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NEWS and NOTES ADLAI E. STEVENSON, United States am- bassador to the United Nations, has given his papers relating to his campaign for governor of Illinois in 1948 and the pa- pers of his terms as governor (1949-53) to the Illinois State Historical Society, Springfield. In a statement accompanying his letter of gift, Ambassador Stevenson said: "Feeling that the preservation of papers affecting our past is important for the future . . . and because of my family's long residence in Illinois and close con- nection with public affairs in this state for well over a hundred years, I am grate- ful that the State Historical Library wants these papers and I hope that they will prove of some historical value and con- venience to students." THE HISTORIC PROJECTS Division of the Mackinac Island State Park Commission, Mackinac Island, Michigan, has issued four booklets this summer. The first, en- titled Michilimackinac: Its History and Restoration, by Eugene T. Petersen, di- rector of the Historic Projects Division, not only contains the story of the famous fort erected about 1715 by the French at the Straits of Mackinac near present-day Mackinaw City, but also gives a fascinat- ing account of the historical and archaeo- logical researches that preceded the re- cent restoration of the fortification and a description of the completed restoration |
and the exhibits which may be seen by visitors at this state park. The second is entitled War 1812, and was prepared by George S. May, research archivist of the Michigan Historical Com- mission. This forty-three page booklet re- lates the vital role that Mackinac Island, which lies in the Straits of Mackinac and was the site of Fort Mackinac, played in the course of the war in the upper Great Lakes. The third publication, Historic Guide- book: Mackinac Island, also by George S. May, provides detailed information concerning the historical attractions and natural wonders that have long made |
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Mackinac one of America's most popular tourist and resort centers. Maps are in- cluded on which are located fifty-one island points of interest, six historical tours, and a number of nature trails. The fourth booklet is a beautifully illustrated thirty-two page brochure en- titled The Forts of Mackinac. It con- tains over forty full-color photographs of Fort Mackinac and Fort Michilimack- inac by Chicago photographer Torkel Korling, who succeeds in capturing in his pictures the history, beauty, and excite- ment of the Mackinac area. These booklets may be purchased from the Historic Projects Division, Mackinac Island State Park Commission, Mackinac Island, Michigan. |
NEWS AND NOTES 159 |
THE NORTH
CAROLINA DEPARTMENT of Archives and History has completed mi- crofilming all North Carolina newspapers published before 1801. Positive copies of all titles may be purchased at $8.00 per reel. THE KENTUCKY HISTORICAL SOCIETY is microfilming the executive papers of Ken- tucky's governors. It has completed the papers of Governors Isaac Shelby, 1792-96; James Garrard, 1796-1804; Christopher Greenup, 1804-8; Charles Scott, 1808-12; George Madison, 1816; Gabriel Slaughter, 1816-20; John Adair, 1820-24; and Joseph Desha, 1824-28. INDIANS IN MICHIGAN is a picture kit published in April 1962 by the Michigan Historical Commission as a visual aid to stimulate the teaching of American his- tory. Issued as a supplement to material that appears in the one-volume text Michigan in Four Centuries, by F. Clever Bald, and the booklet The Indians of Michigan, by
Emerson F. Greenman, for- merly curator of archaeology of the Ohio Historical Society, this kit contains prints of sixteen 8 1/2" x 11" early photographs and one drawing of individual Indians, of Indians at work, and other scenes. The kit was prepared by Geneva Kebler, archivist executive of the Michigan His- torical Commission Archives. LOUIS C. JONES, director of the New York State Historical Association, Coopers- town, in his annual report for 1961, de- clares: "Unquestionably the most impor- tant event of our year was the acquisi- tion of the private library of Roger But- terfield, author of The American Past and long a member of Life's editorial staff." The Butterfield collection consists of more than two hundred thousand items, including books, pamphlets, maga- zines, trade catalogs, almanacs, broad- |
sides, cartoons, songs, and other mate- rials, brought together for the purpose of research in the story of the American people as recorded in pictures and print. The American Past came largely from this collection. THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Bal- timore, has established, as an organ of the society, a seminar in Maryland his- tory. Its object is to promote research in the society's rich collections of manu- scripts and to strengthen the society's publication program. The seminar will meet to discuss proj- ects of research and writing by scholars whose work gives promise of making a substantial contribution to the history of America, and to provide such students with guidance and criticism. The seminar will be directed by Dr. Kent Roberts Greenfield, formerly chair- man of the department of history at Johns Hopkins University and more recently chief historian of the department of the army. It will be modeled on the type of advanced seminar in history that was in- stituted at Johns Hopkins in 1930 and that was later employed by Dr. Green- field to develop the books published in the series The United States Army in World War II, of
