Griest: William Walton Griest Collection, Series 26 Post Office
Call Number: MG-65, Series 26 Post Office
6 boxes 85 folders 3 cubic ft.
Repository: LancasterHistory.org (Lancaster, Pa.)
Shelving Location: Archives South, Side 2
Description: Series 26 contains documents regarding the postal service, including stamps, rural delivery, parcel post, postage rates, and employees.
This collection contains business and personal correspondence relating to politics, education, immigration, roads and waterways, railroads, economic issues, agriculture, trade and commerce, taxes, the Postal Service, the Susquehanna Iron Company, the Susquehanna Bridge, and many other topics. There are also Congressional bills and speeches, financial information for the businesses William Walton Griest was involved with, and papers reflecting his efforts to improve Lancaster County’s road system and to survey the county’s waterways for expanded uses.
Creator: Griest, William Walton, 1858-1929.
Conditions for Access: No restrictions.
System of Arrangement: Griest’s original folder titles and contents have been retained. The collection has been organized by subject into 26 series.
Conditions Governing Reproductions: Collection may not be photocopied. Please contact Research Staff or Archives Staff with questions.
Language: English
Source of Acquisition: Gift of W. W. Griest’s daughter, Rebecca W. Griest.
Administrative/Biographical History:
In 2003, the Lancaster County Historical Society received a Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission grant to rehouse and inventory the William Walton Griest papers. Many of these papers date from the 1880s to the 1930s and focus on Griest’s business and political interests. The grant has allowed the historical society to open this previously inaccessible collection to researchers of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and United States history.
William Walton Griest was a prominent member of Congress from 1909 until 1929. His papers reflect his influence not only in matters of national concern, but also those of Lancaster County. His term in office spans a tumultuous era of United States history, dealing with such topics as Women’s Suffrage, Prohibition, and the First World War. The collection sheds light on what members of Congress felt about these issues, and also what Lancasterians felt about them. Numerous letters and petitions were written to Representative Griest on issues which divided the nation and Lancaster County.
William Griest did not begin his career as a politician, but rather started as a public school teacher. After graduating from Millersville State Normal School in 1876, he taught at schools in East Donegal and Mount Joy townships for three years before taking another career path. His education led him to become a writer and later editor of the Lancaster Inquirer, a weekly newspaper published by his father Ellwood Griest.
Griest was an unostentatious man; nevertheless, he was a well-respected man in the community. He lived on South Queen Street with his wife Elizabeth Paxson Smith, son George W. Griest, and daughter Rebecca Walton Griest. The family was extremely close. Files containing personal correspondence between the family give insight into the quiet life of such a public man.
His first election to public office, as a member of the Lancaster City School Board in 1884, probably derived from his background as a teacher. With this success, his political career had been born and Griest continued to run for increasingly more prestigious offices. He was Chief Clerk for the County Commissioners, leader of the Republican party in Lancaster County, delegate to Republican National Convention from 1896-1920, and finally a representative to Congress from 1908 to 1929. His political career of more than forty years extended over an era of great change in both the county and the country.
Griest was heavily involved in the economy of Lancaster County. Not only was he a noteworthy Congressman, he was an equally shrewd businessman. He became an investor in many of the local public utility companies, the most prominently featured in his papers being the Lancaster County Railway and Light Company. Documents in the collection shed light on Griest’s involvement in the company as well as the company’s financial information and its interactions with other utility companies. Under his leadership, the company turned around from a dying operation on the brink of bankruptcy to an operation netting a profit of more than $100,000 a year.
Griest invested in another failing company, the Susquehanna Iron and Steel Company, at Columbia. He purchased the company in an attempt to save the mills from closing and losing the industry in the area. His papers contain many of the financial ledgers and employment records of the company. The documents give further insight into not only Griest’s business dealings, but also the lives of local men that worked for the company.
A large portion of the collection deals with Griest’s Congressional career. He held many influential positions while in Congress, including chairman of the Personnel of the House Service Committee and the Post Office and Post Road Committee, one of the largest committees in the Congress. He also sat on the Committee of Committees. The documents in this part of the collection contain bills that were proposed to Congress, speeches given by members of Congress, and reports given by many of the committees. Griest kept records on topics ranging from agriculture, veterans affairs, income tax, and child labor, to commerce and trade. On many of these issues, the collection has letters and petitions from voters from Lancaster County urging Griest to remember Lancaster County in congressional deliberations.
