Cast Off the Anchor and Forward She Goes!
To keep history alive in the twenty-first century, we historians have to move fast. Information comes daily to our historical society from many sources: interested travelers, members who are pursuing personal research projects, and the ever-present media. It pours in as fast as our rolling creeks of April, from our companion organizations and certainly from the internet. If the SCHS does not collect and store the information and articles pertinent to its mission, much will become flotsam and jetsam in this growing flood of information. The Society is indebted to Jerry Miller for leading our participation in the recent Civil War highway marker project in Simpsonville. After waiting one hundred and fifty years those involved in the disaster are now recognized.
I am aware that there are few coattails to ride into this new age of information. However, if we move quickly, we have an opportunity to grab the ponytails of the younger set and ride them to a better understanding of technology,its vocabulary, its possibilities and how it can work for historians. Sanda Jones our newsletter Editor will also head our website committee. She will be working with Mrs. Sherry Curtsinger and her talented students in the Student Technology Leadership Program at Collins High and Shelby County High School, to help us update our website. The goal of seeing our collection viewed in many homes and listing our events and programs on our “blog” through our website, will be a step in the right direction. We hope your comments, questions and suggestions can be handled through our website.
We want the website to encourage a visit to the Main Street museum and further participation in Society programs. For those who would like to help the Society unravel the past using technology’s tools, the students are offering their help. As the reluctant and finally triumphant Mr. Frederickson did in the award winning movie, “UP” let’s accept this offer from the younger generation. Watch your mail,email, and newsletter for further information.
This will be a priceless experience!
Skirmish at Simpsonville Memorial
The formal dedication of the Skirmish at Simpsonville Memorial will be held on April 10, 2011 at 3 p.m. That day is also the Sesquicentennial of the firing on Fort Sumter, recognized as the opening of hostilities in the Civil War, which also happened on a Sunday. The ceremony will be held at the site located at U.S. 60 and Webb Road, 1/2 mile west of Simpsonville.
The site memorializes the events of January 25, 1865, when elements of the 5th United States Colored Cavalry (USCC) were surprised by a band of Confederate guerillas while driving a herd of 900 cattle to Louisville. About twenty-two were killed and as many as twenty were wounded, six of whom later died of their wounds. Based at Camp Nelson, Kentucky, nearly all of the 5th USCC’s recruits were former slaves. The 5th USCC troopers “that were killed were buried in a long trench near where they were massacred.” News- paper accounts of the event referred to the “Skirmish Near Simpsonville” as a massacre, though military historians question the use of that term.
The nearby Highway Historical Marker is headed “Horrible Massacre” which was used in the headline to the January 26, 1865 article that appeared in the Louisville Courier. It is believed the USCC troopers fired only one shot in their defense before being overwhelmed. The area in which they were believed buried was later used as an African American cemetery. Members of Simpsonville’s Trim #2 United Brothers of Friendship Lodge, an African American fraternal organization, operated the cemetery until the last member died in 1965. Over 180 graves have been documented in the abandoned cemetery. This will become Kentucky’s third and largest memorial site dedicated to U.S. Colored Troops in Kentucky. The oldest is a marker in a Frankfort’s Green Hill Cemetery that was erected in the 1920s. The second monument to the USCT is at Camp Nelson in Jessamine County.
Please visit these links to learn more:
http://home.comcast.net/~5thuscc/
http://home.comcast.net/~5thuscc/simpson.htm
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/simpsonville-civil-war-massacre.htm
http://www.kentucky.com/2009/01/21/666048/marker-revives-memory-of-simpsonville.html
http://5thusccsimpsonville.webs.com/
WHAT IS HISTORY CAMP ANYWAY?
Sherry Jelsma woke up one morning and suddenly realized she had eight grandchildren that she wanted to see more often. She believed the best way to get to know them well was to learn something together. Her resources were the farm, her home. The children did not know a lot about rural life,nature, or big animals, but, she knew they loved challenges, new ideas, and making things. So, she and her husband instituted Farm Camp. The eight campers developed projects, sang songs, performed in plays, created art projects, and dealt in manyways with the resources and animals of the farm.The thrills and delights of the campers’ excitement could not be forgotten.
In 2008 when the SCHS needed a way to involve the community using its historical resources, Sherry suggested a History Camp to the board. Sharon Hackworth, Beth Dunn, and John Graham were mainstays the initial year. We decided twenty campers was our limit and the subject of camp would be, Early Kentucky, 1776-1812. We citizens were asked to impersonate Governor Isaac Shelby, Chief Tecumseh, and President Thomas Jefferson. Adults generously offered to give sessions on tobacco growing, arrow points, and fur trapping.