which he was general editor until 1958. The members of the seminar are: Pro- fessor Rhoda M. Dorsey, Goucher Col- lege; Wilbur H. Hunter, Jr., director of the Peale Museum, Baltimore; Professor Aubrey C. Land, chairman of the depart- ment of history, University of Maryland; Dr. Morris L. Radoff, director of the Maryland Hall of Records; Dr. F. Wilson Smith, department of history, Johns Hop- kins University; and C. A. Porter Hop- kins, Maryland Historical Society, sec- retary. Other scholars who have special knowl- edge of the subjects under discussion will |
160 OHIO HISTORY |
be associated with this panel as the oc- casion requires. THE JULY-AUGUST 1962 issue of The Ex- plorer, the magazine of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, contains an interesting article by Mona Mayer en- titled "Fossils in the Ohio State House." In it she reports: "No other building in the United States affords a better oppor- tunity for viewing fossils than the Ohio State Capitol building in Columbus. The years have changed the once-smooth ex- terior surface into a panorama of life as it existed 300 million years ago. Time and weather have played an important part in disclosing the large and small fossils that are imbedded in the steps, in the large columns surrounding the prom- enade deck, and in the walls of the State House. The fossils have contributed as much interest to the exterior of the build- ing as the beautiful marble foyers and oil paintings have added to the interior. ". . . [The] Limestone was hauled from the pre-Civil War Medary and state quar- ries a few miles west of Columbus, over a railroad especially built for that pur- pose. "To a large extent, the steps were de- rived from a layer of rock known by quarrymen as the 'sheepskin' course. The columns were constructed from large blocks of limestone obtained from the state quarries, from the lowest course that lies below the level of low water in the Scioto River. This layer was reached only when the quarries were being worked for the construction of the State House. It is a massive bed 5 1/2 feet thick, making possible the raising of the large blocks necessary for the columns. "The limestone blocks used in the con- struction of the State House were derived from a time-rock unit known as the Co- lumbus limestone. While all layers of this stone seem to contain abundant fossils, |
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many are literally crowded with beauti- fully preserved forms of life that existed in the seas that covered Ohio 300 million years ago." TWO OF OHIO'S PROMINENT historians have recently had volumes significant to American historiography published jointly by the Institute of Early Ameri- can History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, and the University of North Carolina Press. They are Lynn W. Turner, president of Otterbein College, Wester- ville, and Louis L. Tucker, director of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, Cincinnati. |
NEWS AND NOTES 161 |
Dr. Turner's study, entitled William Plumer of New Hampshire, 1759-1850, traces the political career of an ardent Federalist who was converted to Jeffer- sonian Republicanism during his term in the United States Senate, 1803-7, and who was the only New England governor to support the Madison administration during the War of 1812. Dr. Tucker's volume is entitled Puritan Protagonist: President Thomas Clap of Yale College, and is a study of the man who was for twenty-six years rector and then first president of Yale. It was Clap who trans- formed the college from a "primitive school" to "a leading intellectual center of the New World." As minister, scien- tist, teacher, and college administrator, Clap was deeply involved in the intel- lectual currents of his time, and Tucker's biography provides important insight into the intellectual life of New England dur- ing a neglected period of colonial history, namely, the mid-eighteenth century. THIS SEEMS TO BE the age of
reprints. A number of publishers, taking advantage of the photographic process of producing plates for offset printing, are issuing vol- umes out of the past which have been long out of print and for which they think there is a demand today. Three such publications of interest to Ohioans are Rufus R. Dawes, Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers, originally pub- lished in Marietta, Ohio, in 1890, but now issued in Madison by the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin for the Wisconsin Civil War Commission; J. C. Beltrami, A Pilgrimage in America Lead- ing to the Discovery of the Sources of the Mississippi and Bloody River; with a Description of the Whole Course of the Former, and of the Ohio, originally is- sued in London in 1828, now published |
