I Found it in the Archives Contest

The Clark County Historical Society is sponsoring a local I Found It In The Archives essay and video contest to raise awareness for archives and to show how the items and information found in the nation’s archives touch peoples’ lives. We are seeking entrants who have found something special in our collections here at the Heritage Center in our library and archives.

Did your research here help you break through a brick wall? Did you uncover a really awesome story worth sharing? Was there a particular record, document, photo, or artifact that meant a lot to you? If you answered yes to any of these, you’ve got a great entry in the making!

To Enter: between June 1-30, 2015, we ask that you submit either:
• A 400 word essay describing your quest for information and explaining why finding it has made a difference for you, along with a color photograph of you, OR
• A video of no more than 2 minutes in which you describe your quest for information and explain why finding it has made a difference for you. Please also include a color photo of you with your video submission.

This downloadable  entry form and waiver must accompany your entry and can be submitted with the essay or video as an attachment to clarkcountyhistory@gmail.com. You may also mail your entry and the entry form and waiver to our offices at the Heritage Center: Clark County Historical Society ATTN: Archives, 117 S. Fountain Avenue, Springfield, Ohio 45502.

Essays and videos of the finalists in this competition will be posted online for a public vote on our Facebook page. The entry with the most votes will be declared the winner and will receive a prize package:

• One year annual family membership to Clark County Historical Society.
• One year family membership to the Clark County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society.
• Heartland, our museum exhibition catalog and county history.
• Behind-the-scenes tour of the Clark County Historical Society’s collections area and archives.

RULES

You may submit only one entry.

You may submit your entry by email to clarkcountyhistory@gmail.com or mail your entry and entry form and waiver to:

Clark County Historical Society
ATTN: Archives
117 S. Fountain Avenue
Springfield, Ohio 45502

Your entry becomes the property of the Clark County Historical Society. We reserve the right to post your essay and photograph or video online. Materials will not be returned.

TIMELINE

Entries must be received by June 30, 2015.

Finalists will be notified by July 8, 2015, and their essays or videos posted online for a public vote.

The close of online public voting will be August 1, 2015. The winner of the competition will be notified on August 4, 2015.

The winning entry will be sent on to compete in a statewide competition. The statewide winner will be hosted at the Society of Ohio Archivists Fall Conference during the first week of October 2015.

WHERE is it Wednesday for September 10, 2014

On our Facebook page on Wednesday, September 10, we shared this sketch of an early Clark County home to see if anyone could guess where it was.

                                                              Where could this be?

This was a tricky one! It showed a sketch of a home from the 1875 Clark County Atlas, the home of Jacob Thomas. It was formerly located on the northeast corner of N. Limestone and E. McCreight at 1206 E. Limestone and it was the home of Jacob and Sophia Thomas, who came here from Maryland in 1851. Jacob Thomas and his sons owned quite a bit of land farther north on Limestone and it appears that the home pictured in the 1875 atlas was built around 1870 according to the Springfield City directories. The corner where the house was built was right on the corporation line for the city of Springfield at the time, so until the late 1800s it was JUST outside the city limits.

     1882 Atlas showing the corner of Limestone and Cooper (later McCreight) where the home stood.

The last Thomas in the home was Jacob’s son Thomas. The house was torn down around 1923 and was later home to a gas station and is now where Muffler Brothers is located on North Limestone.

Our archives didn’t yield a lot more information on Jacob Thomas, but one of his sons, John H. (J.H.) Thomas was a very prominent Springfield citizen. John founded the Thomas and Mast Company with industrialist P.P. Mast in 1855 and the specialized in Buckeye grain drills, seeders, and cider mills.

John Thomas left the company in 1872 and in 1874 he formed the Thomas Manufacturing Company with his two sons, William and Findley. The company made a variety of products including hay rakes, steam engines, lawn mowers, pumps, disc harrows, bicycles, grain drills, and seeders.

We have a grain drill and a Thomas bicycle on display in the museum along with a few products from Thomas and Mast. John Thomas was a major philanthropist in the community, serving on city council and the Snyder Park board. He and Ross Mitchell gave a large financial gift that allowed for the establishment of the Mitchell-Thomas hospital on E. Main street, which was in use from 1887-1904.

Mr. Thomas has the distinct honor of having THE tallest monument at Ferncliff cemetery.

