Title

Haushalter-Casler Family Archive

Bibliographic Citation

Haushalter Family Archive; privately held by Liz Casler Loomans, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, 2026.

Temporal Coverage

Dates: 1866–2025
Bulk dates: 1906–2008

Extent

Textual records and photographs, plus a small number of fabric items.
Associated three-dimensional artifacts remain in family custody.

Provenance

The collection originates from the personal papers of June Haushalter Casler (1920–2025) and incorporates inherited family records maintained by her over the course of her life. Materials passed through a continuous chain of custody from June Haushalter Casler to her son John Casler, and subsequently to her granddaughter Elizabeth Casler Loomans, via multiple transfers between approximately 2008 and 2025. No materials entered the collection from outside the family, except for the correspondence of Glenn Haushalter to the Davis family, which was given by a member of the Davis family to June Haushalter in 2023.

Abstract

The Haushalter–Casler Family Papers document more than a century and a half of land ownership, farm life, community participation, and family memory centered on a single property in Water Valley (Hamburg), Erie County, New York. The collection traces the continuous occupation and use of a fifty-acre farm by interrelated families from the mid-nineteenth century through the sale and subdivision of the property in the early twenty-first century.
Materials include land and estate records; correspondence; personal recollections; photographs of family members, farm buildings, and surrounding landscape; military service documentation from World War I and World War II; and locally focused historical research compiled by family members. The collection also contains documentation relating to the later preservation and development context of the property, including cultural resource investigations and site plans.
Together, the papers provide a place-based record of rural land tenure, family labor, military service, and community history in western New York, as well as insight into how later generations researched and interpreted their own family and local past. The papers also document sustained family involvement in civic, agricultural, and cultural institutions in Hamburg, New York, including local governance, cooperative agriculture, youth recreation, and historical preservation, as reflected in correspondence, organizational records, and contemporaneous newspaper coverage.
Scope and Content
The collection is organized into several major record groupings:
• Land, Farm, and Property Records, including deeds, estate and probate materials, tax records, easements, maps, surveys, and documentation related to the eventual subdivision and development of the farm property.
• Community and Local History Materials, documenting Water Valley, Hamburg, 18 Mile Creek, local schools, cemeteries, and community institutions through compiled histories, newspaper clippings, maps, and commemorative publications.
• Military Service Records, primarily from World War I and World War II, including official documents, correspondence, ephemera, photographs, and later family research into service histories.
• Photographs, spanning the late nineteenth through late twentieth centuries, depicting family members, agricultural work, farm buildings, woodworking projects, and community life.
• Personal Papers, including correspondence, memoirs, genealogical notes, and selected educational and professional records that illuminate family roles within the broader historical context.
• Research Files, consisting of historical compilations created by family members documenting land history, military service, and community narratives. These research materials informed the arrangement and description of the collection but are not comprehensively included.
A small number of fabric items (such as award ribbons) are included.
Three-dimensional artifacts associated with the farm and family trades are documented in the collection but remain in private custody.
Conditions Governing Access
The collection contains a small amount of modern personal and sensitive material. These records may require restriction or exclusion in consultation with the repository.

Has Part

The Haushalter Collection The Land Collection The Homesteading Collection The Glenn Haushalter Collection The Photo Catalog