This document was found hidden among trifolded documents within the Fall Brook Coal Company Railroad Correspondence from 1887. Unfortunately, this document is not actually a love letter. Rather, it is a pretty common document requesting the shipment of coal from Fall Brook. 

I smiled when I saw this oddly folded document because this is the way that I would fold letters to friends in Middle School. The way that is is folded is not a standard, professional, or practical way of communicating, especially for business men. I do not think there is a reason as to why it is folded this way but, it is fun, I enjoy it, and it is nice find silly things like this in a collection of triflolds.

One of the first days at the Archives I was told this collection would become my child. That I would learn everything about it, find its quirks, and see where it needed some extra help. I have been at the Archives for about 7 months and the Fall Brook collection really has become my child. The pages of the collection are messy and covered in coal. The documents and correspondences are unorganized and inconsistent, never in the same order month to month and year to year. Despite the collections messiness and lack of organization, it is full of awesome things. There are pretty letter heads, fancy handwritten letters, and documents that tell a story of industrialization and the growth of business.

So far, I have processed 29 boxes, which have about 464 folders inside. Those boxes make up 4 different series in the Fall Brook Collection. Each series is unique and has its good and bad qualities and characteristics, but I learned a lot from all of them. And, when placing all of the series together, I am able to see a bigger picture that makes everything a little clearer and easier to understand.

48m.17: The first series that I processed was the Fall Brook Coal Company General Correspondence. This series was made up of incoming correspondence that was sent to company officials like John Magee, Duncan Magee, George Magee, and John Lang. This was probably the best series for me to start with, as the series provided a look at the daily operations of the Fall Brook rail and coal companies. Much of the correspondence was from businesses requesting the shipment of coal. The series also included correspondence of the setting of coal rates, requests for employment, the surveying and opening of new mines and railroad lines, and the discussion of labor issues such as strikes and unions. Although there were many days where I would see request after request for coal, I really enjoyed this collection. I think what made it enjoyable was the letterheads of all of the business correspondence. They were ornate, and helped me picture Tioga County and the expanding industries of the time. In addition, this series covered a large amount of time, from 1860 to 1906, allowing me to see changes and growth in the industry.

What I found most interesting in this series was the inability to standardize coal. Railroad cars, flour, wheat, shoes, and other products of the 1800's could be standardized or, at least, the manufacturer could set standards in which all of the products needed to follow. Coal was not like this. Coal was mined deep in the mountains, by men who spent hours down in the wet damp mine, breaking the coal. The coal was then sent above ground where it was weighed, and sent for shipment. With the high demand for coal, and the distance between the shipper and the miner, there was no way to have quality standards on coal. The coal could be markers as “pea” or “stove” based on the size, but the amount of coal dust, the inequalities of the coal, and the value, could not be standardized. This caused many complaints and special requests. Many of the letters that I have found request specific coal, from a certain vein, in a certain mine. Of course, there was no way to fill this request, as all of the coal was brought up on carts, miles away from the men who mined it, with little identification of where it was from.

48m.25: The second series that I processed was the Hon. John Magee Correspondence. John Magee was the founder of the Fall Brook Coal Company, and this collection provided a look at the growth of the Fall Brook Railroad and Coal Company from the surveying and opening of the mines, to the building and leasing of miles of tracks from central Pennsylvania to New York. This was my favorite series to process because I was able to see the coal and railroad company start from a few coal mines in central PA and grow to a large extensive network.

There were many personal letters from family members in this series which was probably my favorite part. While processing I would get caught up in trying to understand the buying and selling of bonds, the name changes of the railroads after leasing, and just general railroad business, that I would often forget about what was going on at the time that the correspondence was written. I would forget what was going on outside of the railroad business that was influencing the production. These personal letters helped me understand that as they discussed politics, the war, and everyday life.

48m.20: The third series was the Fall Brook Coal Company Agents’ Correspondence. This was an interesting series since it included the correspondence of four different agents at Fall Brook. These agents, A. Beers, R.J. Burnham, W. Howell, and H. Horning, all had different jobs and were stationed at different locations. Boxes of H. Brewer’s correspondence include various engineer drafts and plans for bridges, coal beds, and railroads lines as he was an engineer for Fall Brook. The other agents worked at coal yards and with shipment on canals so their correspondences included different information on the consignment and shipment of coal with different modes of transportation.

I started this series when I thought that I finally understood the network of the coal and railroad company, all of the positions, people, locations, and how they worked together. However, when I started looking though this, I realized that there was a lot more to learn, and tie into the story. This series confirmed the complexity of the railroads/coal company, and helped me understand many different aspects of it.

