Visit & About

WCHS's extensive records collections include over a thousand volumes in its library, subject-matter and surname files, and an estimated 75,000 historical documents. These collections have great appeal to those having ancestry in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and to researchers of nationally-significant topics such as the Whiskey Rebellion, the National Road, the Abolitionist Movement, and the Underground Railroad. For example, among WCHS's collections are Virginia Court Records from the late 1770s that provide abundant knowledge about the period of Virginia's claim of jurisdiction to much of what is now Southwestern Pennsylvania. WCHS's Abolitionist Movement collection includes correspondence to Dr. Francis Julius LeMoyne regarding anti-slavery activities in Washington County and elsewhere – this correspondence is believed to be the most informative of its kind in Southwestern Pennsylvania. WCHS also possesses a collection of writings by Women’s Suffrage leader Charlotte LeMoyne Wills (the daughter of Dr. Francis Julius LeMoyne), as well as approximately 70 original letters written by President Ulysses S. Grant.

WCHS’s broad artifact collections help illustrate a 500-year history of Southwestern Pennsylvania from the earliest indigenous peoples of the region to the present day. Among the many highlights of these artifact collections are the only documented pewter musket ball from the American Revolution, a complete drum carried in battle at Gettysburg in 1863 with the 140th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, the ‘Little Giant’ horse-drawn fire engine circa 1880 (currently on loan to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission), a textile collection that includes a large number of locally-made quilts and coverlets, and a collection of original paintings and treatments by Southwestern Pennsylvania landscape and portrait artists Malcolm Parcell and J. Howard Iams.