FORKS TWP, Pa. – As Lehigh Valley residents celebrate the local patriot who signed the Declaration of Independence this Fourth of July, Northampton County officials are attempting to recover George Taylor's last will and testament.
A handwritten copy of Taylor's will remains in an 18th Century ledger book preserved in the county archives building on Conroy Place. But for 130 years, the original copy has been in the possession of the New York Public Library.
Exactly how the the document ended up in archives 65 miles east of Northampton County remains a mystery. But generations of archivists and historians believe the will was stolen.
"I would love to bring it back home," said Northampton County Archives Officer Sarah Ferry. "Am I being sentimental? Yes I am, but it is a document from an important figure in American history, and I would love to have it back here in Northampton County where it originally came from."
A patriot's life
By the time George Taylor died in 1781 at about 65-years-old, he was one of the most powerful men in Pennsylvania. He had lived a rags-to-riches story, going from a 20-year-old indentured servant shoveling coal to sitting on the colony's Supreme Executive Council before ill health forced his resignation.
Taylor and his wife Ann moved into the Bachmann Publick House – the oldest surviving building in Easton – in 1764 as his political career was on the rise. He was soon elected to the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly and tasked with overseeing construction of the original Northampton County Courthouse, which stood at Easton's Center Square.
Taylor had become wealthy by leasing and running ironworks, allowing him to construct an impressive stone home along the Lehigh River in modern-day Catasauqua. As tensions with Great Britain grew in 1775, Taylor shifted production from metal plates and Franklin stoves to grape shot, cannonballs and cannons for the Continental Army.
At the time, he and most leading Pennsylvanians supported hostilities with Great Britain but hoped to avoid breaking with the empire. But by June 1776, relations had reached a breaking point. The assembly ordered its delegation to vote for independence.
When some members of Pennsylvania's delegation balked, replacement delegates were sent in. Taylor was one of them. He voted to break from Great Britain and signed the Declaration of Independence on Aug. 2, 1776 along with most other congressional delegates.
Taylor died in Easton before the Revolutionary War came to a close. In his will, he ordered that his fortune be split between his grandchildren, his housekeeper Naomi Smith and her five children. Historians today believe Taylor fathered the children following Ann's death in 1768.
But Taylor's heirs received little. His executors – including Robert Levers, the town crier who read the Declaration of Independence in Easton on July 8, 1776 – found he was near penniless. His last few possessions, included two slaves, were sold to pay his arrears.
Pennsylvania struggled to pay for the weapons his ironworks produced, and Taylor had already sold the home along the Lehigh River – known today as the George Taylor House and a site of re-enactments. The various ironworks Taylor managed throughout his life had all been leased.
'It's our history'
As the decades passed, generations of historians have sought to learn more about the founding fathers, including Taylor. The passage of time, however, has made it difficult to discern between truth and myth. Personal letters, diaries and government documents that have survived the centuries serve as invaluable windows into the past.
But dusty tomes haven't always been viewed as public treasures. Through the 19th Century, government officials frequently tossed one-of-a-kind documents into the scrap heap, sometimes to simply clear storage space.
When their value was recognized, it was sometimes by unscrupulous collectors. In 1920, historian James Laux wrote that irreplaceable documents sometimes went missing. He was the first to publicly notice that Taylor's will wasn't in Northampton County's archive.
"The will was no doubt stolen by an outsider from the Court House at Easton, the County Seat of Northampton County, Penna. or by an employee of the Register of Wills and sold by him for a good round sum to some collector," Laux theorized in a magazine article.
In the article, he mentioned that he had managed to make a typed copy of the will after finding it in "a great library in New York City."
The first sign the county noticed something amiss is a handwritten note filed in 1925. It's not clear anyone attempted to retrieve it until 1973, when then-Register of Wills Gene Hartzell wrote to the New York Public Library requesting the document be returned.
The library balked, contending the county had no evidence that the will was wrongfully taken. A representative of the library suggested a past register of wills could have given the will to Thomas Addis Emmet, whose collection of historic documents was donated to the library in 1896.
"Unless you are able to to present proof which will convincingly substantiate your claim, I am afraid that the Library will be unable to honor your request for surrender of the document," a library representative wrote in 1974.
The county last inquired about the will in 2022 when Renee Drago, Ferry's predecessor, emailed the library to ask about the will's status. A librarian responded saying she could not locate it in their collection.
However, Melissa Grace, a spokesperson for The New York Public Library, confirmed with Lehigh Valley Public Media on Friday that it does have the will. It appears in the library's digital archive, which states it's kept in the library's iconic main branch building in the heart of Manhattan.
The Emmet Collection, which consists of letters and documents belonging to the signers of the Declaration of Independence and other prominent Revolutionary War figures, is readily available to anyone in the world, she said.
Grace did not address questions about where the George Taylor will should be housed long-term.
This week, the county retained outside counsel Ricky Santee to renew efforts to bring George Taylor's will back to Northampton County. Like others, he believes the historic document was wrongfully taken.
Even if a past county official provided Emmet with the will, it wasn't his to give away, he said. There's no record of Northampton County commissioners approving a donation, said Santee, who is working pro bono on the case.
"If the original is out there, it should never have left in the first place. It's a principle issue," Santee said. "It matters because its our history."
Ferry, the county archivist, said she isn't losing sleep about the New York Public Library having the will. Preservationists there have kept it in good condition, and it remains accessible to the public, she said.
But if the county is able to recover George Taylor's will, she would fully support making it as accessible as possible. The Siegel Museum in Easton has equipment to preserve the document and located just around the corner from the Parson-Taylor House where Taylor spent his final days.
"I fully love the idea of a collaboration," she said.