Sure it’s genealogy; it’s just not mine!

I don’t know what it’s been about the past few weeks, but I’ve been somewhat inundated with emails stemming from this blog recently. Now, when I say “inundated,” okay, it’s still only been about one a week or so. (I think there have been 4 or 5 separate reach-out emails in the past month.) But that still seems like “a lot” when sometimes it’s weeks or months in between receiving those kind of communications.

It was a variety this time, too:

• One was thanking me for the Howard Forrer story. (You’re so welcome; thank you for enjoying it!)
• One was: Can I use your  Bessie Tomlin article in this non-commercial digital history project I’m doing? (Yes you can, thanks for asking first, & your project sounds awesome!)
• Two were family history related: Do you know anything about my rather noteworthy Dayton relative so-and-so? (No, actually, I don’t, but here are some suggestions of where else to look.)

I love these. You have no idea.

Not just because they make me feel like a rock star for (apparently) writing an interesting story or a well-researched history or bio sketch. But because it’s proof positive that there’s somebody else out there who cares about these people, places, and events.

Sure, hypothetically, I know that such people probably exist out there somewhere. And sure, I see the search terms on my blog statistics page that tell me people are looking for these things (and finding me). But when you sit down to actually take the time and write me an email — even if it seems half selfish because you’re really writing to ask me something — it makes  my day. And I’m happy to help you if I can.

But getting back to the title of this post. Over the past couple of years with the blog, based on the emails and comments I receive, usually with reference to the people I write about, I often have people asking me if these are my relatives. I guess it’s because they can tell that I’ve taken much care to write these lovingly detailed biographical sketches of them. After all, why would anyone do that if it wasn’t their own family?

Well, the short answer is that I did all that research in order to write the the biographical sketch portion of archival manuscript finding aids, and my boss gave me permission to re-post them here, my intention being additional discoverability for the collections. To write these biographical sketches, I used the collections themselves (duh, what better than a primary source right there in my hands?!) as well as genealogy research techniques to fill in the “Wait, who’s Aunt Sarah?”-type gaps. (You can read the longer versions of essentially this same explanation in my posts from May 21, 2012, and Sept. 2, 2011.)

But anyway—again—why would anyone go to such lengths to write these detailed, foot-noted, multi-page biographical sketches? After all–you caught me, fellow archivists–I admit they are probably longer and much more detailed than what was strictly necessary to fulfill my obligation of providing some biographical/historical context for the researcher via the finding aid.

But I can’t help it. I love these people. These wonderful, colorful, real people, who lived in the past, whose papers, whose stories, I’m holding in my hands (unless it’s photos- then in my gloved hands). They suck me in. I want to know them. I want to “get” them. Who are they? How do they fit together- with this “stuff”? with the other people they talk about? with the community where they live? Er, I mean, lived.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of genealogy anyway. My grandma got me started on it, and I’ve been interested in it — oh dear God, I just did the math at this very moment — over half my life. But unfortunately, I couldn’t write such detailed biographical sketches about most of my own ancestors (at least, ones from the same time period as the Bio Sketches I’ve written here), even if I wanted to — and believe me, if I could, I would.

But I just don’t know their stories. And I don’t have the diaries and letters and other documents needed to “fill in the blanks” in between the official records (birth/death records, census, city directory, etc.). The manuscripts I would need just don’t exist. Or, if they do, I haven’t found the relative that’s stowed them away yet.

So, if you’re one of my relatives and you’re holding out on me, now would be a good time to speak up, please. I swear I won’t try to guilt you into giving me the docs; I just want a look. (And probably some photocopies.)

And while we’re at it, same goes for the owner of Sarah (Howard) Forrer‘s diary. It’s mentioned in other sources, but it’s currently “lost to history.” If anyone has it, I’d love to see it.

And there I go again, getting wound up about the history of people who aren’t even my relatives. Which seems to baffle the genealogists who email me, thinking they must have found a distant cousin in this girl who has made such an effort to document the life of their ancestor (or great-uncle or whoever).

Nope. Just doin’ it for the love of history, folks. And for the love of these super-cool people whose “stuff” I’ve been charged with arranging, describing, and preserving.

But don’t worry. I don’t mind if you think I’m a distant cousin. And I promise not to laugh or anything when I have to tell you I’m not. Keep those emails coming. I’m always thrilled to “meet” someone, anyone—genealogist, historian, whoever—who still cares about these long-dead people that I’ve cared about. And if I can help you, I will, and I’m happy to.

1913 Flood Survivors: A Before and After

My goal in this post is to show you some cool “before” and “after” photos (or at least before OR after photos) of some survivors of Dayton’s 1913 flood—no, not people, but buildings! I thought it might be of interest to highlight some of Dayton’s older downtown buildings that “survived” the flood and (perhaps even more impressively) still survive today (i.e., they haven’t been torn down in the interest of so-called “progress”- but that’s a whole other entry).

But before I dive into the photographs, I wanted to address the radio silence of the past nearly two months. I suppose perhaps I was a little bit “blogged out” after writing a zillion (or so it seemed at the time) posts about the 1913 flood on the blogs at work: if you haven’t already done so, check them out on Wright State U. Archives’ Out of the Box blog and the Dayton Daily News Archive blog.

And on top of being “blogged out,” I had rather run out of steam on the whole topic of the 1913 flood (and still kinda am, though I’ve set it aside for you today because I don’t want to put it off any longer). I’m a little sick of talking about it, to be perfectly honest! I know, I know! That sounds horrible. But for about a month it seemed like I was eating, sleeping, and breathing the topic—ok, not really, of course—and I did that because it was an extremely important event in Dayton’s (even Ohio’s) history, and the commemoration of that event deserved my full attention and to be “done up right.” And so I did. (If you don’t believe me, see my previous entry.) And I don’t regret that. But…I’d really love to not talk about it anymore for a while.

After this entry, of course.

And so…onward, as promised, here are some of Dayton’s historic downtown buildings that survived the flood and that can still be seen today. So the next time you’re downtown and you see one of these, I want you to gaze up at it, appreciate the fact that it’s been there 100+ years, and maybe muse about how long it took to shovel all the flood mud out of it…

[All of the before/flood photos are courtesy of the Dayton Metro Library's Local History Room. You can see all their 1913 flood photos online. The present-day photos are courtesy of yours truly, unless otherwise stated. For all photos, you can click on the photo to go to the associated Flickr page with more info.]

Doubletree Hotel (southwest corner Third & Ludlow- it was the Algonquin Hotel in 1913)
Third Street Post Office (now the Federal Building, south side of Third St., between Ludlow & Wilkinson)

Algonquin Hotel & Post Office, 1913 (Image courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, 1913 Flood postcard #37)

For a current photo of the Doubletree Hotel, check out this photo taken in 2010 by Flickr user Flyer E901; if he gives me permission, I’ll img src it here instead of just linking… Don’t ask me why I don’t have a pic of the Doubletree myself; obviously I was right next to it when I took this picture of the Federal building:

Federal Building, 2012 (Photo by Lisa Rickey)

Conover Building (southeast corner Third and Main)
Memorial Hall (northwest corner First and St. Clair)

You can see them both in this flood photo below. The Conover Building is the really tall  building near the center of the photo (not the one with the clock tower- that’s the Callahan Bank Building); Memorial Hall is the rounded topped building in the upper right of the frame.

