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Newtown Hardware House financial ledgers
Notifications
Held at: Newtown Historic Association [Contact Us]Centre Avenue and Court Street, Newtown, Pennsylvania
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Newtown Historic Association. 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 Newtown Hardware House was built in 1869 by Cyrus Hillborn and Harrison C. Worstall at 106-108 South State Street. 108 South State Street was a hardware store operated by Hillborn and Worstall, and 106 South State Street was a dry goods store operated by George E. Dolton. Mr. Dolton sold his side to George H. McMaster in 1908. When McMaster died in 1927, both sides of the store were taken over by H.C. Worstall, and later bought out by John J. Burns. When Burns died in 1955, Robert M. Davis bought the business and operated it until 1985, when it was taken over by C. David Callahan, the current proprietor [as of 2011].
"The Newtown Hardware House was destroyed by fire on March 4, 1899. The fire was one of the worst in Newtown's history. It is thought burglars set the building on fire. The building was rebuilt to the exact specifications of the original building and was reopened by Christmas of the same year and is still in operation. Today, when looking at the rear wall, lower left (Northern) portion of the structure, a distinct brick line exists that outlines surviving brickwork dating before 1899. The Newtown Hardware House has been in continuous operation for over 130 years, which ranks as the longest tenure for any single business in Newtown."
Bibliography:
Quoted text from: Newtown Hardware House. "History." Accessed January 29, 2012. http://newtownhardware.com/about/history/.
This collection consists of about 25 volumes of financial ledgers, 1900-1974. Records prior to 1900 were destroyed in the 1899 fire at the Newtown Hardware House.
An item-level inventory is available in a database on-site.
Gift of C. David Callahan.
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.
Detailed, computerized inventories of all of the items in this collection are available on site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact Newtown Historic Association directly for more information.
Organization
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- Newtown Historic Association
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Faith Charlton 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 Newtown Historic Association for information about accessing this collection.