, 1882-1883, of his coal mines in Pittsburgh's 19th Ward. There are also a number of letters from his sister, Olive Newton Winebiddle Brown, in St. Louis, Missouri, describing her married life in the 1850s and her husband's death. The subseries includes one folder of miscellaneous letters addressed to William Cunningham Winebiddle and some samples of his manuscript poetry.

Scope and Contents

The papers of Olive Newton Winebiddle Brown include letters received from her siblings, Rebecca Roup Winebiddle Phillips and William Cunningham Winebiddle, concerning family affairs, as well as a few letters written by her and addressed to her mother, Susanna Roup Winebiddle. The subseries also contains a number of letters of condolence addressed to her after William Y. Brown's death in the explosion of the steamer Pennsylvania in 1858; some contemporary newspaper accounts of the disaster are also included, along with a few letters from William Y. Brown addressed to his wife and Winebiddle family members, and two of his steamboat pilot license renewals.

Scope and Contents

The series concludes with miscellaneous materials from various members of the Winebiddle family and its associated Negley and Roup branches, including genealogical research, correspondence, and information compiled by Susanna Winebiddle Brown Baum and Kate Johnston Baum Shillito. Notable items in the subseries are additional letters, 1847-1898, of James Scott Negley, several addressed to his uncle, Alexander Negley, concerning his experiences in the Mexican-American War, and information on the estate of Catharine Winebiddle Roup.

Scope and Contents

The papers of Susanna Winebiddle Brown Baum concern her financial status, property holdings, and investments. The subseries includes account books, correspondence, leases, and property surveys, although deeds and mortgages comprise the bulk of the property records. These documents concern a number of properties, particularly in the 19th and 20th wards of the city; many detail the disposition of lands originally owned by Philip Winebiddle in the East Liberty section. The deeds and mortgages are arranged by street name. The subseries also contains a copy of Susanna Baum's will and considerable documentation of the settlement of her estate by her son, Paul James Baum. There are some personal items in the subseries, including one folder of letters addressed to Susanna Winebiddle Brown Baum, primarily from family members, a manuscript recipe book, and an assortment of cards, handbills and advertisements, and other printed ephemera, documenting her interests, movements, and activities.

Scope and Contents

Almost all of William Winebiddle Baum's papers concern his financial status; a bank account book and some miscellaneous receipted bills and accounts are included, along with a copy of his will and information on the settlement of his personal estate.

Scope and Contents

While the personal papers of Paul James Baum document his military service during World War I, the principal focus of the material is his education. There are a number of notebooks from his primary school education, as well as correspondence, examinations, and printed ephemeral material from his association with the International Correspondence Schools, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, through which he studied shop calculations and patternmaking.

Scope and Contents

The early life, interests, and activities of Helen Louise Kohler Baum are documented through an extensive collection of personal letters addressed to her. Although letters survive from over sixty years, the greatest concentration of material derives from the period before her 1923 marriage to Paul James Baum. With the exception of one folder of letters from her father, David Sherman Kohler of the Oliver Iron & Steel Company, the letters to Helen Louise Kohler Baum are arranged chronologically. Several describe student life at the Washington Seminary in Washington, Pennsylvania, from 1908-1911; there are other letters from suitors and friends describing their travels; most concern family matters and Helen Louise Kohler Baum=s efforts to find employment as a teacher of shorthand and typing. Beginning in 1918 and extending up to 1921, a number of letters written in shorthand, probably from Carrie E. Johnston of Crafton, Pennsylvania,

The subseries includes some miscellaneous material from Helen Louise Kohler Baum=s long association with the Home for Aged Protestants in the Wilkinsburg section of Pittsburgh. In addition to a record of board correspondence, there are a few newsclippings, and a number of items concerning the ownership of a needlepoint tapestry entitled "The Last Supper" made by Susan Wagner.

A small amount of Kohler family material in included with the papers of Helen Louise Kohler Baum. There is one folder of her genealogical research and correspondence of members of the Kohler, Croft, Becker, and Sheets families, as well as a cash book of her grandfather, David Kohler; autograph album of her mother, Elizabeth Becker Kohler; and a few property deeds of her father, David Sherman Kohler, with some miscellaneous letters and ephemeral items from members of Helen Louise Kohler Baum=s immediate family.

Helen Baum was named one of the co-executors of the estate of Richard Burns King, a distant connection through the Negley family, and papers concerning King=s estate and investments, along with some personal items, are included in the subseries. There are several items documenting King=s struggle with the City of Pittsburgh over the development of the Highland Park area; this conflict ultimately resulted in King=s bequest of his estate to the city. There are also papers concerning settlement of the estate of King=s wife, Mildred Kelly King, and a number of personal letters, many from his mother, Sarah Cordelia Smith King, describing a family tour of Europe taken in 1898, while Richard Burns King was a student at Princeton University. There is also one folder of miscellaneous letters addressed to King on various subjects, including a few from Thomas W. Galey concerning the 1900 wreck of King=s Riker Electric which was struck by a streetcar--supposedly the first automobile accident in Pittsburgh.

Scope and Contents

financial and property papers, and scrapbooks of Kate Shillito and her husband, Allegheny City physician G. M. Shillito. Almost all of the letters addressed to Kate Shillito predate her marriage and concern personal and family matters; several are letters of condolence on the death of her mother, Rebecca Roup Baum, in 1876. There are a number of lengthy letters addressed by Kate Shillito "to the dear ones at home" describing her experiences during the course of her travels in Italy, Egypt, Jordan, Greece, and Mexico, in 1898.

Three scrapbooks compiled by Kate Shillito's contain letters received on the deaths of her brothers, Charles Volz Baum, in 1900, and John Roup Baum, in 1906, and newsclippings, 1864-1909, on diverse subjects, including the assassination and death of President William McKinley; archaeology and tourism of Biblical sites; poetry; obituaries; and biographical and genealogical information on the Baum, Negley, Roup, and Winebiddle families. One volume of G. M. Shillito's messages from 1886, generally requests from patients for visits or medical advice, is contained in the subseries. Three similar volumes, from 1887, 1889, and 1892, survive, but the leaves have been overlaid by Kate Johnston Baum Shillito with newsclippings and other material and turned into her personal scrapbooks.

Scope and Contents

Miscellaneous papers of the Baum family are included at the end of the series. In addition to genealogical information, the subseries contains various papers, generally related to property and financial matters, of members of the Baum family, 1840-1976.