Main Street in Dayton, 1913 (Image courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, Montgomery County Picture File #806)

And here are two more recent photos of the Conover Building and Memorial Hall:

Conover Building, 2012 (Photo by Lisa Rickey)

Memorial Hall, 2012 (Photo by Lisa Rickey)

Emmanuel Catholic Church (Washington St.)
Sacred Heart Catholic Church (northwest corner Fourth & Wilkinson)
Holy Trinity Catholic Church (Fifth & Bainbridge)

I couldn’t find great flood photos of these, so you’ll have to trust me on this when I show you these pics of the steeples in the distance that that’s really what I’m showing you!

Okay, in the pic below you can see Emmanuel Catholic Church — the two very tall steeples on the right of the photo. And actually, I wasn’t even going to include Sacred Heart in this because I couldn’t find a pic, but I realized you can see it in this picture: it’s the low dome in between the tall towers of Emmanuel and the single campanile-looking tower of Union Station at the far right. (And somewhere, I know I’ve seen a great panorama of Dayton looking south from about Deeds Point, and you can see Sacred Heart plainly, but I can’t seem to find that. Maybe it wasn’t a flood pic…)

Looking north from the Montgomery County Fairgrounds, 1913 (Image courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, Montgomery County Picture File #911)

Here’s a recent photo of Emmanuel Catholic Church from Flickr’s catholicsanctuaries (used with permission):

Emmanuel Catholic Church (by catholicsanctuaries, 2012, used with permission)

And, in another “take my word for it” silhouette-type photo, here is Holy Trinity Church- the tall steeple rising up on the far right of the frame:

Fifth and Eagle Streets, 1913 (Image courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, Montgomery County Picture File #996)

As for the “now” photo, I don’t seem to have a photo Holy Trinity (but here’s a  great one from Flickr user SyntheticTone).

But here’s one of mine showing Sacred Heart:

Sacred Heart Church, 2012 (Photo by Lisa Rickey)

These next three, the flood photos don’t show much of the building, so again you might have to take my word for it that it is where it says or that the building is in there somewhere (because I know it must be). The photos depict primarily the clean-up or debris.

It’s like people 100 years ago weren’t concerned that someday I might come along and wish I had flood photos of these building so I could write about it; how inconsiderate of them, trying to pick up the pieces of their lives and not taking enough photos. (Although, really, there are QUITE a lot of photos, even during the actual flood, which when you think about it, is kind of amazing.)

Dayton Arcade (Third Street entrance, between Main & Ludlow)

The Arcade is the building on the right in the photo below. You can probably recognize some of the stonework from the facade.

Dayton Arcade, 1913 (Image courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, Flood Postcard #39)

Dayton Arcade, Third Street entrance, 2012 (Photo by Lisa Rickey)

Dayton Daily News building (northwest corner Fourth & Ludlow)

See that bright white building in the background that looks kind of like a bank (there’s a great historical explanation for that, btw- another time, perhaps), just to the left of that bally lamp post? Yeah, that’s the DDN building.

Debris on South Ludlow St, 1913 (Image courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, Montgomery County Picture File #799)

Dayton Daily News building, 2012 (Photo by Lisa Rickey)

Not sure how much longer the DDN building will look like this, though, since it was recently announced that Sinclair Community College is planning to incorporate the block into some kind of dormitory project; allegedly, the original (bank-looking) portion of the DDN offices will be “preserved,” though. So if you haven’t seen it before, you should go see it ASAP before it changes too much!

Delco building(s) (E. First St., east of St. Clair, now part of Mendelson’s)

Okay, full disclosure: I’m not sure the two photos I’m showing here depict the same exact building. There were several Delco buildings around the same area, and the one in this flood photo may not be the same as the Mendelson’s one I’m showing next. But you get the idea…

Flood repairs at Delco, 1913 (Image courtesy of Dayton Metro Library, Montgomery County Picture File #1074)

Mendelson’s building, from the rooftop parking lot at the Reibold Building, 2011 (Photo by Lisa Rickey)

And finally, last but not least, here are three more buildings that I couldn’t find before/flood photos for, but trust me, they were around during the 1913 flood, and they are still around today:

Old Court House (northwest corner Third and Main, built in 1850)

Old Court House, 2012 (Photo by Lisa Rickey)

Victoria Theatre (southeast corner First & Main, built in 1866 & rebuilt a few times afterwards)

Victoria Theatre, 2012 (Photo by Lisa Rickey)

United Brethren Publishing House (northeast corner Fourth & Main, built in the late 19th century; now called the Centre City Building)

United Brethren Publishing House aka City Centre Building, 2012 (Photo by Lisa Rickey)

(You can also see the back of the UB Building in the background of my “now” photo of the Conover Building above.)

*****

Well, there you go, folks- a little photo tour of downtown Dayton with emphasis on buildings that survived the 1913 flood (as well as humanity’s need for tearing down old buildings to build newer, usually uglier, ones). There are certainly others I could have chosen, most of them smaller and a little less grand, but there nonetheless.

Actually, here’s one such building (quite old), now that I think of it (a bonus!):

120 N. St. Clair St., 2012 (Photo by Lisa Rickey)

But I was trying to think of grandiose buildings that it would be easy to locate “before” (or flood) pictures of. I still seem to have failed at finding as many of those before photos as I really wanted, but nevertheless. It’s something. And I hope you enjoyed it.

Five Oaks

Before it was a neighborhood…or even a park…it was a house. Five Oaks was the name that Jeremiah H. Peirce, a local lard oil manufacturer and later lumber dealer, gave to his 1854 home, apparently naming the estate after “five stately oak trees” situated on the four-acre property (Dayton History; Burroughs; FONIA).

I thought I would share some photos and information about the Five Oaks estate, as a nice, light entry for around the holidays.

This annotated map shows the location of the J. H. Peirce and boundaries estate in 1875. A lot of these old maps don’t show street names, so I’ve added the (current) street names to help you get your bearings in the map:

Location of Five Oaks, 1875

(You can view a high resolution version of the original Harrison Township map on Dayton Remembers, Dayton Metro Library’s digital images collection.)

Charles Sullivan, well-known in the Montgomery County Historical Society (now Dayton History) many decades ago, reminisced about the area in the late 19th century, mentioning two homes in particular that were off the west side of Forest Avenue (or, Tate’s Mill Road, in early accounts):

Opposite Shaw ave. a lane ran up to the home of Samuel Forrer, a two story brick, still standing. He was a well known civil engineer… He had six children and the descendants are still [1943] in the locality.

Opposite Neal ave. was the lane running up the hill to “Five Oaks” the residence of J. H. Peirce, a son-in-law of Samuel Forrer. He had 8 children and was in the lumber industry at the corner of Wayne and State now a railroad yard.

Here is a current Google Map showing the area now known as Five Oaks. The little green splotch of Five Oaks Park (northwest corner of 5 Oaks Avenue and Squirrel Road) is where the Five Oaks estate was originally. Samuel Forrer’s home was located on part of the Grandview Medical Center property.

And now for the really good stuff: pictures!

Since many of us probably have gingerbread on the brain right now, I thought it might be fun to share a different kind of “gingerbread house” — gingerbread in the sense of Victorian architectural embellishments. The Five Oaks house had some really neat “gingerbread” around its eaves, as you will see.

