Scope and Content Note
The papers of Edward McPherson (1830-1895) span the years 1738-1900, with the bulk of the collection dated between 1860 and 1891. Included are personal correspondence and other files of Edward McPherson, papers collected by him relating to the McPherson family and the history of the Gettysburg area of Pennsylvania, and records from the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives. Also in the collection are papers of Thaddeus Stevens that McPherson compiled as administrator of the Stevens estate and as a potential biographer. The McPherson Papers are organized into nine series: General Correspondence, Bound ; General Correspondence, Unbound ; Letterbooks ; Records of the Clerk of the House of Representatives ; Thaddeus Stevens Estate Papers ; Speech, Article, and Book File ; Family Financial and Estate Papers ; Miscellany ; Scrapbooks ; and Oversize .
The Records of the Clerk of the House of Representatives consist of correspondence, 1856-1881, and miscellaneous financial papers, 1876-1878, largely from the periods when McPherson was not the clerk. Included is a catalog of a pamphlet collection numbering approximately ten thousand publications kept in the clerk's office.
Edward McPherson was a family archivist, genealogist, and local historian whose papers document four generations of the McPherson family: Robert McPherson (1689-1749) and Janet McPherson (1689-1767), who settled in Marsh Creek, Adams (then Lancaster) County, Pennsylvania, in 1738; Colonel Robert M'Pherson (1730-1789), treasurer of York County in 1755 and 1767, commissioner in 1756, sheriff from 1762 to 1765, assemblyman from 1765-1767 and 1781-1784, member of the Pennsylvania State Constitutional Convention (1776), captain in General John Forbes's expedition to reduce Fort Duquesne in 1758, and colonel in one of the York County battalions of associates, 1775-1776; William McPherson (died 1832), who served with Samuel Miles in the Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment in 1776 and was captured at the Battle of Long Island; and John Bayard McPherson (1789-1858), for forty-five years cashier of the Bank of Gettysburg. These family records, dating from 1738, concern such matters as education in frontier Pennsylvania, social activities, local property and other investments, military service, political careers, foundation of Marsh Creek Presbyterian Church (founded 1740, records 1750-1837), and the administration of the Gettysburg and Black's Tavern Turnpike Road (records 1809-1830). Nearly half of the family material, however, concerns the estates of various members of the McPherson family, administered by succeeding sons, and the estates of in-laws, friends, and associates that they also administered. Several items of the family material were used by Edward McPherson in the preparation of a series of articles on local history appearing in a Gettysburg newspaper between 1876 and 1891.
Fully two-thirds of the collection consists of Edward McPherson's personal papers. The main part concerns his activities as clerk of the House of Representatives for the years 1863-1875, 1881-1883 and 1889-1891. Prominent subjects include recommendations for office, financial details relating to supplies, furnishings, and salaries of members and clerks, and the selection by the clerk of the House of the newspapers in which to publish the acts and resolutions of Congress and the treaties selected for publication by the secretary of state. Other subjects of note are Republican Party politics and campaigns, Pennsylvania politics, Reconstruction, and the tariff issue. Still other papers of Edward McPherson include speeches, mainly political, drafts and notes for books and articles (largely relating to Gettysburg and Adams County), genealogical material, memorabilia, newspaper clippings, miscellaneous documents collected by him relating to Gettysburg area local history, records from the law office of Robert G. McCreary, and scrapbooks.
Correspondents include James Gillespie Blaine, Noah Brooks, William E. Chandler, George William Childs, James A. Garfield, and E. B. Washburne.