A frequent question we get from visitors to the museum or our website is about who lived in their house before them. Our next big project is designed to answer that question. By combining house pictures, census records and our massive local genealogical database, we will construct those records for Mansfield Borough.

Why only the Borough? Because we need house and street addresses. House numbers were only added in Mansfield about 1899, and the reason was for home delivery by the post office. Starting with the 1900 census, street addresses were included. This enables us to link the residents to the building. In rural areas road names were not included, and house numbers did not exist until the 1970s.

We have had several fires in recent years that have destroyed some of our older buildings. That enhances the need to photograph and document them. An additional issue is that occasionally house numbers change and throw us off, particularly on South Main Street.

Step One will be to photograph each house or business building or barn, street by street. We already have some, but when warm weather starts, we will need volunteers to take a section and photograph the buildings. We need high resolution digital images, so if you use a cell phone, make sure it is set for high resolution. Otherwise a digital camera is preferred. If you want to help on this project, coordinate with us so we make the best use of everyone's time.

Step One B - Go through your family albums. We encourage people to send in the older photos of their house, or the one they grew up in. Again, high resolution scans are preferred, and be sure to state the street and house number. If you can't scan them, we can do it for you and return the photos. Most cell phone photos will not be high enough resolution.

Another Request - census 1900, 1910,1920,1930,1940 are available, and we have been working on these for years documenting and connecting our local population. The 1950 census won't be out for another few years, but you know something about your house that you could share with us that is more recent than 1940. Who did you, your parents, buy it from. Who was it sold to when your family left? What other information do you have about your house?

This is a community-wide project, and people can participate in a variety of ways. We are excited to see this come together and look forward to your participation.

P.S. We really need pre-2000 phone books.

We are able to present a display such as this because so many families have been willing to share their family photos with us, making them part of the community archives and a permanent part of Mansfield's history. When we select individuals to commemorate, we are more likely to select if we have a photo to go along with the text. If you have photos of our local families, businesses or events, we hope you will share them with us so that your family members can be represented by face in the Museum of Us.

Special thanks to Joe Tice of Joe Tice Excavating for repairing both our sewer pipe problem last winter AND putting in new water pipes.

Thanks also to Matt Neal Construction, Bohart Heating and Plumbing, and Lowe's for donated or discounted materials or services for our renovation of rooms to be used for library and archives.

Thanks also to volunteer painters James Davies, Mary Robinson-Slabey, Denny Murray, and Zach and Steve McCloskey.

Businesses, individuals, and events leave behind items and mementos that remind us of their existence and which record our town's history. We will include items from our collection in each issue of the newsletter.

This month we'll show some matchbooks that are in our collection. These are from the 1940s and are part of the collection of Joan Nash O'Dell who graduated from Mansfield High School in 1947. She lives in Horseheads and is a History Center member. She donated her matchbook albums to us.

Almost everyone smoked cigarettes, and they apparently drank Orange Crush, too.

On the back of the museum is a small addition of four rooms that has been used as an apartment as far back as the 1870s, possibly originally intended as housing for the church's minister, but that's a guess. We have determined that Emma Bailey, Universalist minister lived there in 1920, so our guess was good.

Work on these rooms is nearly complete, and we are excited at the prospect of moving in and putting everything in order.

Having the library and archives in this building will cut in half the costs of operating two buildings, and it will make it more efficient to work. It will be a more unified experience for our visitors and researchers.

We still have work to do on the building's exterior, but that will have to wait for another funding source.

For the New Year. Consider a gift membership. Members will receive our 40 page printed journal by mail 4 to 6 times a year with new articles that have never been researched before and outstanding photos to illustrate. Share your love of the Mansfield area with your friends and family.

It's the only way we can continue offering our important services to the community.

Family $50

Individual $35

Senior (Over 65) $25

Business Level $100

Lifetime $500

MHS Class Memorial $200

Checks to

The History Center

83 N. Main Street

Mansfield PA 16933

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