This photo, probably from the late 1860s or early 1870s — I suspect those two little boys are Jeremiah’s two youngest children, J. Elliot and Howard; the woman, probably his wife Elizabeth (who died in 1874) — shows what the Five Oaks mansion looked like in its early days:

Five Oaks, before the tower was built (Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection)

About 1890, an addition, including a tower, was built on the north end of the house:

Peirce Homestead (Lutzenberger Collection)

Here’s a wonderful cyanotypephotograph, showing roughly the same view but from a little further back, so you can see the trees:

Five Oaks (Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection)

After the tower was added, people sometimes referred to the Peirce house as “The Castle on the Hill” (Dayton History).

In a 1980 article about the Five Oaks neighborhood, long-time resident George Loney had this to say about the Peirce homestead (quoted from Burroughs):

There was still a lot of open land around here when I was a kid, and I sure remember that old Peirce castle. It really was a castle. The stones had been imported from Europe, there was a turret and what looked like a dungeon underneath. It was all hidden in the woods and surrounded by three ponds. Mr. Peirce used to hang a rope with a noose on it in the woods to scare us off. I guess we did get on his nerves–all the kids in the neighborhood used to sneak around there. Of course, the castle’s gone now…

The “Mr. Peirce” of this anecdote must refer to J. Elliot Peirce, the only “Mr. Peirce” that Loney could have known in his childhood. J. H. Peirce died in 1889; J. Elliot was his son. Members of the Peirce family lived at Five Oaks until the 1930s: J. H.’s second wife Mary lived there until 1929 along with two of J. H.’s unmarried daughters, Sarah and Elizabeth, both of whom died in 1930. I don’t think J. Elliot actually lived at Five Oaks with his family — Mary, Sarah, and Elizabeth lived there — but according to city directories, he did live very nearby  for a while, at 551 N. Old Orchard Ave., according to a 1919-20 directory; that same directory lists the others at “nec [northeast corner] Five Oaks and Old Orchard Ave.”

In 1946, the four-acre was purchased by the city for a park, and the house was razed (Burroughs; Dayton History). Five Oaks Park now occupies the land.

For more information on Five Oaks or the Peirce family, come see us at the Dayton Metro Library, Local History Room (basement of Main); or feel free to leave a comment on this blog. If photos are what you’re after, check out our Flickr set about the Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection.

This post was written in advance on Dec. 17, 2011.

*****

Bibliography

Burroughs, Virginia. “Diversity helps keep Five Oaks neighborhood vital.” Dayton Daily News, 8 Aug. 1980, p. Z6-15. Available in Dayton Local History Room, Clippings File #3908 (Neighborhoods–Five Oaks).

Dayton City Directories. Available at the Dayton Metro Library, Dayton, Ohio.

Dayton History. “Five Oaks.” Accessed 15 Dec. 2011.  http://www.daytonhistory.org/archives/who_fiveoaks.htm.

Everts, L. H. Combination Atlas Map of Montgomery County, Ohio. Philadelphia : Hunter Press, 1875. Dayton Remembers: Preserving the History of the Miami Valley. Accessed 17 Dec. 2011 through Dayton Remembers: http://content.daytonmetrolibrary.org/cdm/; or, find in a library.

Five Oaks Neighborhood Improvement Association (FONIA). “Five Oaks History.” Accessed 3 Dec. 2011. http://www.fiveoaksdayton.com/credits.html.

Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection (MS-018), Dayton Metro Library, Dayton, Ohio. This collection is publicly available for research at the Dayton Metro Library, Main Library, Local History Room, 215 E. Third St., Dayton, OH 45402. Many photos from the collection can be seen at the DML Flickr site, http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmlhistory/.

Lutzenberger, William. “The Peirce Homestead.” Photo #0541. Lutzenberger Collection (MS-024), Dayton Metro Library, Dayton, Ohio. Photo available online: http://content.daytonmetrolibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/lutzenberge/id/630.

Sullivan, Charles F. “The Covington Pike” (15 Sept. 1943). In Sullivan’s Papers, 425-437. Dayton, OH: Dayton & Montgomery County Public Library, 1995?. Available at the Dayton Metro Library, call no. 977.173 S949S. Transcription accessed, 15 Dec. 2011, at: http://www.daytonhistorybooks.com/covington_pike.html.

A little Quaker love story, Revisited (Part 6)

I intend this to be the true final installment in my story of how Samuel Forrer and Sarah Howard met in 1825 and married in 1826 without her parents’ consent, but you just never can tell. I keep finding things!

In my last entry, I attempted to riddle out the school Sarah was attending in Cincinnati when she met Samuel. I had to concluded that it was probably one or the other of two schools, but unfortunately I couldn’t make a clear decision between them. No matter…

I included a transcription of an interesting letter from Horton Howard to his daughter Sarah, discussing her schooling, from 23 Nov. 1825. It seems that sometime between Nov. 23 and Dec. 11, when he wrote his daughter another, very differently toned letter, Horton had probably caught wind of Sarah’s blooming relationship with Samuel. The Dec. 11, 1825, letter gives general news, mentions little about school, and offers the following parental admonishments:

Mother says…[for me to tell Sarah] ‘to keep to meetings, to be careful of the company she keeps and not throw herself away.’ This is the earnest solicitude of thy tenderly affectionate parents. It is the Counsel of the giver of every good and perfect gift. If thou art attentive thereto the blessings of everlasting preservation will be afforded and no good thing will be withheld from thee. We are anxiously expecting a letter from thee. Micajah [Williams] is here and in good health, says he rec’d a letter from [his wife] Hannah telling that you were well and that thou wast pleased with the School, all of which is very satisfactory… I intreat [sic] thee my dear Child, write frequently, and freely withhold nothing from us which would be interesting to us or interesting or desirable or useful or relieving to thy self…

Given that Micajah Williams knew Samuel, Sarah, and Sarah’s father (see Part 4, Aug. 14, 2011) — and that Horton mentions Micajah has paid him a visit — it makes me wonder if he (Williams) was the one to tip off Sarah’s parents. In any event, it does sound like they heard about it.

To me, Horton’s letter sounds like the 1825 equivalent of: Watch out for boys [or in this case, men]. Don’t forget about church [especially since your new beau is not of our same religion]. You like your new school; remember how we sent you to school to get an education, not to meet boys [er, men]. And, of course, the classic: Is there something you want to tell us? [We already know, so spill it.]

I don’t know exactly whether Sarah ‘fessed up herself. I can only really go by the correspondence that I actually have.

I know that at some point Samuel asked for Horton’s permission to marry Sarah (see Part 1, Aug. 9, 2011) — which, although what I have is an undated draft, could not have been written very long after Horton’s Dec. 11th letter, because Samuel and Sarah did get married on Feb. 13, 1826 — apparently “without the consent of her much loved parents” (according to Samuel’s Feb. 13, 1826, letter to his new father-in-law Horton, informing him of his and Sarah’s marriage; see Part 3, Aug. 11, 2011).

At the time that I wrote Part 3, I had not yet finished processing the Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection of manuscripts (from which all of these letters originated), so I did not know exactly how Sarah’s father reacted but speculated about how he seemed to have taken the news (see Part 3B, Aug. 13, 2011).

