wvasweetness
New member
A few years ago, a family friend passed away and we helped clean out their home and garage. There were TONS of old books stored in their attic and the family was going to throw them on the burn pile. Being the pack rat that I am (not to mention that I don't think I could ever stand back and watch someone burn a book!), I took all of the books.
I sorted through all of the boxes - minus one. I did find some old books (from 1913-1920) that were Primary School text books that I kept, but everything else I donated to the library. The one box that I never got to sort (I left it for last b/c it had water damage and I figured the books inside were ruined) ended up getting packed with our long-term storage items when we moved a couple of years ago. The past few weeks I've been sorting through and getting rid of stuff, and tonight I found that box of books.
Most of the books were more of the same - pretty cool and very old, but nothing really worth keeping. At the bottom of the box I found a book wrapped in the newspapers. When I opened the newspapers, I found this...
And it's so amazing. I can't stop looking at it.
At first glance it appears to be a journal of someone named Beverly. But there are writings from random other people as well... poems, stories, lists, and what appears to be a list of items from a store - everything from bread to farm animals to construction materials.
The person(s) kept running tabs - either for themself, or for someone else, with their running balance of what they owed (or what someone else owed them?) - and dates with how much was paid at each time (I scanned the pages and amounts range from 25 cents to 17 dollars).
Each person who wrote in the book signed their name to each "entry" along with their county/city and state. There are "entries" from people who lived very near to where I do now (about 15 miles from here) - but instead of being Bridgeport, West Virginia - it's signed Bridgeport, VA... since they were the same state at that time!
There are entry from as far away as the edge of Ohio too, and were obviously written in different writing. The person in Ohio wrote a lot about war and financial hardship, as well as a poem about being in love but the man she's in love with will never want anything to do with her. This lady only ever signed her initials, not her name. Her grammar was very poor and she wrote in run-on sentences.
The lady, Beverley, who seems to have written the majority of the entries, seems like she was very well educated and wrote very formally. She always wrote in the third person and write a lot about family and friends - some killed in war, some far away in another state, etc. She wrote a few very "intimate" poems about a man, as well as poems about the "Virginia Girls" (her and her girl friends). In 1860 she talks about her "precious state" possibly being "broken into two pieces, like a broken heart" (I'm assuming she is talking about VA splitting into Virginia and West Virginia, which happened in 1863.) She also drew a lot of very neat doodles and squiggles around some of the titles, and along the margins - as well as what looks like her practicing writing her name and the alphabet on some pages.
The earliest date I can find inside the actual book is 1836. There is a very brittle, hand-written letter that was put inside the book that is dated 1789. It is a letter written by a man to his mother. Although he never says where he is, it sounds like he was far away. He says in the letter that he fears she is dead because he has not heard from her, although he knows that the post can take a long time to deliver. The most recent date I can find is early 1900's, which are mostly from items tucked away in the book - flyers, pieces of newspapers, etc.
I plan on taking a bunch of pics with my camera in good lightning very soon. Here are a few pics I snapped with my iPhone this evening...
Sooo, if you've made it this far
... I'm not sure what to do with this book? I know that before I do anything else, I am going to take detailed photos of every page and work on recording what's in it (a HUGE task, I know). But after that... what?
Keep it and just seal/store it? Check on getting it preserved some how? Try to find family of these people and give the book to them? Give the book to the local historical society (which I'm leary of doing since the book will just sit on a shelf somewhere)?
PS... After reading this whole thing, I just realized that I may sound a bit crazy. LOL. Maybe I'm just a dork for this kind of stuff.
I sorted through all of the boxes - minus one. I did find some old books (from 1913-1920) that were Primary School text books that I kept, but everything else I donated to the library. The one box that I never got to sort (I left it for last b/c it had water damage and I figured the books inside were ruined) ended up getting packed with our long-term storage items when we moved a couple of years ago. The past few weeks I've been sorting through and getting rid of stuff, and tonight I found that box of books.
Most of the books were more of the same - pretty cool and very old, but nothing really worth keeping. At the bottom of the box I found a book wrapped in the newspapers. When I opened the newspapers, I found this...
And it's so amazing. I can't stop looking at it.
At first glance it appears to be a journal of someone named Beverly. But there are writings from random other people as well... poems, stories, lists, and what appears to be a list of items from a store - everything from bread to farm animals to construction materials.
The person(s) kept running tabs - either for themself, or for someone else, with their running balance of what they owed (or what someone else owed them?) - and dates with how much was paid at each time (I scanned the pages and amounts range from 25 cents to 17 dollars).
Each person who wrote in the book signed their name to each "entry" along with their county/city and state. There are "entries" from people who lived very near to where I do now (about 15 miles from here) - but instead of being Bridgeport, West Virginia - it's signed Bridgeport, VA... since they were the same state at that time!
There are entry from as far away as the edge of Ohio too, and were obviously written in different writing. The person in Ohio wrote a lot about war and financial hardship, as well as a poem about being in love but the man she's in love with will never want anything to do with her. This lady only ever signed her initials, not her name. Her grammar was very poor and she wrote in run-on sentences.
The lady, Beverley, who seems to have written the majority of the entries, seems like she was very well educated and wrote very formally. She always wrote in the third person and write a lot about family and friends - some killed in war, some far away in another state, etc. She wrote a few very "intimate" poems about a man, as well as poems about the "Virginia Girls" (her and her girl friends). In 1860 she talks about her "precious state" possibly being "broken into two pieces, like a broken heart" (I'm assuming she is talking about VA splitting into Virginia and West Virginia, which happened in 1863.) She also drew a lot of very neat doodles and squiggles around some of the titles, and along the margins - as well as what looks like her practicing writing her name and the alphabet on some pages.
The earliest date I can find inside the actual book is 1836. There is a very brittle, hand-written letter that was put inside the book that is dated 1789. It is a letter written by a man to his mother. Although he never says where he is, it sounds like he was far away. He says in the letter that he fears she is dead because he has not heard from her, although he knows that the post can take a long time to deliver. The most recent date I can find is early 1900's, which are mostly from items tucked away in the book - flyers, pieces of newspapers, etc.
I plan on taking a bunch of pics with my camera in good lightning very soon. Here are a few pics I snapped with my iPhone this evening...
Sooo, if you've made it this far
... I'm not sure what to do with this book? I know that before I do anything else, I am going to take detailed photos of every page and work on recording what's in it (a HUGE task, I know). But after that... what?Keep it and just seal/store it? Check on getting it preserved some how? Try to find family of these people and give the book to them? Give the book to the local historical society (which I'm leary of doing since the book will just sit on a shelf somewhere)?
PS... After reading this whole thing, I just realized that I may sound a bit crazy. LOL. Maybe I'm just a dork for this kind of stuff.