in Chicago by Quadrangle Books, Inc.; and Roy M. Robbins, Our Landed Heri- tage: The Public Domain, 1776-1936, originally published by Princeton Uni- versity Press in 1942, now reprinted by the University of Nebraska Press. The Dawes volume is considered one of the distinguished memoirs in Civil War literature. Dawes was an Ohioan who spent his early days near Marietta and in Malta. He attended the University of Wisconsin for two years, but returned to Ohio to Marietta College, where he graduated in 1860. On a trip to Wiscon- sin when Fort Sumter was fired upon, Rufus immediately undertook to raise a company, and a few weeks later as cap- tain he led his group of around one hun- dred men to Madison, where it was as- signed as Company K to the newly or- ganized Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer In- fantry Regiment. Rufus served till Au- gust 1864, and rose in the ranks to become colonel and commander of the Sixth. After the war he returned to Mari- etta, where he lived until his death in 1899. In his book, based on his journal and letters, Dawes recorded the full ca- reer of his regiment and its soldiers, and wrote his recollections and impressions objectively and in brilliant narrative style. A Pilgrimage in America is one of the classic early accounts by European trav- elers in the United States. Beltrami, an Italian, came to explore the American West, and his volume offers interesting observations and judgments on the Am- erican pioneers, rivermen, frontier mili- tary outposts, frontier towns, the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and Indians. Our Landed Heritage is an exhaustive study of the public lands of the United States and their significance in the social, as well as the political, economic, and legal history of this country. |
162 OHIO
HISTORY |
PROPOSED LEGISLATION to authorize a fifty - million - dollar program to assist states in planning outdoor recreation pro- jects has been submitted to the congress, according to an announcement by Secre- tary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall. Under the proposed bill funds would be made available for the preparation of comprehensive state-wide outdoor recre- ation programs, including costs of plan- ning and administration. Outdoor recreation resources are de- fined to include areas of historic interest, as well as forests, range lands, lakes and rivers, and fish and wildlife areas. UPON THESE HILLS: Massillon's Begin- nings and Early Days, by Mrs. Barton E. Smith, is a recent handsome volume pro- duced and published under the auspices of the Massillon Chapter of the Daugh- ters of the American Revolution. "Before Massillon, there was Kendal," the story of the present city begins, "and before Kendal there were Newport, New Bedford, and Nantucket, and sailing ships and 'greasy luck.'" Thomas Rotch and his wife Charity came from seafaring families of Massachusetts and Rhode Island to settle in 1811 on a 2000-acre tract along Sippo Creek. There Rotch grazed his four hundred Merino sheep, built a woolen mill and a sawmill, estab- lished the town of Kendal, which became a Quaker community, and erected "Spring Hill," a large federal-style frame house, for his family. The story continues through the estab- lishment of an Owenite communitarian colony at Kendal, the founding of Mas- sillon close by in 1826 by James Duncan, the coming of the Ohio and Erie Canal, the industrial and commercial develop- ment of the region, and the merging of Kendal with Massillon to some descrip- tion of Massillon as it is today. |
A GUIDE TO MANUSCRIPTS Relating to America in Great Britain and Ireland, edited by B. R. Crick and Miriam Beales under the general supervision of H. L. Beales and published by the Oxford Uni- versity Press for the British Association for American Studies, is important to Ohio historians. Of particular value for its listings of manuscripts in depositories outside of London, Oxford, and Cam- bridge, it catalogs materials relating to Ohio on such subjects as Indians, the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Ohio River, the Fenians, slavery and the anti- slavery movement, the Great Lakes, Sal- vation Army farm colonies, Robert Owens' operations in the United States, Dickens' visits to America, the Quakers, trade with America, travel and descrip- tion, and emigrants to America. Of particular interest are the journals and letters of British and Irish travelers and the letters of emigrants from the British Isles to the United States. Among the latter are a number from Welsh emi- grants in the National Library of Wales. In that institution, too, it would appear, are the papers of William Bebb, governor of Ohio from 1846 to 1849, who, though a native Ohioan born to Welsh parents, maintained close connections with people in Wales. In the 1850's he visited Wales and encouraged a colony of Welsh to locate in Tennessee, and in 1860 he moved to Knoxville, where he could su- perintend the settlement. PLANS AND PREPARATIONS for the celebra- tion of the state of New Jersey's three- hundredth birthday in 1964 are well under way. The New Jersey Tercentenary Commission was created under an act of the legislature in 1960 to plan and ad- minister the program. A federal commis- sion to celebrate the tercentenary has also |
NEWS AND NOTES 163 |
