About This Collection
"The Office of the Secretary of Internal Affairs was created by the Constitution of 1874. Under the Constitution and subsequent legislation, this agency was assigned all the duties of the Surveyor General, as well as duties involving the supervision of the activities of business organizations and charitable institutions, and responsibility for establishing a Bureau of Industrial Statistics, which later became part of the Department of Commerce. Digital records are available for two of the five major bureaus including the Bureau of Statistics and the Bureau of Topographic and Geologic Survey. The Bureau of Topographical and Geologic Survey records include collections related to the Second Geological Survey headed by J. Peter Lesley commenced in 1874 and resulted in a series of published reports issued through 1889. For additional information on the Department of Internal Affairs or the Bureau of Topographical and Geologic Survey please consult the finding aid of the Pennsylvania State Archives. This collection contains a diary kept by Board of Commissioners’ Assistant Charles Ashburner in Mckean and Elk Counties. Information provided is date and time of entry, brief descriptions of his daily activities and the names of persons whom he met from his departure from Philadelphia on Wednesday, July 12, 1876 to the afternoon of October 15, 1876."
