crinkly old paper file

Spent about an hour this afternoon going through crinkly old paper that was all in a single file. This paper was so brittle that it fell apart when I touched it, and in some cases the print was so small I couldn't really read it.

But I felt that, for my own sake, and because I am writing about Will's life, it was important for me to record at least a little of what I learned.

Will was a (an?) historian, and at one point was made secretary, or president, of the Pottawattamie County Historical Society. He used that position to try to find out a couple of questions that were on his mind. First, were the Pottawattamie ever actually in the county? From what he knew they had lived out in Michigan, had been marched to Kansas, and were now in decline in a kind of reservation down in Indian Territory, which is now Oklahoma. When he found this out he became curious. How did this county actually get its name? Did it play a role in the march and movement of the true Potawatomie?

So he wrote to government officials around the country, and one of his questions had to do with the Pottawattamie. Another was whether there was actually an Indian reserve in the county. Reserves (I may have the name wrong) were not reservations but rather places where they stayed on their way from here to there. And I may be wrong about that too. In any case his question was what role the county had played in the massive Indian wars that had proceeded his arrival in the county (in 1863).

It was generally accepted that the place had first really been "settled" by whites when the Mormons were passing through, either with their push-carts or before that, and stopped for a long layover, after which some never left. Thus the Mormon influence in the area was big and there were plenty of people around to talk about it. He had his work cut out for him. What actually was the history of the county like?

I find it interesting because in his own way he was one of the first historians to stumble on the wreckage of the Indian wars and try to make sense of it. He seemed to be serious about history, i.e. not making judgments until after one has the facts, framing it in such a way that he is not making up facts himself, etc. I like his style and his historical bent in his writing. I need to dig more into it.

While I'm here and it's on my mind, I stumbled on something many years ago that I'd like to recover; it was a short passage on the origins of the name "Iowa." I published it on one of these blogs (my main one?my professional one? I really don't know) - and I'd like to get it back.

As a historian myself, I find othing more interesting than crinkly old paper. It falls off my clothes long after I've been working with it.