Levan Ledger at Brandywine Battlefield

Written by in the Sharing the Common Wealth category and the Fall 2005 issue Topics in this article: American Revolution, Battle of Brandywine, Berks County, Brandywine Battlefield Park, George Washington, Henry Becker, Jacob Levan, Marquis de Lafayette
Sharing the Common Wealth showcases objects, artifacts, documents, structures and buildings from the collections of PHMC.

From the late eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries, Jacob Levan and his son Benjamin kept a ledger for a store or gristmill they operated in Maxatawney Township, Berks County. In addition to listing, in German script, the names of customers, types of goods they purchased, and the prices paid, the account book,contains, in English, the muster rolls of “Capt. Jacob Mauser’s Company of the 6th Pennsylvania Regiment of Foot in the Service of the United States, commanded by Colonel Henry Becker, Esq.,” for May 1777. The regiment fought at the Battle of
Brandywine on September 11, 1777, the largest engagement of the Revolutionary War. In 2001, the Brandywine Battlefield Park Associates donated the ledger to the Brandywine Battlefield Park at Chadds Ford Delaware County. The park includes an original farmhouse used by the Marquis de Lafayette and a reconstruction of a house occupied by George Washington as headquarters.