Since then, however, I came across a letter from Horton to Sarah and Samuel, dated 21 Feb. 1826, that I had not yet found when I wrote Parts 1-4. This letter, addressed to “My dear children” includes the following [brackets mine]:

I have just time to acknowledge the receipt of Samuel’s letter of the 13^th instant  [the one informing Horton of the marriage] and say we shall always be glad to hear of your welfare and to see you as often as we can and wish you to come and see us whenever you can conveniently but considering the distance [between Columbus and Cincinnati] and Samuel’s engagements [as canal engineer, which involved frequent travel] we do not wish to press you to come sooner nor oftener than you reasonably can. I think it probable that in a month or six weeks I shall come to Cincinnati and possibly may bring some one or more of my family to see you, but do not expect it with too much certainty, as we may be disappointed. I wish you to let us hear from [you] as often as one at least in two weeks or at most every month. Give my love to Micajah [Williams] and Joseph Gest and their wives and all inquiring friends, not forgetting Judge Bates and the whole Corps of Engineers. I should be glad to hear how the engraver is getting on with respect to my map, how you are progressing with the Canal, when you expect to let out more to contractors, how much, &c…

Is it just me, or does that come across a little cold? We’d love to see you, IF we have time, and if all our schedules are not too busy. We might come in six weeks, but don’t get your hopes up. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it. Then again, he also obviously (as we can tell from the document) did not gush with excitement and congratulations either.

I suppose it probably was a shock. He sent his 18-year-old daughter away to college, apparently only just in September (or so it sounded from the Nov. 23 letter; see Part 5, Dec. 13, 2011), and in a matter of just a few short months (literally could not have been more than 5 months!), she has gotten married, and to a much older man her father disapproves of, no less, and won’t be coming back home! Really, when you put it that way, it sounds like Horton took the news pretty well!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little tangent of history. I know I’ve enjoyed piecing it together (or at least trying to!). And what fun is a sleuthing out a story if you don’t share it?

Note: This post was written in advance, on Dec. 17, 2011.

*****

Bibliography

Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection (MS-018), Dayton Metro Library, Dayton, Ohio. This collection is publicly available for research at the Dayton Metro Library, Main Library, Local History Room, 215 E. Third St., Dayton, OH 45402.

For more information on Sarah Howard and Samuel Forrer, contact the Dayton Metro Library, or feel free to leave a comment on this blog.

A little Quaker love story, Revisited (Part 5)

I’m on the trail of Samuel Forrer and Sarah Howard again. As I was first delving into their story, I wondered what Sarah was even doing in Cincinnati (where she met Samuel in 1825), when her family lived near Columbus.

I discovered that Sarah was apparently attending school there [see Part 4, Aug. 14, 2011]. , and the two seem to have met through a mutual friend, Micajah T. Williams. Forrer, a canal engineer for the Miami and Erie Canal (the construction of which had begun in that year), knew Williams by his association with the canal (Williams was one of the canal commissioners for the Miami and Erie canal). Sarah apparently spent some time with the M. T. Williams family (possibly even stayed with them while she was in Cincinnati), because Williams knew her father (both were Quakers who at one time attended the same monthly meeting, unclear whether there was another connection). She may have also been staying with Joseph Gest, by whose care her father’s 1825 letters were sent.

Both Williams and Gest lived near one another. According to Hall’s 1825 Cincinnati Directory, Williams lived on Fifth between Walnut and Vine; Gest lived on Walnut between Fourth and Fifth. [See a Google Map of that area.]

Based on the apparently frequent involvement of these men in Sarah’s life during that time period, I supposed that her school was probably nearby (and as I said, that perhaps she might have been boarding with one family or the other).

As this is really a matter of intellectual curiosity only, I decided I must be content to come up with an “educated guess” about where Sarah was attending school, since I could not find any reference to the school by name in either of Horton’s two letters to his daughter from the Fall of 1825, which seems to have been when Sarah enrolled there (wherever “there” was).

A letter from Horton Howard to his daughter Sarah, from November 23, 1825 (from the Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection), gives much insight into what Sarah was meant to be studying, if not where:

…Thou may remember that our friend Joseph Gest mentioned a probability of there being an opportunity of thy attending a course of Lectures on Chymistry [sic] and I should think well of thy doing so if it will not break in too much on thy other studies, which I think perhaps it would not. I wish thee to be particular in endeavouring to learn the art of painting or shading maps in as neat a manner as thou canst without spending too much time and learn what thou canst conveniently about making or mixing such colours as are not to be bought in Boxes as we shall probably want to paint or shade a considerable number of maps neatly if we can find [sale?] for them.

The calculation we were making that 30 dollars would answer to leave with thee at present included the cost of thy Cloak but as I bought and paid for the cloth to make it, and left thee thirty dollars, besides though wilt not be so short by ten dollars as we calculated and want thee to get what thou needs and not be too sparing of money but continued to be and appear respectable. If thou needs any advice with regard to Books or other things thou art not furnished with or with respect to learning or hearing Lectures or any other subject Joseph Gest or Micajah [Williams] or other friends will advise thee. Joseph will aid or befriend thee very Cheerfully and so no doubt will other friends. Thou may by inquiry perhaps understand nearly how long it would require to learn the French Language or the Lattin [sic] or both, if it should be desirable and advisable. Possibly we might spare thee longer than we had contemplated but as this is uncertain I wish thee to acquire what useful knowledge thou canst in three months or till spring. I now think of thy staying 6 months or until some time in the 5^th month if I can but this is uncertain. I intend however that some of us shall write [over?] in two weeks and expect thee to write twice a month or oftener if necessary or thou thinks proper. And if thou should be sick don’t by any means suffer of want of a Phisitian [sic] but have one sent for and I will cheerfully pay the cost when I come.

And I hope my dear Daughter that thou wilt let nothing but sickness prevent thy regular attendance of meetings on first and week days with friends and walk worthy of the profession we make in the world. Neither shun nor be ashamed of the Cross. Often be retired in Spiritual devotion waiting upon, and asking counsel of thy Heavenly Father, so shalt thou ‘Secure to thy self that blessing which maketh truly rich and where unto no sorrow is added.’…

This letter was written 186 years ago, but still I can see familiar sentiments as today’s parent writing to a child away at school: here are my thoughts on your curriculum; try not to over-extend yourself with your course load; I’ve sent you some clothes money; if you get sick, please do see a doctor, and I’ll pay for it.

At first, I thought it curious that Horton was so insistent that Sarah acquire the skills of painting or shading, for maps. Then I remembered that Horton was a surveyor for the federal land office in central Ohio at that time. He probably drew a lot of maps. And he probably figured it would be handy if one of his children became adept at shading them in for him. (Little did he know that his daughter would soon be falling in love with a canal engineer and would never be moving back into her father’s home.)

Armed with the clues from the above letter (the other 1825 letter does not give any clues about education but hints at her parents’ knowledge of her “extracurricular” activities – more on that later) and an idea of the geographic neighborhood where Sarah seemed to spend most of her time, I set out to find out if there was a school she might have attended in that area.

In 1825, Sarah was 18 years old, so I figured I was probably looking for some kind of “college” level school. Also, given the time period, I guessed that she was probably attending some sort of “female” school.

