History Lost

[Badlands Belle]

Here is a subject that I thought would interest many on here and it’s about history lost. What I mean by this is, in the 19th century everyone communicated by messenger, by Pony Express (now the U.S. Mail) and later in the century by telegraph. Sure, there was the newspaper that they could read but, I’m talking more along the lines of personal communication.



Family and friends would communicate by sending letters to one another and many of those letters were saved. These letters would have discussed things that we would consider today to be very important journals of the old west. I think a lot of history has been learned and/or confirmed through correspondance. It has occurred to me that many of those people would not have shared all of those writings for the simple fact that many of those letters may have included personal messages that one would not wish to share.



Imagine how much more we could learn today from those letters if they had been made public. Jesse and Frank writing home to let family know how they were and telling the real story behind the lives of Jesse and Frank. I’m sure many famous people back in the old west wrote letters home to loved ones who have never shared that history.



What started me thinking this was the fact that we share things today with friends and family via the internet and simply delete them after replying. This is a perfect example of history lost. I was reading thru some old family letters that I had saved over the years and discovered things we discussed in those letters that I had completely forgotten about. This also would have been history lost if I had simply thrown them away after reading them. Imagine the possibilities???

[Kevin Hogge]

Thats a very interesting point, Belle. When those people wrote letters and kept journals they had no idea of the historical relevance. Think of the journals folks kept on the move west on the wagon trains. We've learned so much about their experiences and hardships, if they hadn't written it down it would be lost. Now, as you said, we just pick up the phone or send an email. Who knows how important some of those conversations would be years from if they were written down.

[Kevin Hogge]

Gus is right Jeff. I learn a lot from your posts. I don't reply usually because I don't have anything to add. Your letters and pictures are always good.

[flboots]

Before mass communication, people would gather for coffee or weddings, funerals, hangings, etc, these would be social events to see your neighbor and get the news. You dont see people gathered on the front porch talking anymore. Well not were I live.

[Stan H]

I believe another version of "history lost" is the verbal communication between folks. I, probably like a lot of you, learned a lot of history simply by listening to my parents and asking questions. I was interested in the old west even as a youngster, so I asked a lot of questions. When my kids were young, they did not have that interest. They had video games, TV, and other distractions. They could care less about what some ancestor may have done a hundred years ago. Happily, now they both are coming around, at least about our direct family. There is so much history that was never written, or only in private letters as mentioned above. It is our duty to do our best to keep the oral tradition alive and well. If you can't tell someone, write it out and leave it where other's may find it. Or publish a book. Anything to continue the story.

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

When Jane Candia Coleman was researching Big Nose Kate for her novel, DOC HOLLIDAY'S WOMAN, she found Mary Katherine Horoney's surviving family. They told her "We had a whole stack of letters from Aunt Mary (as she was called in the family), but when we moved we didn't have room to keep them so we threw them away a couple of years ago."

Several years back I was trying to research a death in McCulloch County, Texas. The individual died before Texas required state death certificates. Unfortunately, I found that most of that era's paperwork had simply been thrown out. A few years later, in Presidio County, I was looking through what was possibly the most reliable document I found, a funeral home's record book. The records went back to the 1880s but were obviously copied from even older records, because the copyright date on the form pages was 1929. No one had any idea what happened to the older records.

In addition, counties--at least in Texas--are supposed to keep records of the people buried 'on the county' in the potters' field. Most of the less-populous counties have that record, but many of the heavily-populated counties would have trouble finding it if it exists at all. The reason for this record is simple--if/when an individual is identified, relatives can be billed for the cost of the interment, which was borne by the county's taxpayers.

[Odessa Red]

Super thread and everyone posted some valuable insights. Sad to think of all the history lost by the throwing out of letters and documents! Many documents were often lost due to the burning of town like during the Civil War or by accident. For example, the city of Berryville, Arkansas, experienced a very violent and turbulent time during the CW. Bushwackers abounded, and both the Union and Confederate armies burned the entire town to a crisp. Most to all records were lost. Sad because that's where my Gr gr gr Grandfather and his 15 yr old son was murdered by bushwackers in the family home. I can't find any documented information (other than military records corroborating family journals) because it's all gone! I don't even know where he's buried or if he was dumped in a ditch somewhere...hardly a fitting end to a Capt in the Confederate Army! Anyway, sad thing the lost history.

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

A while back we had a U. of Arkansas professor traveling around Texaa, stealing historical documents out of county courthouses & selling them at book & paper shows. He was caught in the act somewhere up around Waco & indicted on the thefts, but not before he'd looted literally dozens of Texas courthouses of their records. Among other things, he stole the entire Ben Kilpatrick file in the Paint Rock courthouse. U. of Arkansas refused to fire him "because he hasn't done anything in Arkansas."

I'm lucky. I beat the guy to the courthouse at Painr Rock & have an almost-complete Xerox copy of the entire file.