48m.60: The last series that I looked through was Colonel John Magee’s Correspondence. Colonel Magee was the son of John Magee, the founder of Fall Brook, and Vice President and eventually President of the company. The incoming correspondence, sent to Colonel John Magee, provided a look at the day-to-day activities of the Fall Brook Rail Road and Coal Company’s operations. The correspondence was from companies, legislators, businessmen, and railroad agents touch on a wide variety of issues including, the establishment of standardized coal and rail rates, coal contracts, stock and bond buying and selling, the expansion of railways, and drafted commerce laws.

What I liked about this series was that it covered labor issues more than the other series did. In the other series, I would hear about strikes and the demand for better conditions, but it was not very in-depth. I would often see a business asking Fall Brook if the strike at their mines would affect the shipment of coal. However, this series discussed the negotiations between the workers and the businessmen a little more. I was able to see the strikes of the workers, and what they were able to get, or not get. There were many letters about meetings that were held and negotiations for workers at Fall Brook and other mines in the area.

I think the biggest challenge for me, while processing this collection, was understanding the complexity of the railroad network. The railroads are just moving something to a different location, but in order to do that, they need to be weighed, switch railroads, and pay different rates to different companies. In addition, there are so many different companies that the railroad depends on, coal, lumber, steel, etc. If one company was hurting, the rest would be as well. I am, and always was, interested in PA history, and have had a few PA history classes, where railroads were discussed, but not in the depth necessary to understand all of the language used in the correspondence. I definitely learned a lot. I have been doing many online searches when I don’t understand the topic in order to finding out how exactly everything worked with the Fall Brook Company.

I learned a lot about railroads, companies, and business, but I also learned quite a bit about processing and archiving. Before this internship, I have researched in many archives and libraries and have handled documents, but I had never actually organized and processed them. Processing the collection was completely new. To process the collection, I unfolded the trifold correspondence, wiped the coal dust off of it if necessary, flattened it, and placed the correspondence in a new acid free folder and box. I did have to make my own decisions as an archivist as to how to organize the folders, and whether to not to remove the fasters of the documents. After folding, flattening, and storing the documents, I would then fill out an Excel sheet of information about each new box that I created-including the series title, series number, slot number, and dates included in the series. Yesterday, I attempted to write my first series descriptions for what I have processed, and I really enjoyed it. It was very much like writing an annotated bibliography, and pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

Processing this collection helped me see that it is not just the text of the correspondence and documents that tell the story, but rather the full document. The paper that the correspondence is written on, the fasteners and paperclips that hold the documents together, the letterheads, and the language help tell the story. Yes, you can read the text and understand what is happening and why, but reading (or trying to read) the cursive handwriting, with coal dust all over, and an old paperclips stuck to the top, create a more visual and understandable story. The actual documents tell a story better than a book, quote, or article can.

I know that I will be back at the Archives in a few weeks. I am currently working on two papers for classes that relate to the processing that I have done. Although I have taken notes while processing, I will most likely come back for some additional research. These papers that I am writing are both on the start of the Fall Brook Railroad, and the growth and importance of the company. One will be a traditional paper, but the other, I hope to use letterheads from the collection to tell the story.

I still have a lot of learning to do. I still don't think that I fully understand the complex network of railroads and big business, and I have just gotten my feet wet with the practices of processing and archiving. I have learned a lot, but there is more to learn. Today is my last day at the archives but I plan to continue learning about the Fall Brook Company. The Fall Brook Railroad may not have been the biggest or most important railroad, but it played an important role in the development of many industrial businesses. I plan to write a few papers and hopefully present them at some conferences. I will also continue updating my blog, even though I am not good at it, since I have folders of images and documents that I want to share.

I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to do this internship and I look forward to using the skills and knowledge that I have gained in the future!

I have never liked the world colonel. It is confusing and I don’t know what to think. There is no “r” so why do we say it? Am I saying the word wrong? When processing a series of correspondence of Colonel John Magee, I decided to look up the word, get some answers, and maybe stop hating a word because of the lack of information I know about it. Here is what I found.

Colonel comes from Old Italian word colonello meaning commander of a column of troops. Colonello of course comes from the Latin word columna, meaning pillar. So, that is the origin of the word, but there are still no “r’s” to explain why we pronounce the word as kernal or kernel.

Many nations adopted the Latin word of colonello and used it themselves. The French in the 1500’s adopted the word, and believe it or not, spelled and said the word as cornel. However, around 1540 the French decided to change the spelling to put it in conformity with the former version of the word. The spelling was changed to colonel, but the pronunciation was kept.

The English followed suit with the spelling and colonel became the common way to spell the word in English. Despite how it was spelled, and the mixed pronunciation at the time, the pronunciation of the Middle French word stuck. The word colonel was, and is still, stuck with an imaginary “r” in the middle of the word, despite not having an “r” in any of its origins, or in the word itself.