In her article “The Higher Education of Women in the Ohio Valley Previous to 1840,” Jane Sherzer wrote (pp. 1-2):

The term, ‘higher education for women,’ in those early years…was higher in the sense of giving young women an education much beyond the common branches of reading, writing, and arithmetic. It differed from the colleges for men mainly in the substitution of French for Greek, and in the addition of music and art to the curriculum. The first institutions for the higher education of women were necessarily private, for, although the states had established colleges and universities for their boys, they had ignored the education of the girls and excluded them from all their schools.

Therefore, I searched the Cincinnati city directories for girls’ academies. In Hall’s 1825 Cincinnati Directory, only one girls’ school was listed: the Cincinnati Female Academy of Dr. John Locke. According to Ford & Ford, the academy had been established in 1823 and “was a school of high class and became very popular” (p. 174). As of 1826, the school was located on Walnut Street between Third and Fourth (so, nearby Sarah’s primary neighborhood), but I was not able to find any specific reference to where it was located from 1823-1826 (although I would imagine probably in the same area).

I thought Locke’s school must be a shoe-in for my “educated guess” until I read through Sherzer’s article, which mentions at least two other schools that allowed females during that time period.

One was the Cincinnati Lancaster Seminary, though I have ruled it out because it seems to have been affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. I can’t imagine Horton Howard sending his daughter to a Presbyterian school when they were Quaker — so Quaker in fact that he could not officially condone her marriage to a non-Quaker [see Part 2, Aug. 10, 2011].

The other was Pickett’s Boarding School (or Cincinnati Female College), which, although Sherzer says the school started in 1823 and was “especially popular” (p. 10), is not listed in the 1825 directory, though it does show up in Robinson & Fairbank’s 1829 Cincinnati Directory. No address is given for the school, though the Pickett brothers’ address is Sycamore, between Fourth and Fifth — so again, right around the same area.

I hoped perhaps the curriculum might help rule out one or the other — Locke’s or Picketts’ schools — but unfortunately, none of the curricular lists are explicit enough. Both of course had the typical female curriculum involving art, but it sounds like Sarah had options such as chemistry or Latin. In the sources I found, only Locke’s school explicitly mentions the availability of chemistry (Sherzer, p. 9); and only Picketts’ specifically mentions having Latin (Sherzer, p. 10; Ford & Ford, p. 174). In Locke’s school’s advertisement from 1825, a list of instructors and their disciplines is given, but that list includes neither chemistry nor Latin; of course, for that matter, it does not explicitly mention any sort of paper-based art form either, which seems odd.

And so, after all of that, I suppose I’ve still not quite solved the mystery of which school Sarah attended. However, I did sate my curiosity, by tracking down a couple of reasonably plausible possibilities: Locke’s “Cincinnati Female Academy” or the Picketts’ “Cincinnati Female College.”

In the end, what matters to Sarah’s story is not so much which school she attended or even necessarily why she was there (is it just me or does it sound like Dad wanted her trained up so she could help him with his map-making?) or even why she was in Cincinnati as opposed to somewhere else (what, didn’t they have any decent girls’ schools in Columbus?)… Those things (and consequently this entire post) are mainly just “matter of interest” details.

What matters is the fact that she was there…in that place…at that time…and that’s where she met Samuel Forrer, whom she married without her parents’ consent a few months later, and who would be her husband for 48 years.

We have, in the Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection, one other letter from Horton Howard to his daughter Sarah during that time frame — Dec. 11, 1825 — and its tone is much different. It would seem that Sarah’s parents had probably caught wind of her developing feelings towards Forrer by that point. I’ll share more of that later.

*****

Bibliography

Ford, Henry A., and Kate B. Ford. History of Cincinnati, Ohio. Cleveland: Williams & Co., 1881. Available online at Archive.org; or, find in a library.

Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection (MS-018), Dayton Metro Library, Dayton, Ohio. This collection is publicly available for research at the Dayton Metro Library, Main Library, Local History Room, 215 E. Third St., Dayton, OH 45402.

Hall, Harvey. The Cincinnati Directory for 1825. Cincinnati: Samuel J. Browne, 1825. Available online from Cincinnati Public Library; or, find in a library.

Robinson & Fairbank. The Cincinnati Directory for the Year 1829. [Cincinnati?]: Whetstone & Buxton, 1829. Available online from Cincinnati Public Library; or, find in a library.

Sherzer, Jane. “The Higher Education of Women in the Ohio Valley Previous to 1840,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 25 (1916): 1-22. Available online from the Ohio Historical Society.

For more information on Sarah Howard and Samuel Forrer, contact the Dayton Metro Library, or feel free to leave a comment on this blog.

Civil War case exhibit, Vallandingham and Schenck

As I wrote last week, we have a Civil War case exhibit up in Local History Room at the Dayton Metro Library (Main) right now. One part of the case exhibit focuses on Robert C. Schenck (below, upper left) and Clement Vallandingham (below, upper right):

Civil War Exhibit, Local History Room

(For a better look at both of the above photos, see Dayton Remembers for Schenck and Vallandingham.)

Robert C. Schenck and Clement Vallandingham were important public figures in Dayton during the Civil War era. (Hence, their inclusion in our exhibit!) As a matter of fact, many eyes were on these men — not just in Dayton, but (in the case of at least one of them) across the country.

By the Fall of 1862, Vallandingham had served as U.S. Congressman for Ohio’s Third District, which included (and still does) Dayton, for more than 4 years. Vallandingham’s name was quite well-known throughout the country, as he was one of the leaders of the “Peace Democrats,” more commonly known as “Copperheads” — Democrats who opposed the Civil War.

In 1862, Schenck was a former U.S. Congressman (Whig) for the Third District and was serving as a Union general. That fall, he ran for re-election (as the Republican candidate) for Third District Congressman against the incumbent Vallandingham.

According to Wikipedia, Schenck was “elected by a large majority.” While that may be true (I could not lay hands on the complete election returns), the majority of Montgomery County actually supported Vallandingham, 4972-4607 (a difference of 365 votes). Just an interesting tidbit. Some have said that Schenck only won because Warren County (mostly Republican and also Schenck’s home county) had recently been added to the Third District. It has also been claimed that the Republicans cheated in various ways (see Kokkinou, pp. 138-139).

In any event, the short version is that Schenck defeated Vallandingham for the Congressional seat. (But if you’re reading me, you didn’t honestly expect just the “short version,” did you?)

I recently found a few interesting references to the 1862 election in the collection I am processing (MS-018, Forrer-Peirce-Wood — hopefully to be completed and ready for use very soon!).

Henry Eugene Parrott, age 23 and one of the youngest in a reasonably well-off Dayton family (and whose brother Edwin was a colonel commanding the 1st O.V.I. at the time), wrote in his diary on election day, October 14, 1862:

Spent the day pretty closely in the office, and the evening on the street gathering news about the election. Somebody is elected now, and for the honor of the third district I hope it is Gen. Schenck.

The following day, October 15, 1862, Parrott wrote:

The district has come out nobly, and repudiated the traitor Vallandingham, by 1000 to 1200 or more votes. Warren helped us out handsomely. We hoped to beat Val in his old district, but are glad to beat him under any circumstances…

Parrott mentions Schenck a few other times during the course of his year-long diary. It seems that he knew the Schenck family fairly well, on multiple occasions he mentioned that he had visited them or attended a party at their house.

Other sources from the Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection mention General Schenck but not in such a favorable light.

