MG-253. Jacob J. Bierer PAPERS, [1795-1907].
Jacob J. Bierer, a native of Westmoreland County, served in the Civil War as a captain of Company C, 11th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers from November 1861 to April 1864. He subsequently served several terms as school director of Latrobe Borough and was chief burgess of Latrobe in 1869, 1862 and 1882. He was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1883 and again in 1891 and was commissioned as a notary public in 1886 and 1910. The collection includes correspondence, legal papers, photographs, and other items pertaining primarily to Bierer’s Civil War service.
Two letters in the Correspondence folder contain unfavorable opinions of slavery, the Freedmen’s Bureau and "Negroes." These are a letter from Michael Schall Jr. to Michael Schall Sr. dated February 21, 1831 and a letter from John Bachman of Charleston, North Carolina, to J. J. Bierer dated February 12, 1862.
Also found in the collection are several Newspapers that provide information about slavery and situations involving African Americans. Some of these are: The Greensburgh Gazette dated May 31, 1822 that contains a reward advertisement for a servant mulatto boy named Frank, Greensburgh Democrat dated February 7, 1863 containing articles entitled "Negroes in Fort Lafayette," "The Effect of the Proclamation," "Niggers to be Made Soldiers," "Kentucky and Emancipation," "The Negro Tax," "Treaty with Liberia," and a copy of the Republican & Democrat dated November 30, 1864, containing an article entitled "A Hill in Labor," that discusses slavery as the cause of Civil War and an item headed "Election news," that states that the Abolition candidates received 255,081 votes against the Democratic candidates who garnered 242,123 votes.