In 1797, yellow fever broke out in Philadelphia, and people turned to Lancaster for food and assistance for the plague-ridden city.

In 1800, as a bitterly contested presidential election drew near, propagandists on the Federalist side supporting incumbent John Adams feared the more liberal views of Democratic-Republican candidate Thomas Jefferson, and they turned to Lancaster for support of their cause and candidate.

Two broadsides — rare documents printed, posted and never intended to be preserved — highlighting these events have turned up in a local collection recently donated to Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society.

"I don't think we expected to find anything unique," said John L. Kraft, who organized the papers with his wife, Jean Weaver.

The first broadside, dated Oct. 11, 1797, is a plea from esteemed citizen Edward Hand, a U.S. congressman and former Revolutionary War general, asking local farmers to send aid to Philadelphia.

"Let me therefore humbly request of you, my Neighbours, whose humanity I am well assured of, to Contribute to the relief of our afflicted Brethren, in Grain of any kind fit for the food of Man, according to your several Circumstances," Hand wrote.

The second broadside is dated Oct. 7, 1800, and is signed by "a friend to the people," though it lists noted local politicians Robert Coleman and William Montgomery as its source.

Although written in the flowery language of the day, its tone isn't too far afield from modern political rhetoric as it charges readers to defeat a candidate "known to be inimical to the Government of the United States."

The coming election, it states, will "determine whether we shall continue at the head of affairs the man who has guided us thro' difficulties with safety and honor, — or have a Jefferson for our next President; a man who has declared that it is all the same to him, whether there are twenty Gods, one God or no God!! The very idea of such an expression is enough to chill the blood of any man who is not an infidel, or who possesses one remaining spark of christianity."

It appeals directly to the county's Plain sects, many of whom did not usually vote, and continues: "If we lose the present election, we shall probably be governed by a Jefferson and a party worse than himself. … Let us take warning, be roused, exert ourselves & we shall triumph over the dangerous enemy."

The effort ultimately failed. Jefferson won the election with more than 61 percent of the popular vote.

Both broadsides were found in a hefty collection of documents donated to LMHS by descendants of the Ira D. Landis family.

"They had preserved a great quantity of documents that had come down through the family," said Kraft, former director of the Ephrata Cloister and a distant relative of the Landis clan. "Everything had just been thrown into boxes … and I was asked to try and make some kind of sense of it.

"It was a little overwhelming."

The papers — now sorted into crisp white folders in 18 boxes in LMHS's basement library — belonged mostly to Henry and Benjamin Landis, a father and son who prospered in Lancaster County in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Landis Valley, Kraft noted, was named for Henry's father, also named Benjamin.

Many of the papers are mundane, though they would be useful to someone studying local Mennonite history.

"Of course, we didn't know what we were going to find — until we ran across the Hand document on the first day," Kraft said. "That was rather exciting."

This is the second time this year a unique broadside bearing Hand's name has been found in Lancaster County.

The previous document, published July 11, 1775, asks the peaceful sects of Lancaster County to offer financial support, in lieu of weapons and soldiers, to further the cause of the war for independence. It was found this summer at the Lititz Moravian Church Archives and Museum.

Hand signed that document as chairman of Lancaster's Committee of Correspondence and Observation.

The 1797 broadside found at LMHS would have been issued in an informal capacity, according to Sam Slaymaker, director of Rock Ford, Hand's Lancaster County home.

"He was a member of Congress, but he was writing as Lancaster's most prominent citizen," Slaymaker said.

"The way it's signed, it's not official. Everyone knew him. He was a prominent farmer. And he's appealing to his fellow citizens."

The anti-Jefferson broadside was discovered about two months after the Hand paper, Kraft said.

"We knew right away it was a nationally significant document," he said.

Kraft contacted the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Mass., a national storehouse of rare broadsides, "and the person I spoke with up there was pretty excited about this. Apparently what we have here is the only one that has survived."

The Hand document also is rare, he said, although there are three other known copies of the broadside in English. The LMHS copy bears the message in both English and German.

It's a marvel they exist all all, said Steve Ness, LMHS librarian and archivist.

"They weren't designed to be long-lasting documents," he said. "Broadsides were put up — often in taverns — then thrown away. That's why so few survived."

The rest of the Landis collection is a fairly complete record of the family's life and transactions, Kraft said.

"We found correspondence. We found estate papers. Wills, inventories and deeds. We found bills and receipts," he said.

The family speculated in land and owned farms, mills and distilleries — and they kept all their business records.

There were even records of the fines family members paid to escape duty in the Revolutionary War-era militia, Kraft said. "They were Mennonites," he explained, "so they wouldn't serve in the militia. They just paid the fines."

Weaver said many of the documents are in German and must be translated.

"It's fortunate the Landis family didn't throw these things away," she said.

Ness said he would like to create an collection index for researchers — possibly scanning some documents into computer files.

As for the broadsides, Ness said, "We don't have any plans beyond keeping them here. Although it would be nice at some point to have them — or at least replicas — on display."

tknapp@lnpnews.com