What does a city do with its old records if there isn't a local historical society around to take an interest in them and preserve them?
Apparently that was Lorain's problem back in the summer of 1973, when the article above and accompanying photograph appeared in the Journal on August 13th.
"They're not much to look at. Dirty, musty and sometimes vermin infested, they appear to be a prime candidate for the nearest trash heap.
"Those old Lorain city documents are wanted, though. Friday the Western Reserve Historical Society of Cleveland came and took several hundred volumes to preserve them for posterity and future historical research."
The article notes that, "Few of the Lorain records taken are what might be called extremely old. The oldest date back to about 1890."
Anyway, a quick search of the Western Reserve Historical Society's online library collection database shows there is a lot of Lorain and Lorain County material there in Cleveland. I'm sure local author (and regular blog commenter) Don Hilton has perused their files there, especially when he was writing his book about the early death records of Lorain County.
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I had a situation not unlike Lorain's dilemma with its old records when I bought my first house, located on Nebraska Ave. on the east side.
While exploring the attic of the house (which was built in the early 1940s), I discovered a stack of old ledgers from the steel mill. The books were large and dusty, with writing in them done with a fountain pen in a flowery style. (The original owner who built the house worked at the Mill.)
I brought the books down from the attic, only to discover that they were inhabited – by (ugh) silverfish! Soon I had a silverfish starter ranch in my spare bedroom. The books had been pretty much munched on by something up in the attic; I'm guessing miserable meeces.
As a result, I either got rid of them or stuck them back up in the attic. I can't remember which (it was more than thirty years ago).
Alternate Headline...
ReplyDelete"Regional Historical Zealots Plunder Lorain County's Past!"
I just searched their website. Looks like they still have that stuff.
http://catalog.wrhs.org/collections/search
...A few years ago, I had occasion to visit our county courthouse, and they had ledgers going back to the 1840s. I asked if they allowed people to look through them and was politely informed that unfortunately they were only open to accredited researchers - sadly, there were a fair number of transactions recorded involving buying and selling people.
ReplyDeleteMike:
ReplyDeleteLots of those documents are now held at the county's Records Retention Center: https://www.loraincountyohio.gov/307/Records-Retention-Center
They can be helpful, if they have the time. Like everywhere else, they are overworked and short staffed.
Along the same lines... I visited the Recorder's Office just yesterday looking to discover when the common pleas court dockets switched from handwritten to typed. Much to my surprise they have done away with public access to the microfilm readers, "accredited researcher" or no! You need to know the case you're looking for to get a printout which means perusing the records for historical or genealogical reasons is impossible. It's a damned shame.
Looks like my book on the county's murders will be the last of its kind.