been formed, as well as a non-profit agency known as the New Jersey Ter- centenary Corporation, which will handle private contributions and aid in the pub- lication of materials on New Jersey's his- tory, provide revenue for New Jersey's participation in the world's fair to be held in New York, and help to build new state library and museum buildings. The state commission is assisted by a number of advisory committees, including committees on history, education, arbors and gardens, public information, and ways and means. The committees on his- tory and education, composed of promi- nent historians and educators of the state, have announced plans for an extensive publication program, for encouraging the teaching of New Jersey history in the schools, and for promoting the construc- tion of a new state library and archives building and a new state museum. The advisory committee on the Tercentenary Historymobile, through the generosity of the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company and the Ford dealers of New Jersey, pre- sented a sixteen-ton state museum on wheels to the commission in the fall of 1961. The historymobile offers ten dif- ferent exhibit groups, including docu- ments, artifacts, and pictorial materials assembled and installed by the committee, which is composed of the state's top mu- seum, library, historical society, and in- dustrial design people. In July the his- |
torymobile scheduled an historic trek across the nation, leading a twentieth- century wagon train to Seattle's Century 21 Exposition. Nearly 200 municipal committees, with 1,800 members, and 18 county commit- tees, with 320 members, have been formed to administer the tercentenary celebra- tion on the local level. They will run pageants, parades, contests, and other special events, and plan research and writing and historic preservation and restoration programs. Like the state com- mission, which hopes to make a perma- nent contribution in the state library and museum
buildings, local tercentenary officials are helping to create historic parks, museums, and archives programs. The theme of the New Jersey State Fair, to be held this fall, is the tercen- tenary. The state commission plans a large exhibit at the New York World's Fair. The state legislature has appropri- ated $500,000 to help with the construc- tion of the New Jersey Tercentary Pa- vilion at the fair, and another $500,000 is being raised from private industry for the million-dollar structure. The state commission is issuing from time to time a newspaper entitled The New Jersey Heritage concerning what may well be the most aggressive state anniversary celebration effort of recent times. |
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NEWS and NOTES ADLAI E. STEVENSON, United States am- bassador to the United Nations, has given his papers relating to his campaign for governor of Illinois in 1948 and the pa- pers of his terms as governor (1949-53) to the Illinois State Historical Society, Springfield. In a statement accompanying his letter of gift, Ambassador Stevenson said: "Feeling that the preservation of papers affecting our past is important for the future . . . and because of my family's long residence in Illinois and close con- nection with public affairs in this state for well over a hundred years, I am grate- ful that the State Historical Library wants these papers and I hope that they will prove of some historical value and con- venience to students." THE HISTORIC PROJECTS Division of the Mackinac Island State Park Commission, Mackinac Island, Michigan, has issued four booklets this summer. The first, en- titled Michilimackinac: Its History and Restoration, by Eugene T. Petersen, di- rector of the Historic Projects Division, not only contains the story of the famous fort erected about 1715 by the French at the Straits of Mackinac near present-day Mackinaw City, but also gives a fascinat- ing account of the historical and archaeo- logical researches that preceded the re- cent restoration of the fortification and a description of the completed restoration |
and the exhibits which may be seen by visitors at this state park. The second is entitled War 1812, and was prepared by George S. May, research archivist of the Michigan Historical Com- mission. This forty-three page booklet re- lates the vital role that Mackinac Island, which lies in the Straits of Mackinac and was the site of Fort Mackinac, played in the course of the war in the upper Great Lakes. The third publication, Historic Guide- book: Mackinac Island, also by George S. May, provides detailed information concerning the historical attractions and natural wonders that have long made |
|
Mackinac one of America's most popular tourist and resort centers. Maps are in- cluded on which are located fifty-one island points of interest, six historical tours, and a number of nature trails. The fourth booklet is a beautifully illustrated thirty-two page brochure en- titled The Forts of Mackinac. It con- tains over forty full-color photographs of Fort Mackinac and Fort Michilimack- inac by Chicago photographer Torkel Korling, who succeeds in capturing in his pictures the history, beauty, and excite- ment of the Mackinac area. These booklets may be purchased from the Historic Projects Division, Mackinac Island State Park Commission, Mackinac Island, Michigan. |