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King of Prussia Post Office and General Store ledgers
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Held at: King of Prussia Historical Society [Contact Us]
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the King of Prussia Historical Society. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
The King of Prussia Post Office and General Store was established in the late 18th century in King of Prussia, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Allen C. Pugh (1847-1933) took over the general store in 1878, and that same year he was appointed Postmaster. When Allen retired in 1933, he sold the building to Leslie White Morrison (1899-1974) and his wife, Lucressa Hastings Morrison (1896-1988), who purchased it in part to save the historic building. Because Leslie had a full-time job already, Lucressa handled the running of the business and was appointed postmistress of the King of Prussia Post Office in 1935. She opened an antiques business around 1937, at which point the official name of the store changed to King of Prussia Antique Shop and General Store. Lucressa ran the business for over thirty years and retired in the mid-1960s. The antique shop continued in operation until it was sold and closed its doors in 1984. In 1986, the building was demolished.
Bibliography:
Morrison, J. Michael. Images of America: King of Prussia. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005.
Morrison, J. Michael. Then & Now: King of Prussia. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2007.
This collection consists of financial ledgers, most of which relate to the general store, post office, and antiques businesses. Other ledgers include bookkeeping records and accounts with another business.
The ledgers from the antique business contain inventories of furniture and other items in stock, lists of items sold or being sought by patrons, and other information. There are also ledgers with details of the sales at the general store, utility bills paid by patrons, and bills paid by the King of Prussia Post Office and General Store (and the antique business). Some client names and addresses are listed in the ledgers.
Other ledgers in the collection include three volumes of bookkeeping records (Eugene Forman, Certified Public Accountant) with payroll, expenditures, and receipts; and accounts with Bender & Foard, cabinet maker.
Gift of Michael Morrison, 2013.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2012-2014 as part of a project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.
In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact King of Prussia Historical Society directly for more information.
People
Organization
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- King of Prussia Historical Society
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Sarah Leu through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
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Contact King of Prussia Historical Society for information about accessing this collection.