Guest Post 7
April 18, 1995, 8:00P.M
Shaker Heights, Ohio
Amazing!
Well, it’s been some time since I wrote about what
has been going on with the letters. I did return to Loganberry’s Book Store
right after the first of the year and picked up the Shelby Foote trilogy, some
2,000 pages about the Civil War. Professor Robinson, the retired history guru,
also showed me Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson and Bloody
Shiloh by Wiley Sword, so my library is starting to fill up. But, I still had
to figure out what I was going to do with the letters.
I knew they were written by
my great-grandfather, Thomas S.
Armstrong, and were postmarked from all
over the southern states, but I didn’t know the story, yet. I needed a plan to
unravel the Armstrong’s story. That was first and foremost. Then, I had to
learn about the Civil War. Foote, McPherson, and Sword could help with that. Also,
I had no idea about what was going on in Muskingum County, in general, and
Zanesville, in particular, not to mention Norwich, Hopewell, and Fultonham as
the fighting began and raged on. So, a visit there was in order.
The plan evolved. I would read
first thing in the morning and take notes about events in the places the
letters were written. Background was important, I thought. Later in the
morning, I would go for my daily run, about six miles through the Shaker Lakes,
out around Laurel School and Hathaway Brown, two private schools, west down
Fairmount Boulevard where my folks used to live, and back to Shaker Square.
Then, after lunch, it was to be time
to transcribe the letters, one by one, taking each folder out of the acid-free
box, handling with surgical gloves. OK, now you think that was easy? It really
hasn’t been. Even though they are in mint condition and the handwriting is
excellent, reading them and then typing is damn hard work, thank you. I am
finding as I plod through them, I can do about two a day before I run out of
steam. I quit about 6 P.M. and drive over to Paula’s for dinner and maybe watch
a little of the Cleveland Indians’ game on the tube before coming back to the
condo and a good night’s sleep.
Cataloging the letters took a lot
of time in January, so the transcription process was delayed. Further, there
were a couple of other things that got in the way as well. My son, Doug, had
gone off to college at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute last September and came
home at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then, a month ago, he and I went to New
Smyrna Beach, Florida for his Spring Break and some golf. He’ll be back in May
for the summer. Now that I don’t see him much, out visits have become very
special.
Additionally, there was some new
thing called the Internet, and he asked me to get something called an “email”
account on something called a website at a place called CompuServe. He said
that while he was at school we could correspond on our computers and not have
to use the telephone. The marvels of technology. A lot of my friends have
gotten email accounts, too, so my morning research has been delayed until I
read all of what they had to say and respond if I so choose. Doug and I email
each other just about every day.
After we returned from Florida in
mid-March, Paula and I were talking about the project, and she asked about
possibly going to Zanesville once the snow melted to do research or at least
check out the geography of Muskingum County. That led to our first road trip
which we took last week, armed with clipboards, paper, and a Kodak Instamatic
camera. After a 3 hour ride south on I-77 and west on I-70, the first stop was the
county seat of Muskingum County, Zanesville, to find out if there was an
historical society. There was, over on Jefferson Street, west across the Y
Bridge over the Muskingum River in Putnam, a city right next door to Zanesville.
The Society was housed inside the Stone Academy, a building that had been there
for almost 200 years. I knocked on the door and found there was nobody home, so
we took off to Norwich, where we thought my great-grandfather’s family had a
farm.
Now, Norwich was 14 miles east of
Zanesville with the National Road, Route 40, actually splitting the little town
in two. After parking the car, we found a schoolhouse, the Post Office, a
Methodist church, and a general store. Paula actually stood on my shoulders to
peer inside the locked church. She said it looked like no one had been there in
a long time. That was about it, except for a graveyard out behind the church,
and it was interesting that there was no one walking around the town. Paula
sketched out Norwich on a pad of paper, but it was at the Post Office where we
had some luck.
We told the gentleman in the
green visor and apron, behind the barred window, that we were trying to find
the Armstrong’s’ farm from way back in 1860, having no idea where it was.
Simple, he said, and told us to back to the Court House where we could find
real estate records as far back as they were kept. That got me to thinking that maybe we could
find the Porter farm over in Hopewell Township as well. Thanking him, it was
time for lunch and back to Zanesville where we found a diner on Putnam Avenue
for a BLT and a glass of iced tea.
The next stop was Hopewell, 9 miles west, which we found to be just like Norwich, except the National Road ran north of town. It was pretty quiet there as well. Even the Post Office was closed. So, it was back to the Court House, but we didn’t have time to do the research on the properties, so we headed to the Stone Academy. This time, we were met by the curator, Mrs. Dale Curry. After an hour of conversation, I realized that she would be a most valuable resource.
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