MG-379. STATE FENCIBLES COLLECTION, 1813-1885, 1891, 1898, 1911-1981.
The Old Guard State Fencibles, 1813-1981, was a military organization raised in Philadelphia in 1813 as part of the Pennsylvania militia and continued as a unit in the National Guard until independent battalions were abolished around 1900. The unit then was chartered as a Philadelphia City quasi-military unit and continued as a social club.
Scrapbooks, 1813-1926. Included are several newspaper articles on the Civil War and Philadelphia. The scrapbooks contain such articles as "The Panic of September 1873," "Richmond! Babylon Is Fallen: Philadelphia Colored Troops the First to Enter," "Weitzel’s Negroes Extinguish the Flames-The Colored People," and "History of Philadelphia" that includes a paragraph labeled "In February there was presented to the House a petition from Philadelphia stating that the number of people of color was 9,672 on record and four thousand runaways not on the record, who were becoming nuisances." Also found is a broadside for a performance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1856.