Bucks Writs - Fall 2019 - 8

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Preserving Bucks County History,
One Book at a Time
By Dianne C. Magee

A scant three months into her tenure as Bucks County
Record of Deeds, in April, 2018, Robin Robinson made
some startling discoveries. One, something called "record
improvement" money existed for the benefit of her
office. And, two, her office desperately needed those
funds to repair and restore the hundreds of old and
dilapidated deed books, some dating back to the time
of William Penn, which seemingly had been relegated
to their deathbeds on a floor in the County's Neshaminy
Manor complex. Ms. Robinson described her journey from
shocked despair to productive recovery in a speech to a
sold-out crowd at the Mercer Museum in Doylestown
on June 27, 2019.
Under Pennsylvania law, a $5.00 record improvement
fee, which is imposed on each recording at the Recorder
of Deeds, is split, with $3.00 paid to the County and
$2.00 paid to the Recorder of Deeds. Unfortunately, Ms.
Robinson's immediate predecessor had donated $900,000
of these funds from the Recorder of Deeds coffers to the
County. Fortunately, Ms. Robinson, upon her enlightenment, quickly received $250,000 in Bucks County
record improvement funds to begin her venture, called by
her as "Science Saving History," to salvage 700 neglected
Bucks County deeds, dated from 1684 to just after the
Civil War, when it appears that some of the gray deed
paper was made from Union uniforms.

Ms. Robinson found a company named KOFILE in Vermont
and quickly shipped 45 books north to be revived in an
environmentally friendly way so that
they will survive intact as a legacy
to our rich Bucks County history
and as a research tool for, hopefully,
the next 500 years. KOFILE soaks
each page in a water bath, gently
removes Scotch tape, which
destroys ink, applies Japanese linen
to mend the torn and tattered
pages, and then seals the renovated
pages and binds them into uniform,
protective covers. Each volume
weighs about 22 pounds.

So far, apart from the County funding and four
grants for which she has made application, Ms.
Robinson has raised over $21,000 from her
office's Adopt-a-Book program to transform the
historic but previously decaying and molding
deeds. For as little as a $10, a donor to the
program will receive a certification of thanks. A
donor of $500 to $1999 will also be recognized
on the Adopt-a-Book plaque, and the name of
a very generous donor of $2000 or more will be
memorialized in a restored deed book. The office
is sponsoring a contest in the near future for
the lucky winner's name to be inscribed in one
of the new books.

Bucks Writs - Fall 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Bucks Writs - Fall 2019