Sources:

Springfield City Directories

Beautiful Ferncliff: Springfield, Ohio’s Historic Cemetery and Arboretum by Paul W. Schanher, III and Anne E. Benston

Health and Care Category – Medical Collection – Mitchell-Thomas Hospital

Manufacturing Category – Thomas Manufacturing Co.

1875 Clark County, Ohio Atlas

1882 Springfield Atlas

WHAT is it Wednesday for August 27, 2014

On Wednesday, August 27, we shared a photo of an archival item from the Geneva Fath Brown Collection on our Facebook page to see if anyone could identify it.

                                                What could this be?

A few people recognized right away that it was some sort of game and a couple knew it for what it was: a fortune telling game!  This fortune telling alphabet game is from around 1910. We came across this several years ago with processing the Geneva Fath Brown Collection, mixed in among some really powerful (and sometimes humorous) correspondence between a young Geneva Fath and soldier friends in World War I. As near as we can tell, the way this game worked was that you had a list of words from A-M and a corresponding list of boys (or girls) and you would count randomly down the list to assign the people to the words. For example, on this list Ralph H. wants to Marry you, Harry G. Adores you, Will C. thinks you’re Cute. This was a fun find because we started reminiscing about similar games like the origami fortune teller (Cootie Catcher), and M.A.S.H seen above. It goes to show the while things change, some things stay the same!

We looked through some of the materials in our Educational Materials Collection to see if there was anything else fun to share and found some Dick and Jane paper dolls from the 1960s.

In 2008 exhibit we put together a large exhibit on Education in Clark County that showcased a lot of the photos and artifacts in the historical society’s collections.  We built two model classrooms as a way to display some of the neat educational materials and nostalgic artifacts in the historical society’s collections.

                                     Turn of the century replica classroom.

                                              1950s replica classroom.

There’s a lot of great stuff in our collection: text books, yearbooks, report cards, diplomas, TONS of class photos, school building dedication programs, desks, cubbies, maps, games, toys, and more. For more info on our school related collections in the archives: http://heritagecenter.us/education.cfm. For more pictures from the 2008 exhibit “Education in Clark County”.

Sources:

Biographical Category – Geneva Fath Brown Collection

Education Category – Educational Materials Collection

WHERE is it Wednesday for August 20, 2014

This week on our Facebook page we shared a photo to see if anyone could identify the location in Springfield.

Where could this be?

We had quite a few good guesses and several guesses that were correct!  Coincidentally, the photo that we submitted to the Springfield News-Sun newspaper for Monday’s “Looking Back” photo was a photo from the same disaster file: the 1886 Flood.

High Street Bridge Collapse – Published in the Springfield News Sun August 18, 2014

The photo we shared on Facebook showed Eastern School, located at the corner of E. High Street and Penn Street following the collapse of the E. High Street Bridge on May 12, 1886. Around 6:30pm on May 12, 1886 “ominous storm clouds” gathered and delivered a deluge of rain to the city of Springfield. By midnight “the wrath of waters” had flooded streets and homes throughout the eastern and southeastern parts of the city. A drainage sewer on York Street burst in the early hours of the morning, causing the water to surge more, creating a raging torrent beneath the E. High Street bridge, which eventually gave way as the embankment below washed away, leaving behind the destruction seen here.

The eastern part of the Eastern School yard closest to the railroad had washed away and it was feared that continued use of the building would be unsafe. There were a few emergency meetings with the School Board and consultation with local architects F.H. Penfield and Charles A. Cregar (he designed the City Hall/Marketplace/Heritage Center in 1890). Although the architects assured the board that the building was sound, on May 15, 1888 the Board voted to “forever abandon the building” and distribute the pupils throughout the city to other schools. A new Eastern School was built in 1887 farther up on the south side of E. High near Freeman Street (across from current Catholic Central), it was later known as McKinley School.

It is not clear exactly when the original Eastern School building was torn down, but it sat abandoned for a number of years. Later, the Centennial Cabin, a replica of James Demint’s cabin, was moved to that site. The Centennial Cabin was built for the 1901 centennial of the city of Springfield and was originally located at the county fairgrounds on Yellow Springs Street. During the centennial celebrations the cabin was open as a museum run by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The following pictures show the site of the bridge collapse, more photos of the May 1886 flood from our Disaster Collection in the archives and the Centennial Cabin in 1901, 1943, and 1975.