On September 21, 1862, Sarah Forrer wrote to her grown daughters Mary and Augusta about Schenck’s recent injury (his right arm was seriously wounded in the Second Battle of Bull Run, Aug. 30th.):

Lucky hit, was it not? to gain him a seat in Congress and a Major Gen’s commission. I am sorry I feel so cross but I cannot well help it when I see how artfully he keeps himself before the public.

Ouch! Those are definitely the words of someone who strongly dislikes the guy. Schenck did receive a commission to major general after that battle (on Sept. 18th), and he also received the Republican nomination for Third District Congressman, over (Sarah writes) a man named Craighead [probably Dayton attorney Samuel Craighead] who apparently expected to get it.

She goes on:

In the mean time, our people seem to have grave fears that Vallandingham will be re-elected. So many of our men are away.

Several members of Sarah’s family were serving in the Civil War, including a son, a son-in-law, and a nephew. When she says “our people” she must mean those who support the war. And when she says “our men,” I assume she is referring to the fact that so many war supporters are soldiers who are away and might not be able to vote.

In a letter to her daughter Mary on October 15, the day after the election, Sarah wrote:

This evening the town is full of bonfires and there is great rejoicing over Val’s defeat. I too am glad he did not succeed, but sorry we had not a better man to vote for. I believe we might have elected another as easily perhaps more so. Uncle John [Sarah's brother John Howard, a Dayton lawyer] worked pretty hard, and Father [Sarah's husband Samuel Forrer] voted the whole [Republican] ticket. It was a bitter pill, but he swallowed it. And now, the scoundrel [Schenck] has got in to warm by the fire, after being ‘out in the cold’ so long. I feel we shall never get shot of him. Brooks came to John, and said, ‘You won’t vote for S. [Schenck] after his telling you so many lies and treating Mr. F. [Forrer] in the way he did?’ John answered, ‘I will not vote for any man who is opposed to the war.’ I hear they calculated on John and Father too. Ann says Mr. Odlin did not vote for S. and would not help either by speaking or by money. He says S. has treated him meanly, and he cannot do anything for him. I would tell you much more than I can write. I thought Luther would like to hear a little of the news. I was glad he did not have to vote for the scamp.

Sarah’s son-in-law, Luther Bruen, was stationed in New York with the 12th U.S. Infantry at the time, which – as Sarah points out – made him blissfully free of the need to decide whether to vote for the Copperhead Vallandingham or for the “scamp” Schenck.

It is interesting the way she writes of their family’s dislike for Schenck. It seems to stem from some personal offense, but unfortunately she does not elaborate about what the offense actually was.

I thought perhaps it might have something to do with Schenck’s previous terms in Congress, in relation to the the Miami-Erie Canal, of which Samuel Forrer was one of the main engineers (from the 1820s-1870s). Schenck had previously chaired the U.S. Congress Committee on Roads and Canals from 1847-1849 and was involved in some other canal-related matters. However, all the sources I’ve found show Schenck as a supporter of the canals.

I do suspect the offense is probably related in some way to Schenck’s and Forrer’s interactions regarding the canals. There are a few letters between the two in the collection, but nothing to shed any light on any sleight or disagreement. I’ll probably never know what it was. But it definitely piqued my curiosity, that’s for sure!

The last thing I want to point out about Sarah’s letter is the quotation she attributes to her brother John Howard, when asked how he could vote for Schenck after what he’d done (whatever it was) to the Forrers. He essentially stated that he did not support Schenck so much as he opposed Vallandingham: “I will not vote for any man who is opposed to the war.”

John’s eldest son William, a young man of about 21 years old, had recently enlisted in the 17th Ohio Light Artillery Battery.  About the same time, Sarah’s only son Howard began recruiting with the 112th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and her son-in-law Luther Bruen was already serving in the 12th U.S. Infantry. Another Howard cousin had died from his war wounds earlier in the year.

Then, as now, families with loved ones in the service find it pretty difficult to support candidates who don’t support “the war”. In their eyes, not to support the war, is not to support the soldiers, their sons (and today, also daughters). They have to believe that their sacrifices are for a good cause.

So, to the Forrer and Howard families, to vote for Schenck might have been “a bitter pill” (for reasons I may never know!), but to vote for Vallandingham was simply not an option.

*****

Epilogue

Vallandingham was eventually arrested (on grounds of “disloyalty”) by General Burnside in May 1863, prompting an angry mob (presumably of Vallandingham-supporting Democrats) to burn down the Dayton Journal office (the Republican newspaper in town). Val (as many called him) was exiled to Canada, where he ran unsuccessfully for governor of Ohio in 1863. He did eventually return to the U.S., dying in Lebanon, Ohio, in 1871. If you are interested in the details about Vallandingham, I recommend Frank Klement’s The Limits of Dissent (which you can also see is in our exhibit case).

Schenck remained in Congress until he lost the 1870 election. In 1871, he was made U.S. Minister to England. He was involved in a bit of a scandal in regards to that position, which caused him some shame, but unfortunately that does not explain why the Forrer family already disliked him (for seemingly personal reasons) in 1862. If you are interested in Schenck’s life, you should definitely come down to the Dayton Metro Library and look at The Political Career of Robert Cumming Schenck, a master’s thesis by Epiphanie Kokkinou, or at our Robert C. Schenck manuscript collection (MS-032).

*****

Bibliography

Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection (MS-018). Dayton Metro Library, Dayton, Ohio.

Klement, Frank L. The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandingham & the Civil War. New York: Fordham University Press, 1998.

Kokkinou, Epiphanie Clara. “The Political Career of Robert Cumming Schenck.” Thesis (M.A.), Miami University, 1955.

Schenck, Robert C., Collection (MS-032). Dayton Metro Library, Dayton, Ohio.

The manuscript collections discussed here are publicly available for research at the Dayton Metro Library, Main Library, Local History Room, 215 E. Third St., Dayton, OH 45402. For more information on the collection, contact the library, or feel free to leave a comment on this blog.

Civil War case exhibit, Bickham’s cartes de visite album

If you are interested in the Civil War and have a few minutes, please stop by the Local History Room at the Dayton Metro Library (in the basement at Main). We currently have a case exhibit (well, three cases, actually) showcasing Civil War materials from the Dayton Collection. The exhibit will be up through the end of 2011.

This is my favorite portion of the exhibit:

Civil War Exhibit, Local History Room

The young man in uniform on the upper right is Howard Forrer; the shoulder boards were his. You’ll be hearing a lot more about him in the future. (I haven’t forgotten that I promised to tell you some Civil War stories; it’s just that they’re still “stewing” and haven’t fully formed yet.)

The copy of the Dayton Daily Journal (May 6, 1863) is the first issue published by W. D. Bickham after taking over as editor of the paper, following the burning of the Journal office by a mob in response to the arrest of Copperhead leader (and Daytonian) Clement Vallandingham. (There is actually a picture of him in the case as well; I’ll share a little more about him in another post, in a day or two.)

Last but certainly not least, you’ll notice the large album at the bottom of the photo. This album belonged to W. D. Bickham and contains cartes de visite he collected during the Civil War era, many depicting famous politicians and generals. For instance, the page currently open shows off a photo of none other than President Abraham Lincoln, plus Generals Winfield Scott, Philip Sheridan, and George Thomas (all 3 on the opposite page).