George is writing this letter a year after he has graduated from Princeton, at a time where he is just getting acquainted with the work of the railroad. He writes that for the first time he is being left in charge of the company as his partner- Mr. Herm- leaves. (Unfortunately, I have no idea who Herm is. The name as shown up in a few letters of correspondence, but there is not enough information to figure out his job, full name, or anything about him. I know that he worked at the offices of the Fall Brook Company, in Fall Brook, PA)

The reason I transcribed this letter, and enjoy it, is because of the discussion of the Civil War. It goes very well with the last post I made where George's brother, John, writes about his views of the North and South from a military training school. From the letter from John to his Mother, I was able to see that John, although being surrounded by those that supported the Union, did not himself. This letter, like the other, is very interesting to me, as it shows the views of the Magee family and places the rest of the collection in historical context.

In this letter to his Mother, George starts his discussion of conflict with the North and South by saying, “It is pleasanter here now than it was during the winter on account of the war.” This line is great, because a few days after this letter was written the Civil War officially began with the Battle of Fort Sumter. I am assuming that the Battle made it a little, not as pleasant, in the weeks following this letter. However, the winter of 1860 was one that was a quite troublesome and unpleasant, even for a small town in northern PA. States were succeeding, the election was occurring, the Union dissolving, and the 13th amendment was being proposed. Many things were occurring that were testing the young nation and many debates and arguments occurred creating division, divide, and disagreement.

The letter also states, “I am glad that I am here instead of at Bath for here I can say what I please. I do say many things which would cost me a coat of tar and feathers if said at home.” George is writing from Pennsylvania, rather than New York which was full of Radical Republicans who favored the harsh treatment of the rebelling Confederate States and those that supported them. The Magee family lived in New York, and many of the Fall Brook offices were at the time run out of Corning and Watkins, New York. George would have been living in Fall Brook, as he worked at the offices located there. As we can see later in the letter, George, like his brother John, did not support the Union and felt that his views would not be accepted if discussed in radical New York. George states his views by saying: “While there was a union I glorified in it as much as any but now that it only exists in name, I want a peaceable separation, no war. Never shall I by thought or dead take part in this unholy crusade against the South and her rights. Nor will I on the other hand assist the South against the North.”

I am fairly certain that George's father, John Magee had the same view of the South, agreeing with the separation of North and South, but supporting peaceful separation rather than a fight. From the collections I have been seeing how the Civil War helped the Fall Brook Railroad grow, so understanding the view of the family towards the war, is very interesting. I will keep searching, and hopefully find more. 

I found this document a few weeks ago in a box of John Magee Correspondence. The box has documents from 1860 to 1868. Many of the documents in this series are requests for employment, land and mine surveys, and, requests for loans. After a few days of going through the box, I had gotten to know the handwriting of John Magee, his sons, (Duncan, George, and John Jr) and his agents in Fall Brook. These personal family letters are my favorite because sometimes I get so caught up in trying to understand railroads and coal that I forget what is happening outside of the railroad business. This letter and many of the other personal family letters discuss what is happening in the world outside of the business. This one discusses the start of the Civil War, and secessionist and unionist views.

This letter was written by John Magee Jr, the son of John Magee, founder of Fall Brook Coal Company.  John Magee and Arabelle Steuart were married in 1831, and had ten children. Duncan, George, John, and Hebe, were the only four to survive past childhood. John Magee Jr. was born in 1844 and attended The New Haven Collegiate and Commercial Institute, which is where he wrote from in this document. (His father, John Magee valued education, and often provided loans and generous donations to people who wrote him personal letters). After school, John Magee Jr. would be involved in almost every facet of the Fall Brook Coal and Railroad interest until his death, at the age of 29, in 1873. John Magee Jr. would be the President of the Wilkes-Barre and Seneca Lake Coal Company along the Fall Brook Railway route.

In the first paragraph of this letter John Magee Jr. discusses visiting his mother. (In the collection I found a letter from April 5, 1961, where John Magee Jr. writes to his mother discussing coming to visit. I will post that letter in a few days). John Magee Jr. at the time this letter was written was attending The New Haven Collegiate and Commercial Institute. The school was founded in 1933 as a family school for boys, and taken over by William Huntington Russell in 1936. Russell gradually installed military characteristic, which gave the school the name “Russell Military Academy.”