Griest’s major accomplishments in Congress included creating the Lincoln Memorial, improving mail service, and assisting returning World War I veterans to cope with entrance back into their local community. Locally, he assisted Lancaster County in pushing bills that would benefit the county with its economy based in agriculture and by creating a local farm bureau. He also sought to improve the road systems in the county and to survey waterways throughout the county for expanded uses.
William Griest was very close with many of the leading political figures of Pennsylvania during the early 1900s. The collection contains correspondence between Griest and men such as Gifford Pinchot, Boise Penrose, William Vare, and William Cameron Sproul.
The William Walton Griest collection is a wonderful source of information on one of Lancaster County’s leading 20thcentury citizens. Thanks to the generous support of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission this collection will be available to both professional researchers and students of history. Those interested in the period and in local history will find these papers extremely valuable as a primary source.
Processed by: KC, 2002-2003.
Note: This project was funded by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s Archives and Records Management Grant, ME 230340, 2002-2003.
Box 45
Folder 1 Postal Service
Folder 2 Postal Service
Folder 3 Postal Service
Folder 4 Postal Improvements
Folder 5 Postal Improvements
Folder 6 Postal 1919-1921
Folder 7 Postal 1919-1921
Folder 8 Postal Matters 1925-1928
Folder 9 Parcel Post
Folder 10 Bus Mail
Folder 11 Cuban Parcel Post
Folder 12 Post Office Department
Box 46
Folder 13 Post Office Department
Folder 14 Post Office Matters
Folder 15 Postal Matters
Folder 16 Postal Note Bill
Folder 17 Postal Savings Systems
Folder 18 Stamps
Folder 19 Stamped Envelopes
Folder 20 Postal Suggestions
Folder 21 Mail Investigation
Folder 22 Mail Permits
Folder 23 Postal Rate
Folder 24 Postal Rate
Folder 25 Postage Rate
Folder 26 Rate Protest
Folder 27 Rate Protest
Folder 28 Second Class Rate
Folder 29 Protest of Revenue Act
Folder 30 Drop-Letter Postage
Box 47
Folder 31 Penny-Postage Rate
Folder 32 Postage Rate
Folder 33 Postage Rate
Folder 34 Second Class Mail Rate
Folder 35 Postal Rates
Folder 36 One-Cent Rate
Folder 37 Postal Compensations
Folder 38 [Post Office-to be determined]
Folder 39 Postal Compensation
Folder 40 Postal Compensation
Folder 41 Salaries of Clerks
Box 48
Folder 42 Postal Compensation
Folder 43 Compensation of Postal Workers
Folder 44 Compensation for Injuries
Folder 45 Postal Mail
Folder 46 Postal Mail
Folder 47 Postal Appointments
Folder 48 Postal Guards
Folder 49 Postal Employee Legislation
Folder 50 Postal Employee Legislation
Folder 51 Postal Clerks
Folder 52 Postal Clerks
Folder 53 Substitute Rural Carriers
Box 49
Folder 54 Railway Postal Clerks
Folder 55 Post Office Advisory Employees
Folder 56 Superannuated Postal Employees
Folder 57 Postal Appointments
Folder 58 Postal Appointments
Folder 59 Post Office Commissions
Folder 60 Compensation Claims
Folder 61 Rural Carriers
Folder 62 Rural Carriers
Folder 63 Speeches of William Griest
Folder 64 Volunteer in Military of Postal Employees
Folder 65 Parcel Post
Folder 66 Village Mail
Box 50
Folder 67 Village Mail
Folder 68 Railway Postal System
Folder 69 Mail for the Blind
Folder 70 Indemnity for Post Office
Folder 71 Postal Legislation
Folder 72 Miscellaneous Postal
Folder 73 Miscellaneous Postal
Folder 74 Lancaster Post Offices
Folder 75 S. S. Lewis
Folder 76 Columbia Public Building
Folder 77 New Freedom
Folder 78 Quarryville
Folder 79 Marietta
Folder 80 Manheim
Folder 81 New Holland
Folder 82 Lancaster Mail Service
Folder 83 Lancaster
Folder 84 Lancaster
Folder 85 Postal Matters