Sources:

May 12-25, 1886 Springfield Daily Republic

Photograph Category – Residential – City – A-L – Centennial Cabin

Photograph Category – Disasters – May 12, 1886 Flood

Education Category – Springfield City Schools – Eastern School

Springfield City Directories

WHO is it Wednesday photo for August 13, 2014

Yesterday’s WHO is it Wednesday photo was kind of unfair…there was virtually no chance that anyone would know who the handsome young gentleman was! Actually, we chose the photo because we just happened to run across it in our collection of identified local men and the picture was so striking, we just couldn’t resist trying to learn more.

Who could this handsome gentleman be?

We’ll take you through our long and winding detective process:

The back of the photo said “Rich Hackett, 1886-1891, CCHS 7487 Item 8.” The first stop was the city directories, where Richard was listed as a painter in a house on Main Street with his mother and siblings from 1886-1891. Next we jumped to our clipped obituary card file and found a Richard Hackett who died in 1983. While that particular Richard seemed very interesting (he worked at Crowell Collier, headed the Hackett Trio), his 1896 birth date and 1983 death date told us he was clearly NOT the correct person. Our next step was Ancestry.com for census records where we found Richard (b. about 1867) with his widowed mother (Eliza)beth and siblings (Mary, Patrick, and Charles) in the 1870 and 1880 census records.

1880 Census showing the Hackett children with their mother and grandfather.

His mother showed up in the 1900 census with Charles, who was listed as an elevator operator. A quick search of Familysearch.org turned up a death record for brother Charles in 1913 and said he was buried in St. Raphael Lagonda Cemetery. So, we grabbed the index to St. Raphael burials off the library shelf and found that the entire Hackett family, parents Charles and Elizabeth with children Richard, Mary, Patrick, and Charles are ALL buried with one stone (and no dates) at St. Raphael’s.

Hackett Listings in St. Raphael’s Cemetery, Springfield, Ohio

With still no sign of Richard and no death date, we turned back to the census, where we found a Richard Hackett, who appeared to be around the right age, married to a Katie in Greene County. Mystery solved, we thought, he moved! Then we found the same Richard Hackett in Greene County in 1870 and 1880 with different parents…so definitely not our guy.

1900 Census from Greene County, Ohio showing a Richard Hackett and wife Katie

Since the photo had an old CCHS inventory number on the back, we checked the index card files that were used for artifacts and archival material at the historical society in the 1970s and 1980s to see if finding out about the donor might give us a clue. Recently, two of our volunteers, Ruth and Marguerite, spent several months organizing the boxes of old inventory index cards so that we can access the information more easily whenever we find an item labeled with a CCHS inventory number.  The card told us the donor’s name (Mrs. Frances McKee), but a brief search in that direction did not appear to yield any obvious connection.

Donor card from index card filing system, used at the historical society 1970s-1980s

Finally, it dawned on us to check the Probate Court and Health Department death records that we have in the archives and there he was. Sadly Richard Hackett died at a very young age on August 25, 1891 at age 24. The cause of death listed was heart failure. Now, with a date, we turned to the 1891 newspaper microfilm and found a death notice on August 26. Interestingly, we noticed that a benefit for his brother Charles, the city building’s elevator operator, was scheduled for October 12. The benefit was to raise money for an artificial limb for Charles….a story that we’ll have to investigate more later!

Death notice for Richard Hackett, August 26, 1891

Benefit notice for Charlie Hackett (brother of Richard), ran September 15, 1891; benefit held October 12, 1891

With all of this information put together, we decided to go a bit deeper to determine if Mr. Hackett was related to the W.R. Hackett who started the wholesale fruit and produce business in Springfield. The 1860 census gave us our answer: Charles Hackett Sr. was the brother of Peter Hackett….who was the father of William R. Hackett. It appears that Richard and William Hackett were cousins!

1860 Clark County Census showing Charles Hackett (Sr.) with his mother Bridget and siblings.

This foray taught us some lessons, namely, don’t always go with the first match you find just because the name is the same!

Sources:

Photograph Category – Identified Men

CCHS index card files

Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org

Springfield Township Cemeteries Listings Volume 1 – St. Raphael/Lagonda Cemetery

Health Department Death Microfiche, September 1891

WHAT is it Wednesday artifact for July 16, 2014

On July 16 we shared a WHAT is it Wednesday artifact photo on Facebook to see if anyone could guess what it was.

What could this be?

