Docket Book, Potter County, Pennsylvania, 1903-1937.
A Long-Running Potter County Justice of the Peace Docket, 1903-1937 [Manuscript]. Swetland, H.H. [1865-1955], Justice of the Peace. [Docket Book]. Potter County, Pennsylvania, 1903-1937. Manuscript entries to 135 of 153 pp. Three additional documents clipped or laid in. Folio (14" x 8-1/2"; 35.6 x 21.6 cm). Contemporary three-quarter sheep over textured cloth, gilt title to spine. Manuscript in a single, legible hand, largely free of corrections. Light soiling and some shelfwear to extremities, moderate toning to text block, internally clean. Very good. $650. * An exceptionally continuous record of decentralized summary jurisdiction spanning over three decades in one of Pennsylvania's most rural northern-tier counties. Henry Harmon Swetland, a lifelong resident of Mills, Pennsylvania, served an unusually long tenure as a Justice of the Peace in Potter County, holding office for a total of 34 years and 8 months-a milestone proudly noted in the opening entry of this volume. The docket documents the granular realities of early 20th-century rural legal culture, recording minor civil disputes (including debt collection, contract breaches, and property disagreements) and summary criminal proceedings at the township level. Entries routinely detail the names of litigants, specific causes of action, summaries of testimony, constables' returns, final dispositions, and meticulously itemized fee bills. The volume contains three compelling manuscript and vernacular documents that enhance its provenance and research value: -"Plot of H.H. Swetland's Water Works" (1894): A detailed, hand-drawn map/diagram predating Swetland's judicial tenure, reflecting his local commercial and civic footprint in Mills. -Machinist's Bill (1894): An itemized statement for mechanical work, likewise predating the docket. -Judicial Correspondence (1935): A typed letter signed by Robert R. Lewis, President Judge of the 55th Judicial District, clipped directly into the volume, highlighting Swetland's late-career interactions with the county's higher judiciary. An evocative primary source for the study of local legal administration, community disputes, and socioeconomic networks in rural Pennsylvania during the progressive era and Great Depression.
Price: $650.00
Book number 85980