LLA Foundation Funds Preservation of Lycoming County Legal Documents

$7500 awarded to Lycoming County Historical Society

The Lycoming Law Association Foundation has been providing grants for worthy law related projects since its formation many years ago.  With a recent grant to the Lycoming County Historical Society, the Foundation has, for the first time, funded an effort to preserve important, local legal documents.

The grant of $7,500.00 to the Thomas T. Taber Museum of the Lycoming County Historical Society will fund the abstracting, indexing and preserving of legal documents in the Museum's archive, related to Lycoming County.

Upon receiving news of the grant, Gary W. Parks, Executive Director of the Museum and Historical Society said he was "thrilled to receive this money." According to Parks, "the abstracting of these documents is too complex without the assistance of a person with legal knowledge. This money will allow us to hire an individual with the necessary knowledge to digest the documents in an appropriate manner so that they may be used in the future.”

The grant application highlighted a significant funding need. “The Historical Society has a significant collection of legal documents, spanning the 18th through the early 20th centuries, all of which relate to the people of Lycoming County. While the Historical Society has attempted to sort these into categories, many of these documents have defied description unless abstracted. The Historical Society would like to hire someone with a familiarity in reading and deciphering these documents. Once abstracted, the documents would be more readily available and usable by researchers.”

Parks explained that “there are several hundred documents in question relating to legal issues of Lycoming residents – the good, the bad and the ugly. The contents of these diverse documents include land disputes, the dissolution of unsuccessful business ventures, messy divorces, and criminal activity. Good historical and genealogical information can be derived from the documents. They would be far more usable after someone abstracts them.”

The LLA's Community Activities & Outreach Committee, under Chair Tammy Weber, reviewed the application and found the grant request to fit nicely within the mission of the Foundation. The Committee enthusiastically recommended the grant; the Foundation Board agreed, and the award was approved in November, 2014.

Thomas Waffenschmidt, President of the LLA and a Board Member of the LLA Foundation, presented the check to Parks and stated that “the LLA Foundation is always pleased to assist the community to learn more about the legal system and improve the delivery of legal services in our community. This grant will create an impact toward that goal.”

According to Parks, work on the project will begin immediately.