We had some good guesses: a waterproof document case, a money belt, butcher’s sleeve, barber’s cloth…but no one guess correctly that this was a flag case! Two of our Wright State Public History graduate interns, Sara and Georgia, have spent the past week days going through the flags in our collection and assessing, providing care, and rewrapping and tagging them so that they are stored better. In one of the first boxes of flags, which contained Spanish American War era and Keifer Camp (GAR) flags, they came across this skinny leather case and were puzzled about its use. Luckily, Mel (an Army veteran and Civil War reenactor) was nearby and he recognized it right away as a flag case that is used to “case the colors” for a military unit when the unit is deactivated. It is traditional to hold a casing of the colors ceremony, which includes a reading of the history of the command, before the unit’s distinctive flag, or “colors,” are furled or “cased” in a protective sheath. The sheathed flag is then returned to the unit’s flag bearer, who marches off the field signaling the formal end of that command. We found a few recent pictures online of military units casing their colors to give you an idea of how the case was used. Unfortunately, this particular case does not have any information about how and when exactly it was used.

The 99th RRC color casing ceremony, April 2009.

“Darkside” Marine Battalion, the most deployed battalion of the last decade, casing their colors, May, 2014.

One of the neatest finds over the past few days of flag wrapping was an ENORMOUS 38 star flag that was used from 1877-1890. It has holes along the top indicating that it was probably hung on the wall of a building in the area, but we are not sure about the details.

38 Star Flag, used 1877-1890

We wanted to share some pictures of Sara and Georgia working on the flags and we’ll be sharing their blog post on the experience later!

In the archives in our “Miscellaneous Military” collection we found a few other neat things on flag including a 1976 booklet on historic flags that was distributed by Big Bear Grocery for the Bicentennial, a Revolutionary Flag coloring book, also from the Bicentennial, and a page from a booklet on flag history about how to display the flag. We have several flags on display in the museum, including the 110th regimental flag from the Civil War, General J. Warren Keifer’s Headquarters flag from 1863, seen here.

General J. Warren Keifer Headquarters flag, 1863

Do the Archives Shuffle!

Last week we closed the library and archives on Thursday and Friday so that we could do a grand shift, lift, move, and shuffle back in the archives in order to free up more space for recent donations that had previously been homeless and to create room to grow as we receive new donations in the future.  The Archives Shuffle is something that we have to do every once in a while as our collection grows.  The last time we called “all hands on deck” and dragged in as many volunteers and interns we could get was back in the summer of 2006.  Eight years and many many new donations later, we have since filled much of the space we had freed in 2006 and had to do some creative thinking to free up more space!

Natalie, our curatorial assistant, is the one who spends most of her time in the archives overseeing volunteer and intern projects and helping researchers, so she had a good idea about our space needs.  She spent time back in the archives walking up and down and the aisles and brainstorming, trying to figure out where and how to shift collections around to create more usable shelves to accommodate “homeless” collections.

We set aside these two days in July because we knew we’d have the strength of our three interns and put a call out to any volunteers, with the promise that we’d have a selection of projects that wouldn’t involve heavy lifting!  We started early on Thursday morning with plenty of carts for moving, ladders, and two delicious strawberry pies (courtesy of volunteer Flossie) and a dozen Schuler’s donuts for fuel.

Schuler’s Donuts….delicious motivation!

We had a very long and daunting looking To Do list, but we tackled it in style and manged to complete nearly all of the projects by around 3:00pm on Thursday afternoon!

Our “To Do” List, complete with information about who worked on each task. We had a busy couple of days!

Ruth boxing up duplicate books and creating lists.

Adam and Georgia moving boxes of family bibles to the library.

Flossie shifting boxes to make room for more!

On Friday we set the entire day aside just to sort through our rolled blueprints and maps collection. For the past year and a half two of our volunteers, Bill and John, have been inventorying our blueprints: wrapping, tagging, and creating lists, but NOT sorting and organizing by categories because we didn’t quite have the room to do all of that. Last week Mel and Georgia spent some time adding in extra shelves in the blueprint storage area so that we would finally  be able to properly sort out and store the prints.

Georgia helping Mel install new blueprint shelves so that we could make better use of our vertical space. With extra shelves added, we freed up an entire shelf rank for other collections!

We spent most of the early morning Friday checking tags and sorting into categories all over the library! It was a big project to tackle, but we’ve made major headway and will share the updated inventory soon…there’s really great stuff in the collection!

We created space to sort each blueprint category on every available surface in the library.

Cart of blueprints ready to be sorted.

Pat, Sara, and Georgia checking blueprint tags and sorting onto tables and shelves.