The Bickham cartes de visite album is from the Bickham Collection (MS-017), which I processed. This was my first experience with this type of archival item. Obviously, I had seen cartes de visite before. I recognized them as a small, mid-19th-century type of albumen photograph. But as yet, I had only worked with family photo collections wherein all the cartes de visite were from friends or relatives. But this had to be something different; the majority of the images in the album are of famous people like Lincoln, Sheridan, Bragg, John Clem (aka Johnny Shiloh), just to name a few. While Bickham did have many famous (or later-famous) contacts due to his profession as a journalist, I seriously doubted that he had been given all of these photos personally.

As it turns out, it was extremely common during that era for people to collect cartes de visite in a manner similar to how one might collect baseball cards. The National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian has an excellent blog post ["Civil War Portraits: Where Personal and Public Meet," Oct. 3, 2011] discussing this practice. They also have a YouTube video ["Civil War Portraits: Personal and Public," Sept. 25, 2011] to go along with it. This was a great help to me in understanding what I was actually looking at, in the case of the Bickham Album.

I hope you’ll come down and see us and check out our exhibit. Although the Bickham Album is currently on display in a locked case, you can browse its contents online anytime on our Flickr page. I scanned each individual photo and added them to the set Bickham Civil War Album. There are several unidentified individuals — probably famous politicians or generals that I just don’t happen to recognize (we can’t all know everything!) — so if you see any marked unidentified and know who it is, please leave a comment to help us out.

The collections discussed here are publicly available for research at the Dayton Metro Library, Main Library, Local History Room, 215 E. Third St., Dayton, OH 45402. For more information on the collection, contact the library, or feel free to leave a comment on this blog.

The Bickham Civil War Album is from the Bickham Collection (MS-017). The Howard Forrer photograph is from the Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection (MS-018). Other items shown are from various parts of the Dayton Collection; contact librarian (i.e., me, or the library!) for info on specific items.

Oh! One more thing:  Just so you know, I did not create this Civil War exhibit, although I did suggest the inclusion of the Bickham scrapbook and the Howard Forrer photo and shoulder boards. The majority of the exhibit (like, 99%!) was done by our lovely and talented Local History Specialist, Nancy Horlacher. The other two cases, which I have not photographed, include materials pertaining to the Dayton Soldiers’ Home and the 131st O.V.I. (a regiment made up primarily of men from Dayton).

Historical local directories at the Dayton Metro Library

After reading “City and County Directories: Hidden Treasures” on the Ohio Historical Society’s Collections Blog, I was inspired to share some details about the historical local directories available in the Local History and Genealogy departments at the Dayton Metro Library, where I work.

Early Dayton city directories in the DML Genealogy Dept.

Historical directories are useful in many ways, particularly in genealogical research, as well as research pertaining to a house, building, or business.

In all the directories, you can look up a person or business by name.

For people, the information provided generally includes name, occupation, place worked, place lived, and sometimes their spouse’s name (if any). Very old and very new directories generally tend to include only the name of the head of household, but I have noticed that many times the directory lists each adult resident of a household separately and sometimes teenagers (usually identified as “students” for their occupation).

Some uses for directories in genealogy would be to find out where your relative lived or what their occupation was. If you check every year, you will probably find that they moved or changed jobs over time. When you suddenly notice the presence or absence of that person or a spouse in a particular year, you can get clues to marriage/divorce/death/moving dates.

Keep in mind: it’s just a clue, so you must always verify! But at least it can help give you a good idea of “when” to start searching for a particular event.

Also note: just because they “disappear,” doesn’t mean they died or even that they moved very far away. Many “city” directories only include people who lived or worked within the city limits. If you moved to the suburbs, you stopped being listed in the “city” directory, unless perhaps you still worked in the city. Consider the following entry from the 1914 Dayton city directory:

• Wright, Orville, office 1127 W 3d, also Pres The Wright Co e s Coleman Av s of 3d, res Oakwood.

By 1914, Wright had moved to his new mansion Hawthorn Hill in Oakwood, but as he still had an office in Dayton, he still had an entry in the city directory.

For businesses, the information provided in directories generally includes location and type of industry (e.g., if it’s a factory, it will tell what they manufacture), usually the name of the business owner, and sometimes the names of other company officers.

As the OHS blog post stated, schools, hospitals, hotels, and many other types of buildings/businesses are also included in directories.

I like to think of directories as being like telephone books on steroids: they include basically everything you would find in a telephone book, plus more.

One of the biggest “plus more” aspects of directories is that directories eventually began to include listings that made it possible to search for a particular address and find out what was located there. In the case of Dayton city directories, the earliest year you can search by address is 1914. These listings are in the back of the directory, with street names listed alphabetically. Under each street, the numbers are listed in ascending order, with the name of the person or business next to it. If you are interested in more information about that person or business — now that you’ve found out the name — you can search for that entry in the front (alphabetical-by-name) part of the directory.

Street and Avenue Guide, Dayton city directory 1914

Being able to search by address is especially helpful for people researching the history of a house. Directories include the names of the residents of a house, as opposed to just the owner’s name that you would find on a deed.

Many times, house researchers just want to know a little about the families that lived in their home before they did. Sometimes, people think they have a ghost, and learning about the previous residents can help them figure out who might be haunting their home. In another example, I recently helped someone who had found some photographs tucked away in his historic home, and he was trying to find the family to whom the photos belonged, so he could return them.

And now that we’ve talked about some of the ways that historical local directories could be helpful in your research, I’ll give you the specifics on what we have at the Dayton Metro Library.

We have four types of historical directories, all of which are available for public use: city directories, suburban directories, Criss-Cross directories, and telephone books.

City Directories (Dayton only)

• Years 1850-Present (almost every year) available in both Genealogy Reference and Local History Reference
• Include listings within the city limits of Dayton only;
• Include people who lived within the city limits, businesses located within the city limits, and usually people who worked within the city limits;
• Includes yellow-pages-like listings for businesses by type;
• Search by address possible from year 1914-present;
• Later years can be searched by telephone number to get the person’s name.

Suburban Directories

• Years 1956-Present available in both Genealogy Reference and Local History Reference;
• Includes listings for suburban areas of Montgomery County only (areas of Montgomery County that are outside the Dayton city limits);
• More recent years are split into North and South editions;
• Search by address possible in all years;
• Search by telephone number to get the person’s name.

Criss-Cross Directories

• Years 1945-Present available in Local History Reference;
• Years 1954-Present available in Genealogy Reference;
• Similar to the search-by-street-address portion of regular city/suburban directories, but only gives street address, name, and phone number;
• Includes city of Dayton, suburban areas of Montgomery County, and some nearby areas outside of Montgomery County;
• Search by telephone number to get the person’s name.

Telephone Books

• Years 1919-Present (most years) available in Local History Reference;
• Both white pages and yellow pages available for most years;
• Includes the “Greater Dayton area” which includes city of Dayton, suburban areas of Montgomery County, and some nearby areas outside of Montgomery County;
• Cannot be searched by address.

text

The materials discussed here are available in the Magazines & Special Collections division of the Dayton Metro Library, located in the basement of the Main Library, 215 E. Third St., Dayton, OH 45402. They are available for public use anytime during regular library hours.

If you are unable to visit the library, a librarian can assist you with requests that are “clearly defined and limited in scope.” If you need a quick look-up in the directories, please submit an electronic reference question. For other questions about directories, you can contact the Dayton Metro Library or leave a note on this blog.

