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Letters and papers of Samuel Evans, who was born on January 20, 1823 in Donegal
Township, Lancaster County, the son of Alexander Lowery Evans and Hannah (Slaymaker)
Evans. Apprenticed to Columbia contractor Israel Cooper in 1838, Samuel Evans
subsequently worked as a builder in New York, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and New
Orleans before returning to Columbia about 1850 where he settled into the building
and lumber businesses. He first married Elizabeth Anderson of Marietta in 1852
who died in 1855. In 1857 he married Columbia school teacher and amateur poetess
Mary Shoch. Evans was first elected as a Justice of the Peace for Columbia in
1853 and as Clerk of Quarter Sessions and Oyer and Terminer for Lancaster County
in 1857. After the expiration of his term as Clerk, he was reelected Justice
of the Peace in Columbia in 1861 but his term was interrupted by his service
in the Union army during the Civil War. After Confederate forces fired on Fort
Sumter, he enrolled as a Private in Colonel Fisher's Volunteer Company and marched
to Camp Curtin on May 1, 1861. Promoted to the rank of Captain during the war,
he was mustered out at Harrisburg in July, 1864. After the war, he was reelected
as Justice of the Peace for Columbia in 1866 and served in that office continuously
until 1900 when he became a Notary Public. Well known as a scholar of local
history, Evans wrote numerous historical articles for the Columpia Spy
and other local newspapers in Lancaster County and co-authored with Franklin
Ellis The History of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1883).
Among the items present in this collection are genealogical materials on the Evans, Fall, Hughes, Lowery, Lykens, Slaymaker, and Watson families of Lancaster County including biographical sketches of Benjamin Loxley (b. 1720, d. 1801), Evan Evans (b. 1732, d. 1794), and James C. Watson (b. 1805, d. 1880), transcripts of deeds executed by members of the Evans family, two printed copies of "Extracts From Manuscript Memoir of Col Alexander Lowery, of Lancaster County, and Other 'Indian Traders' of His Day," and a list of teachers who served at the Donegal log schoolhouse between 1772 and 1812. Also present is a history of the settlement of Columbia, Pennsylvania attributed to "a highly respectable lady of the Society of Friends," since identified as Rhoda Barber of Columbia. This Columbia history, though lacking some of the details concerning the massacre of the Conestoga Indians given in Rhoda Barber's "Journal of the Settlement at Wright's Ferry" that resides at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Historical Society of Pennsylvania Manuscript Group 30, Rhoda Barber's Journal of Settlement at Wright's Ferry on Susquehanna River, 1830), this document nonetheless contains a number of other details about the town that were not yet fully developed in that earlier document. A copy of a letter from William Darlington dated January 13, 1887 contains genealogical information concerning the family of Thomas Cresap who was a passionate promoter of Maryland's interests in the Pennsylvania-Maryland border dispute that erupted into "Cresap's War" during the 1730s. Other correspondence include letters from:
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