Happy to Be Here: Is there a home for this collection?

Tom Lingenfelter is looking for a building in Bucks County to turn into a museum.
“I don’t know what to do with all my stuff,” he said last week.
The space needs to be large enough to hold his collection of documents and objects, all related to American history. He’s determined to keep it all together and Lingenfelter is not one to change his mind.
He’s been close to buying two buildings but those ventures didn’t materialize. He’s had an offer in Washington but he’s a dedicated Bucks Countyian and the collection must go here.
He’s a character, and I think he would admit it. Born near Altoona and introduced to “super sophisticated” Manhattan at King’s College where he majored in history, he developed a flair for recognizing important people and moments in history. That’s one of the reasons he settled in Bucks County.
“Everybody came to Bucks County. Everybody important is part of Bucks history,” he said. That includes George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, James Michener, Margaret Mead and the New Yorkers who settled here in the 20th century. “Bucks County is really middle America, the beginning of America.”
He has been an athlete, a college soccer player, a sprint champion, a U.S. Field hockey medalist, and an Olympic candidate for pistol shooting. He was a member of the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps.
Lingenfelter spent four years as a public school teacher before starting an advertising business in Lansdale that led to his founding of the Heritage Collectors’ Society, when he had accumulated historical papers and artifacts. He had a shop next to the Bucks County Democratic Headquarters in Doylestown, where his interest in politics began. He ran for public office at least 15 times, over 30 years. That included running as a Democrat, Republican, Independent and Libertarian. Most recently, 2021, he ran for mayor of Doylestown.
Andy Warren, a former county commissioner, and Hal Markovitz, a former reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times, in their recently published “Notes on Bucks County,” call Lingenfelter a political outsider, “the candidate who comes along at the last minute, files nominating petitions, gets on the ballot, is never really taken seriously, and ends up coming in last by a wide margin of votes.”
In the book, Lingenfelter responds, “I always wanted to get in there to see if I could do the right thing. My heroes were the Founding Fathers. I grew up that way. I was brainwashed when I was young. Patriotism was Christianity.”

His patriotism, he said was inspired by comic books, the superheroes, and movies, the good guys in the white hats. He was idealistic he said. “Being idealistic means you are extreme. I was always extreme about that stuff.”
On the Heritage Society website, Lingenfelter says, “As a descendant of pioneers who settled in Pennsylvania 260 years ago, and as a historian, I know what made America great – and I know what we must do to keep it that way. This is why I am speaking out – Freedom was born here, it must not die here.”
Throughout his political experiences, Lingenfelter was collecting things, attending auctions and estate sales. “I would see a pile of letters with the date 1776 on top. It was almost a religious experience. I had no knowledge of those letters but I knew I had to buy them.”
And he has become one of America’s major dealers in original historical documents and artifacts. According to his webiste, he has “the only true copy of the Original Declaration of Independence and the ‘Birth Certificate’ of the U.S. Constitution.” It was a kind of press release that made the adoption of the Constitution official.
In his collection, Lingenfelter has a handwritten letter from Lord North in London, offering conditions for peace with America in 1778. The delegation carrying the letter was not welcomed when it arrived.
Lingenfelter has a letter from John Trumbull, architect of the U.S. Capitol, thanking Independence Hall in Philadelphia for having an exhibition of his paintings. Four paintings by Trumbull depicting scenes from the American Revolution hang in the Capitol Rotunda.
There’s the original letter written by Franklin at the start of the first fire company in America and the Wright Brothers’ financial records, and there are objects – a pistol Buffalo Bill Cody carried on the Pony Express, Eisenhower’s rifle and Gen. George Patton’s pistol.
Although not much has been written about Washington’s childhood, Lingenfeltter has a drawing young George made when he was 10 years old. “It only opens a door to his childhood education,” Lingenfelter said.
His museum, he says, would be an opportunity to tell a different kind of history. A vacated church, a bank that has closed, an old school building – think about it.
Do you know where Tom Lingenfelter can find a home for his invaluable collection?

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