The Burd-Shippen papers (184 items) contain personal and business documents concerning Edward Shippen, Edward Burd, and their families and Philadelphian colleagues. Many of Major Edward Burd's items concern the 1st Battalion of the Pennsylvania Regiment of Foot in the early years of the Revolutionary War.
The bulk of the collection is comprised of approximately 75 letters addressed to Edward Burd and his son Edward Shippen Burd, with a small group of correspondence from Edward Shippen. The collection also contains ten items concerning Edward S. Burd and his legal colleague William Tilghman. The remainder of the collection is composed of receipts and various legal documents, most relating to Edward Shippen, including a receipt for a slave and a woman's petition against her husband for abandonment of their child.
Edward S. Burd's legal notebook (95 pages) covers from 1817 to 1846, and contains real estate transactions, illustrated plans of lots, title briefs, and cost lists.
The prominent Philadelphian Edward Shippen was born on February 16, 1729, to Edward Shippen and Sarah Plumley Shippen. A moderate loyalist during the Revolution, Edward Shippen served as judge in Philadelphia until 1791, when he became associate justice for the state supreme court. From 1799 until his death in 1804, he served as Chief Justice for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. One of his daughters, Margaret, married Benedict Arnold; another, Elizabeth, married Shippen's friend and business associate, Edward Burd.
James Burd was born in Scotland in 1726, moved to Pennsylvania, married Sarah Shippen (1731-1784) in 1748, and died in 1793. His son Edward Burd (1750-1833) rose to the rank of major in Haller's Pennsylvania Battalion of the Flying Camp in 1776, and was taken prisoner at Long Island that same year. After Edward's release, ill health prevented his reentering the service, and he returned to his legal practice. He served with great distinction as prothonotary of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (1778-1806). Edward married Elizabeth Shippen (b. 1754), daughter of Edward Shippen, in 1778. Their son, Edward Shippen Burd (1779-1856), became a specialist in property law.
William Tilghman (1756 -- 1827) was a Maryland born lawyer and Politian who succeeded Edward Shippen as Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1804.