Call Number:

0104

Repository:

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Extent:

1.16 linear feet (; 13 volumes, 1 flat file)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Cite as: [Indicate cited item or series here], Edward Shippen Burd papers (Collection 104), The Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Date:

1798-1858 (inclusive)

Creator:

Burd, Edward Shippen, 1779-1848

Abstract:

Edward Shippen Burd was born in Philadelphia on December 25, 1779, and was the only son of Edward and Elizabeth (Shippen) Burd. He and his wife, Eliza Howard Simms, were involved in a number of business, legal, and real estate enterprises. Reflecting the family's participation in such endeavors, the collection include 13 volumes of Edward S. Burd's personal, business and legal records. These include receipt books, a law library catalogue, account books, an income and investment book, and related business records.

Edward Shippen Burd (1779-1848), the son of Edward Burd and Elizabeth Shippen, like his father, became a prominent member of the legal profession in Pennsylvania. His mother was the daughter of Pennsylvania Chief Justice Edward Shippen, member of the prominent Shippen family of Lancaster and Shippensburg. Burd was educated at the Academy of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, whence he graduated in 1794. Later he served on the university’s board from 1831 to 1839, and, again, from 1842 to 1844.

Over the course of his life he would also venture into various business interests and real estate. By the close of his life he had acquired a significant amount of real estate properties including the Ormiston Mansion (built by his father in 1798 on 45 acres overlooking the Schuylkill River) that he inherited after his father’s death. Beneficiaries of his philanthropic contributions, along with those of his wife, Eliza Howard Simms, included the St. Stephens Church and the Protestant Episcopal Hospital of Philadelphia. Eliza, upon her death in 1860, bequeathed $100,000 to the St. Stephens Church for the establishment of the Burd Orphan Asylum for the daughter of Episcopal Clergymen.

The volumes collected here detail some of Edward Shippen Burd’s (and Eliza Howard Simms Burd's) expenses and business affairs. The notations included concern payments and receipts in taxes paid, land surveys and maps, rents and mortgages, wages paid to servants/laborers, property taxes, expenses and purchases, and item inventories. Concerning Elizabeth Burd’s affairs, two of the volumes (5 and 6) in Box 2 are receipt books for the monthly accounts of the Burd Orphan Aslyum with the grocer Michael McCarthy. Another interesting volume (10) is the catalogue of books of Edward Burd’s law library.