[SMALL COLLECTION OF MANUSCRIPT DOCUMENTS CONNECTED TO THE LAYING OF ROADS IN GERMANTOWN AND ROXBURY, PENNSYLVANIA BEFORE AND AFTER THE REVOLUTION]

[Transportation]: [Livezey, Thomas]

Verlag: Philadelphia County, 1786

Five manuscript documents totaling [6]pp. Folio. Old folds, minor splitting in places, one item tanned and foxed. One document with a contemporary blindstamp, another with a contemporary paper seal. Very good. A small group of manuscript documents related to the laying of roads on and around Philadelphia merchant, politician, and Loyalist Thomas Livezey's property in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Livezey was a prominent businessman in colonial and Revolutionary Pennsylvania, and operated what was said to be the largest mill in the colonies. Involved in politics and friendly with Benjamin Franklin, he was a Loyalist during the Revolution. These documents illustrate the importance of roads in carrying out commerce in the colonial and early National periods, and the conflicts that would erupt when landowners felt that the course of roads disadvantaged them by passing through their land, or when businessmen felt the roads were too far away from the source of their production. The earliest document in the group is a signed and sealed quarter session court order dated June 7, 1763, describing a potential road from "Thomas Livesley's Mill." Six men are appointed to "view and if they see occasion lay out the said Road and make report of their doings to next Court and whether it be for publick or private use." The following document is from September of the same year and presents the report of that group, signed by the men named in the order. The route is described in precise detail: "Beginning at Thomas Lovisly's Mill road on the line dividing the Townships of Germantown and Roxborrough, thence extending along the said line South thirty six degrees East one hundred and seventy two perches to Edward Milners Mill road and one hundred and twenty four perches to a recorded road leading from Wisihicon road to Germantown road and [so on]." The following two documents are dated 1783 and regard a dispute over a portion of the said road. The first is a manuscript petition signed by twenty-eight residents of Germantown and Roxbury. They are petitioning in opposition to a request by landowner Hugh Crawford (through whose property the road ran) to shift its course south. The petitioners counter that doing so would be "very injurious to the inhabitants living near the upper end of Germantown; as well as to the back Inhabitants, who bring large Quantities of Wheat to market along the same. And by which Germantown is yearly supplied with Considerable Quantities of Firewood, Coal &c." The other 1783 document, bearing the manuscript title "Some Remarks on the Road," presents the arguments of an unnamed party against Crawford, likely one of the petitioners. The writer notes that while it is true that the route as it exists differs from the route described in public records (one of Crawford's arguments), it had been laid in that place for decades and any claim of injury by Crawford would be disingenuous. Furthermore, there is precedence for the opening of public roads even when the route is not laid out as intended, as "The use and utility of publick roads are of too much consequence to the publick when shut up to admit of Delay in their being opened.Upon the whole there is no Injury done Crawford by the Road being opened in the place where [it is], as it was there open long before he bought it, there when he bought it, and there continued about 20 years after he bought it, and if it ever did the place an injury he saw it before he laid out his money." The latest document is the Philadelphia Quarter Sessions Court's response (dated 1786) to a petition of Joseph Paul and Thomas Livezey to lay yet another road between Livezey's mill and Roxborough. This was done, and the document describes the precise route and orders it to be opened. The document is blind-stamped with the seal of the Philadelphia Quarter Sessions Court and signed by Hilary Baker as Clerk of the Peace. Hilarius Baker (1746-98) was an important figure in Philadelphia: as a Notary Public he pre. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers WRCAM57892

Bibliografische Details

Titel: [SMALL COLLECTION OF MANUSCRIPT DOCUMENTS ...
Verlag: Philadelphia County
Erscheinungsdatum: 1786