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July 14th, 2015
I think all of us enjoy a good treasure story. I remember reading about an English man walking through the countryside with a metal detector when he uncovered thousands of pieces of gold, silver and gems dating back nearly a thousand years. Just two months ago, a Texas man discovered a trove of jewelry in a secret drawer in a dresser he bought at an estate sale. It seems like treasures are everywhere just waiting to be found!
Years ago, I had a treasure hunt of my own. No gold, silver or jewelry, of course, just a giant stack of papers stuffed into an old-style milk box. (For my younger readers, milk used to be delivered to your house and placed in a box on your porch. Funny, huh?) My grandmother had been the faithful guardian of these papers for many, many years. Exactly what treasures might be hidden among them we didn’t know. But when my grandmother gave the box and its contents into my dad’s keeping, we eagerly dove into it. I can remember my sister, my wife and I poring over the papers together, passing them around with unrestrained excitement. It was like stepping back in time and really getting to know my ancestors.
As a lawyer, there were plenty of things to pique my interest. There were old, handwritten deeds and contracts. There were also court papers from a bygone era. I read them all, smiling as I ran across Latin words and phrases I learned in law school but had never actually seen before.
One of these legal papers stood out to me. It was summons; written with a firm, steady hand. All in all, it was pretty standard stuff. Nothing really caught my eye until I got to the bottom. Every summons is dated, and this one was no exception. It read: “Witness, Christian Engle, Clerk,…at the Courthouse of said county of Tyler, this 22nd day of March, 1864 and in the first year of the state.” What a thrill it was to know that I had a piece of history in my hands! It was like being swept back to the Civil War, to those difficult days when West Virginia fought to gain its statehood.
Speaking of fighting, there was also a letter from a Civil War soldier to my great-great grandfather, Elisha. Apparently the soldier, Private William Molby, had been lifelong friends with Elisha. Private Molby was undergoing training near Buchannan, West Virginia, and knew that he would soon be deployed. You could feel the uncertainty in his words—not knowing where he would be going or if he would survive. But he spoke with great pride and he knew beyond any doubt that he was fighting for a noble cause: “[T]he next letter you get from me will tell you that I have been in a battle and it may be that I fall on the battlefield and if so I want you to remember what it is for: it is for the liberty and the glory of my country.”
Many of the papers came directly from Elisha himself. Elisha had been a surveyor working in Tyler County, West Virginia. The crate was full of notebooks documenting his work, mostly surveys for the county roads. There were pages full of dates, locations and figures that I really didn’t understand, but I felt like I was getting a small glimpse of what Elisha’s workday must have looked like. I also saw a long list of household items that had been purchased, quite possibly from a general store we still visit from time to time while riding our four wheelers. The building itself is gone, but there are foundation stones and a few items that were left behind. It was fun making this connection and imagining Elisha stepping into the store with his shopping list.
I’ve gone back many times, reading and rereading these papers. I’ve always been a history buff, but it’s even more exciting when it’s your own history. These papers that were kept for so long in a simple milk box were, and still are, a treasure to me. If you have any old family papers of your own, take my advice. Keep them. Read them. Treasure them. There’s nothing like connecting with people, places and things from your past!
Do you have a treasure story of your own?