Thanks to everyone who helped( Georgia, Sara, Adam, Bill, Flossie, Virginia, Pat, Irene, Ruth, Don, and Melissa), we couldn’t have done it without you!

Collections mentioned above that have finding aids:

Associations Category – Rotary Club

Biographical Category – Family Bible Collection

Biographical Category – Sylvia Olson Collection

Government Category – Roger Baker Collection

Manufacturing Category – Bayley Window Collection

Photograph Category – Moores Collection, Laybourne Collection

Small Collections Category – Gertrude Stein Collection

WHO is it Wednesday for July 2, 2014

Earlier this week on our Facebook page we shared this delightful picture of a Springfield woman who was vital to our local history.

Who could this be?

There were a few guesses (Clementine Buchwalter, Lillian Gish, Mrs. Jeremiah Warder, and Orpha Westcott), but no one got the answer….

This is Miss Zoe Johnson, a name associated with much of the county’s history found in the historical society’s archives. A lifetime Springfield resident, Zoe was born in 1879 to Ortha and Mary Helen (Randolph) Johnson. Aside from the scant information found in her 1962 obituary and her listings in the Springfield city directories, very little is known about Zoe, but to those of us who have been through many different collections in the archives, her helpful essays and spidery scrawl are well known. Her occupations listed in the directories over the years included seamstress, secretary, stenographer, and clerk, but it was her time as a research worker for the W.P.A. Historical Records Survey and as part of the Federal Writers’ project that helped to preserve much of our county’s history. 

1938 Springfield City Directory Listing

Between the years of 1936 and 1941 she collected bits and pieces of historical information on all sorts of local subjects, yet she gained very little (if any) acknowledgement. For more than 30 years Zoe’s research papers sat untouched with the historical society until they were surveyed and organized by David M. Butera in 1972. Her papers include typed essays on dozens of subjects, , news clippings, transcripts, W.P.A. survey sheets on cemeteries and churches, handwritten notebook pages (some in undecipherable shorthand), and hundreds of scraps of paper, littered with more of her notes. Much of Zoe’s collected historical information was used in the 1941 Springfield and Clark County W.P.A. guide.

Rockway Church WPA Survey Sheet

We truly appreciate Zoe Johnson’s hard work to record our local history! The delightful 1899 photograph of her at Antioch is the only image we have. To give you an idea of the breadth of the topics she covered, here is a link to the archival collections the contain portions of her research materials:http://bit.ly/1jOe33x.

WHAT is it Wednesday Artifact for June 25, 2014

On June 25 we shared this image of an artifact in our collections to see if anyone could guess what it was.  Our curator Kasey came across this artifact while working on the NEH and History Fund grant funded Collections Management Project in our second floor storage area.

What could this be?

There weren’t a whole lot of guesses….seeder, grinder….thing-a-ma-jig (always a good guess!) and as usual, we revealed the answer the following day.

This was one of four motors that controlled the faces of the clock on our building’s clock tower. The motors were replaced in 1984 when Carl Everingham repaired the clock and got it chiming and working properly for the first time since the 1950s (around the time the two tower steeples were removed). Mr. Everingham offered his expertise to repair the clock free of charge and received help from Harry Laybourne and his sons, Bill, James, and Rick. In honor of his service, December 3, 1985 was declared Carl Everingham day.

Proclamation for Carl Everingham Day – December 3, 1985

Carl Everingham behind the clock face.

More than a decade later, once preparations began for the Clark County Historical Society to move into the building, Phillip Wright of the Tower Clock Company in South Charleston did repairs on the Seth Thomas clock and bell to return it to working condition. (Pictures of the restoration:http://on.fb.me/Vr62MD) 

Phillip Wright of the Clock Tower Company, Springfield News Sun article, undated, c. 1999.

When the City Hall/Marketplace first opened in 1890, the tower was designed to accommodate a clock, but until 1924, there was just a decorative clock-like motif on the tower in place of an actual working clock. At the end of 1924 the clock was installed, a gift to the city from Howard Diehl in memory of his wife. The steeples on the tower were replaced with lighter fiberglass steeples around 2000 before the opening of the Heritage Center.

Postcard showing tower prior to 1924 clock installation.

Twice a year, at least one of our staff members has to make the 166 step trek straight up the narrow tower to change the time on the clock for daylight savings. A couple of years ago our curator, Kasey documented her experience with moving the hands of time!  For pictures: http://on.fb.me/Q12zk3