Details

Other Title:

Protocollum

Subjects:

Notaries -- Pennsylvania.
Lumber trade -- Pennsylvania.
Lumber trade.
Notaries.
Germantown (Philadelphia, Pa.) -- History -- 18th century -- Sources.
Germantown (Philadelphia, Pa.) -- History -- 19th century -- Sources.
Philadelphia (Pa.) -- History -- 18th century -- Sources.
Philadelphia (Pa.) -- History -- 19th century -- Sources.
Pennsylvania.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Account books.
Notarial documents.
Manuscripts, German.
Manuscripts, American.

Language:

English and German, with one section in Dutch and English (p. 277-286) and an additional title page as well as some formulaic legal terms in Latin.

Biography/History:

Born in Dresden, 1714; arrived in Germantown, 1731; notary public, surveyor, conveyancer, importer of flower bulbs; died, 1774.

Summary:

Printed forms for assigning power of attorney, alternating between English and German, completed by the Germantown notary Christian Lehman, followed by a briefer section of fair copies of documents by Lehman, also in both German and English, all between 1772 and 1774 (the year of his death). Many of the fair copies also concern power of attorney, but others record the granting or transferral of military commissions and transactions in Dutch originally recorded in Suriname by the notary Daniel van den Brink. Most of the documents are for the city or county of Philadelphia. The last third of the volume was used to record purchases of lumber between 1785 and 1823 by Benjamin Lehman (1760-1839), Christian Lehman's son, who was a lumber merchant and cabinet maker in Germantown, and his son Benjamin, who became a partner in the business in 1816 (p. 361). A few loose notes of calculations of lumber totals over multiple years and work hours, originally pinned into the volume, are now laid in their openings (p. 356-357, 392-393, 422-423).

Contents:

1. p.1-252: Register [printed forms] / Christian Lehman
2. p.253-286: Notarial register continued [fair copies] / Christian Lehman
3. p.288-290: [Bills for lumber customers, 1785] / Benjamin Lehman
4. p.291-403: [Records of lumber purchases, 1794-1823] / Benjamin Lehman
5. p.421-426: [Records of time worked?] / Benjamin Lehman.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from English title page (p. iii); alternate title Protocollum from Latin title page (p. i)
Pagination: Paper, 215 leaves; [i-iv], 1-109, [110-199 (blank forms)], 200-225, [226-251 (blank forms)], 252-286, [287-403, 404-420 (blank), 421-426], contemporary pagination in ink, modern pagination in pencil, upper center.
Script: Written in cursive script and cursive German script by Christian Lehman (p. 1-286) and in cursive script by Benjamin Lehman, Benjamin Lehman, Jr., and perhaps others (p. 288-426).
Decoration: Calligraphic title pages (p. i, iii); a few manicules (p. 363-365, 369).
Binding: Contemporary reversed calf (Lawbook Exchange); initials BL (for Benjamin Lehman) in ink on upper cover; other words in ink on upper cover and spine, now badly oxidized and illegible.
Origin: Written in Philadelphia and Germantown, 1771-1774 (p. i-iv, 1-286) and 1785-1823 (p. 288-426).

Penn Provenance:

Sold at auction at Doyle New York, 24 November 2014, lot 420.
Sold by the Lawbook Exchange (Clark, N.J.), 2015.

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 1713.

Contributor:

Lehman, Benjamin, 1760-1839.

OCLC:

913899434

Access Restriction:

Access to this item is subject to staff review.