A visit to the Muncie, Indiana, local history library

This past weekend, I traveled to Muncie, Indiana, for a conference about CONTENTdm. The conference was on Friday and Saturday, but I went up a day early and explored Muncie (in the rain).

The first place I wanted to check out was the local history and genealogy department of the Muncie Public Library. Yes, geeky, I know.

(On a side note, I remember when I first started working at my current job, a co-worker remarked that he liked to visit other libraries while on vacation. I had never really thought about it before, but now I find myself doing the same thing. I do this especially on work trips if I have time, because that seems like a pretty good work-related activity: scope out what other libraries are doing, maybe bring home some good ideas.)

I knew from the library’s web site that I would be looking for a Carnegie library building. However, when I arrived, I got a little confused about how I was supposed to get inside, as I was parked near the back of the library, but there was this other building across the alley that had “Local History & Genealogy” etched in stone above the door (but was not attached to the Carnegie building). I tried to open the door, but it was locked. I know this place said it was open on Thursdays, I thought to myself. Then I saw a truck pull up, and a man wearing some kind of emergency responder uniform got out, and entered the locked building using a key. Hmm…that’s weird. Why would the library be locked?

I began to wander around to the front side of the Carnegie building, somehow missing the back entrance with the large “Open” sign on the door:

Muncie Public Library - Local History and Genealogy

I didn’t make it all the way to the front of the building at that particular moment, but I found out later that it wouldn’t have done any good anyway. During my later walk around town, I came back to the library from the front and noticed that you can’t get in the front doors anymore; they don’t use them (“emergency exit only”).

But let me take this opportunity to share a picture of the front of the building, because who doesn’t love a good Carnegie?

Muncie Public Library - Carnegie Library

Anyhow… So was I was about to wander around the back corner of the library towards the front, wandering if I had the wrong entrance or the wrong day (I kept thinking it was Friday for some reason, and they’re not open Friday), I heard a voice: “Ma’am…?”

I turned around, looking for the source of the voice. I saw a woman standing at the top of the stairs that led to that basement entrance (shown above). She said, “Are you looking for the Local History and Genealogy library?” I said yes, and she said it was through the basement door. She said she’d seen me wandering around, from her place at the reference desk…

Now, the only reason I am telling you the details of this story that makes me look like a dolt…is to highlight the dedication to public service of that librarian (whose name turned out to be Cindy). It’s one thing to help someone who’s already standing at your reference desk. But this woman went far out of her way — even out of the building — and into the rain — to flag me down and help me find my way. Now that, my friends, is excellent public service.

Once we were inside, she said she had seen me walking around in the alley and that I’d tried to get into the other building across the way. She explained that the Local History department used to be in that other building, which they had built new a few years ago for that exact purpose and that the Carnegie building had been a regular branch library. But then with budget cuts, they couldn’t keep both buildings as libraries, so they moved Local History back to the Carnegie building and rented out the other one to one of the local government offices. They figured the newer building would be easier to rent out…plus the Carnegie Library already looked like, well, a library.

Then she asked me what I was looking for, and I said, “Well, nothing in particular.” Then I explained about being a local history librarian from Dayton and how I was curious what their Local History department was like. So she gave me a full tour.

The Local History and Genealogy division has the majority of that Carnegie building all to themselves, with a small circulating collection and a computer lab on one half of the lower level. But the other half of the basement and the entire first floor were dedicated exclusively to LH&G.

The place looked great. It had been renovated a few years ago:

There were lots of interesting little details of which I made note:

• In addition to public computers specifically for LH&G use, they also have two flatbed scanners for patron use. This is something that the Dayton library has not embarked upon, although it has been discussed.
• They had a nice little bookshelf where they display new items. There is a New Items section at the Dayton library, but we do not have one specifically for new local history items.
• They have work study students from the university scanning items for their digitization projects. (They have scanned many kinds of records, including deeds and wills.) However, while the digitization itself is awesome, I was more intrigued by the idea that they are able to get work study students to do this work: meaning, the students are paid by federal work study, so it is low-or-no cost to the library, yet it gives them a staffing resource to work on these projects. I later asked the department manager about it, wondering aloud whether we could benefit from a similar program. Her response: “You never know unless you ask.” Too true.

Perhaps eve more wonderful than that — yes, I have deemed something even more wonderful than free-or-low-cost digitization labor! — was the library’s collection of original county records:

Delaware County, Indiana, Marriage License Books

As I understand the story, Delaware County (in which Muncie is located) is now on its third courthouse. When the second courthouse was slated for demolition in the ’60s or ’70s, apparently many of the original record docket books were in danger of destruction as well (for reasons not fully explained to me). Apparently, a Ball State University history professor caught wind of this and mobilized an effort to save the records, which were then given to the library for safekeeping. And so, there they remain, in all their glory!

I’m so glad to hear (and share) this wonderful story of how history was saved and is being preserved. The librarian mentioned that unfortunately, the Carnegie Library is not as environmentally well-controlled as the new building they had to give up (the one across the alley). But, I’ve got to say, any record that exists is better than one that was completely destroyed 40 years ago!

Show us what you got

Recently, I was invited to participate on a panel of guest speakers in the Introduction to Public History course at my alma mater, Wright State University. After we three panelists had given our talks about our educational and career backgrounds, and answered questions, the course professor posed the following wrap-up question to all three of us:

What has been your most satisfying experience as an archivist?

I responded that, in general, I am most satisfied when a researcher contacts us in the Local History Room about any of our one-of-a-kind items or collections. The fact that this person was able to locate an item of interest in our collections tells me that we must be doing something right.

I’m always curious how people find us when they come calling with a specific archival material already in mind. Did they find us on WorldCat, the library web site, a search engine hit, the OhioLINK EAD Finding Aid Repository, or somewhere else? On at least two occasions that I’m aware of, I have received reference inquiries that stemmed directly from something the person read on this very blog (*happy dance*) because the blog entries show up on Google search results.

So, yes, I suppose my most satisfying experience in general is when people find our archival materials and want to actually use them. Because if people can’t (a) find them and (b) use them, then honestly, what is the point of having them? (Isn’t that like Rule #1 from Ranganathan?)

And I think that the reason it makes me happy when people find and use our materials is because that then gives justification to the other activities on which I spend most of my time, which pertain to preservation, arrangement and description, and access to those very materials. Allow me to elaborate.

My “the short version of my job” speech begins with: “I have about four hats…” Those hats include:  Reference, Processing, Conservation, and CONTENTdm.

Reference is the part where I help researchers find answers to their questions; that’s the part where sometimes people ask to use the archival materials.

Processing is a shorthand term for archival arrangement and description: figuring out what is in a manuscript collection, putting it in a logical order in boxes and folders, then writing a finding aid so other people (including yourself, later on) can find materials in the collection. I’ve also worked hard to get catalog entries for all our ready-to-use manuscript collections, because our local catalog entries are also fed out to WorldCat, which means worldwide discoverability…which hopefully leads to use.

Conservation work, in my case, involves item preservation activities and sometimes repairs (such as rebinding a book to better protect the information on the pages inside).

And finally, CONTENTdm refers to the digital asset management system we use to serve up the digitized images and descriptions of our historic photographs, postcards, and other types of documents.

So, when you consider that three of my four main job duties involve caring for one-of-a-kind materials, it’s not hard to understand why I get excited when people actually find those materials and want to use them!