The second paragraph of this letter discusses New Haven, Connecticut where John Magee Jr. is happy about being able to walk about the city.  By doing some research, I was able to find a letterhead from the school that John Jr. Attended. The school was on Wooster Square, which I labeled on the map below. Finding information on the railroad depot was a little harder, and I am still unsure whether I found the correct information. At the time that John Jr. was in New Haven, it was a growing city. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, Samuel Colt automatic revolver, and the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, would all help the economics of the city, creating growth and boosting the local economy. Because of these companies, and the growth during the Civil War, there were significantly more railroad lines that were planed and developed after 1860. The image below shows the Old Colony Railroad line, running from along the coast of Connecticut (c.1890). The depot discussed would most likely be located at the area where the Old Colony Railroad connects with the New Haven line.

When John was writing this letter, the Civil War had begun. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina Delegates to a special secession convention voted unanimously to secede from the Federal union. In November Abraham Lincoln would be elected President of the United States, with no support from the southern states. In the weeks between Lincoln's election and inauguration, more and more southern states would follow South Carolina's succession.

This letter was written on April 24, 1961 which is significant because this is just a few days after the Battle of Fort Sumter. On April 10, 1861, Brig. Gen. Beauregard, in command of the provisional Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina, demanded the surrender of the Union garrison of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Garrison commander Anderson refused and on April 12, Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort. At 2:30 p.m., April 13, Major Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter, evacuating the garrison on the following day. The bombardment of Fort Sumter was the opening engagement of the American Civil War.

Today, I found my first paper clip!! Followed by my second and third paperclip! This is very exciting because it means that I am coming to a point where I won’t need to pull out millions of stubborn straight pins from the documents or deal with the crumbly, and very messy, dried up rubber bands.

I found the first and second paperclip in a box of General Correspondence from 1910. The third paperclip was found in a General Correspondence box from 1918. Up until now, I have seen many different ways of fastening and grouping papers together, but this was the first time that the fastener resembles a modern day paperclip. This is the first time that I am seeing something that slides over the edge of the paper and holds the pages together without bending, pinching, or piercing them.

The third paperclip found in the collection is called a Ring Paper Clip. It looks like a round circle that clips the pages together. This paperclip was patented in 1903 by George W. McGill and advertised starting in 1905. 

Steel wire was pretty new in the 19th century so it makes sense that paperclips were designed and invented  at this time. In addition, previous centuries did not have the machinery that was capable of bending the wire into new shapes that held paper together. There are tons of different ways that the documents were grouped together before the paperclip. The most common that I see in the Fall Brook collection is with the straight pins.  

It would be really hard to trace the origin of the straight pin, since the pins have been used to fasten clothing for decades. It is known however that the first metal straight pins were made in the 18th century, in pin factories by sharpening one end of a wire and fastening it to a head. Machinery that used one piece of wire for the pin and the head was developed in the mid-1800s.

Another common fastener I see, and kind of despise, is rubber bands. They fall apart and crumble and get little pieces of dried rubber everywhere. There are many stories about the “invention” of the rubber band, since many businessmen had used rubber technology during the time, but the first time that the rubber band was patented was in the March of 1845. The band was patented by English inventor Stephen Perry, who discovered the usefulness of the rubber band when working at the Messer Perry and Co. Rubber Manufactures in London. Although this was the first time that rubber bands were patented, it was not the first time that they were used. About three thousand years ago Mesoamericans were able to create the first rubber bands by mixing the sap of rubber trees with the juices of morning glories.

Before paperclips, and as an alternative to pins and rubber bands, sealing wax was used to fold two documents together. The wax I normally see is red, and it is found in the earlier records, about 1850-1880’s.

I have found one Middletown Paper Fastener. I think, if not I have found something similar. This fastener is clamped to the corners of the paper clip with metal arms that hold the paper tight. Clips like this were patented in 1887 by Ethelnert Middleton and manufactured by the Middleton Paper Fastener Co. in Philadelphia.

Quite often I see papers “stapled” together with staple-less fasteners. Normally when I handle these, I call them the "rippy fold fasteners," because I have to be super careful when I am unfolding the little folds to make sure I do not rip the document. Basically, a device is used to cut a small flap in the papers in a way that they lock together and are attached without using a metal fastener. “Staplers” that produced the staple-less fasteners were first manufactured by the Clipless Paper Fastener Co. in Newton, IA and the Bump Paper Fastener Co. in La Crosse, WI around 1909. 

Finding fasteners in the Fall Brook collection means that I need to research and figure out what fastener I have found and when it was used. I am finding that these fasteners often have stories linked to their creation, which I really enjoying learning.

The Fall Brook collection is mainly coal and railway related documents. I really enjoy learning about the two intertwining businesses through the letters and correspondence, but I also love the history that I am learning from the other things in the boxes such as the paperclips, advertisements, and letterhead

Before and after picture of the boxes processed.