Published: September 05, 2008 05:18 pm            

Stan Champer: Stories hiding in the cobwebs

What’s in your attic?

Maybe the Christmas decorations? Or the crib you bought when the kids were born and saved in case they wanted to use it, too? Grandpa’s old Army uniform, or some out-of-style table lamps you replaced years ago?

Many of us have such collections in the attic or garage that have been stored for so long that we’ve forgotten what’s there. These items generally are typical heirlooms that have little relevance beyond the family.

But every now and then, someone will go rummaging and discover a gem in the dark and cobwebby recesses that offers unique significance for broadening our understanding of local history.

A friend of mine a few years ago had the unhappy task of cleaning out his grandmother’s house before putting it on the market, and in trying to make a dent in a packed attic, discovered some old business ledgers.

They turned out to be the books kept by his great-grandfather for a store he owned and operated in Ashland in the very early 1900s. The value for local historians is the perspective such books bring to understanding the city’s commerce at that time.

With ledgers like these, the inventory itself is informative, describing the type of merchandise in which the store traded, as well as certain brand names, average quantities sold over a given period, and pricing structures which, as you might imagine, differed greatly from today.

Beyond this, these ledgers often provide the names of a store’s patrons, something of interest to genealogists as well as historians, because they offer documentation that ancestors were living in a given neighborhood at a specific period of time.

A discovery of similar import was recently made by Jim Powers, retired director of the Boyd County Public Library who still spends some time each week in the library’s genealogy department assisting folks who’ve been bitten by the family history bug.

At an attic-emptying, Jim found and obtained for the library two tied rolls of local newspapers published in Ashland in the years predating any microfilmed editions of The Independent, a collection that goes back only to mid-year 1922.

Some of the editions in those rolls were circa 1917 reporting on events connected with World War I. Two of the papers were 1888 editions of a paper called The Ashland Republican hailing the victory of GOP presidential candidate Benjamin Harrison.

Interestingly, the front pages of The Republican were printed in blue and red type, which I suppose, given the white newsprint, was intended as a gesture of patriotism. Given limitations of presses from that era, the color type must have been a time-consuming process.

Such artifacts, tucked away and forgotten with the passing of time, always have a story to tell and often correct misconceptions about how the history of a community or region unfolded.

Local historians are always on the lookout for such stories, but these are especially welcomed when they surface at a time leading up to the observance of a significant milestone of community experience.

It just so happens that Boyd County will be marking such a milestone in about a year and a half. I haven’t heard anyone mention it yet, but 2010 will be the county’s 150th birthday.

Boyd became the 107th of the state’s 120 counties in 1860, formed from parts of Greenup, Carter and Lawrence counties and named for Linn Boyd, a former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives who died in 1859 shortly after being elected Kentucky’s lieutenant governor.

A century and a half ... a long, long time. We know a lot of stories that could be told about Boyd County’s march through 150 years. Perhaps there are others, in the dark recesses of attics, which could lengthen the list.

STAN CHAMPER can be reached at schamper@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2640.

        

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