Others aided in the station activities of herbs for healing, making stew and cornbread, and creating quill pens and ink from berries. The demand was great, we enrolled twenty-nine campers. The second year, 2009, was the Civil War in Shelbyville, 1861-1864. Mayor Hardesty allowed Main Street to be closed for Confederate guerillas to gallop down the street shooting their guns in protest of the Yankees. They rode into our hospital tent and demanded attention for their wounded friend.
That year, interest was so high, we served fifty campers and had a waiting list of forty others. Again, adults volunteered and the teens helped us as assistant counselors. The campers had a wonderful time following their teen counselors, the girls wanted to involve adults as wel as children, so making and decorating straw hats, the boys making and wearing Confederate and Union"kepis" (hats). No one will forget the marching band, the songs and waiting for letters from the soldiers at the train station on tenth street.
Our 2010 theme, Go West Young Man 1846-1850, involved the gold rush, immigrants in Shelby County, and the gathering clouds of the coming Civil War. We had fifty campers and adult volunteers. The stations wer more complex. We had real-life engineers teaching bridge building and the power of the steam engine for trains and boarts. Our road builidng station was an eye-opener, as the campers built corduroy roads. We held a funeral as our Shelby County soldiers brought home the bodies of their comrades killed in the Mexican War, and we honored their graves still located on the front lawn of the Public Library. We all remember the drummer, James Mulcahy, and the coffins (large boxes from Tracy's carried by campers) and the library staff was dressed in black, who left the library to join us.
This marks our fourth year and we will address World War II, 1941-1945. It promises to be our best year ever! If there are any adults who want to join us, we always have room for more ides and more workers! Notify our new camp director, Michelle DeEsch at michelle@deeshcpa.com. If your child or grandchild wishes to join us, the registration form is on the website, www.shelbycountyky.org, at the Heritage Welcome Center, 627 Main, or at the Library. History Camp is a success because everyone gets involved. Thanks you sponsors, adults, teens, parents and campers. You have given Shelby County as lasting memory..... you have created a bit of history.
An Education Sub Committee of the ShelbyCounty Historical Society has selected three applicants for our 2011-2012 internship. Committee members Jon Henson, Jack Brammer and John Graham. Congratulations to interns Kathryn Harden from SCHS, Olivia Sherrod and Austin Dupre from Collins High are high school seniors. The interns may receive high school credit for two semesters of their internship. Interns receive a pass or fail for the course. Their high schools will release the interns for the final two blocks three days a week; interns report to the Welcome/Heritage Center. Their cycle will be Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Mondays they will meet with an education committee member to orient and prepare for the weekly topic.
On Tuesdays, interns meet for an interview with a local historian or “expert” in a historical specialty. Interns prepare at least three questions before the interview and take notes during the interview on a format prepared by our committee. On Thursdays, interns prepare a one page, typed, double-spaced 12 of their choosing. During the second half of the course, on or about May 1, interns submit a research paper to our committee for evaluation. Interns organize their reflective pieces, interview notes and research on their historical topics in a binder.
Each intern’s education committee advisor inspects the binder. Some historians and/or local experts want more than one session with our interns. Some sessions include fieldwork. These assignments include researching in cemeteries and archaeological dig work at Whitaker Station and/or Painted Stone Station.
Other field assignments are shadowing the editor of a local historical magazine, Bill Matthews, and the fieldwork of our Historical Commissioner, Gail Reed. At our center, Sharon Hackworth will train our interns in docent responsibilities. Interns will interview Maureen Ashby on our historic African- American communities. Local historians include land grant expert Neil Hammon, and Shelby County property deed expert Betty Matthews, Ronald Van Stockum on the Boone family and the Allen Dale Farm.
A member of the Education Committee evaluates their reflections and returns the graded work to the interns the following Monday. On Tuesdays and Fridays, the interns remain at their respective schools for their final blocks and do independent research on a local topic Sherry Jelsma on Stockdale Farm, and Jerry Miller on the memorial honoring the African-American Civil War soldiers killed in Simpsonville. If you have suggestions for interview subjects, contact an education committee member before July 15, 2011.
The Shelby County Historical Society is always looking for new members to help keep our history alive! We welcome our new members from the Lincoln Institute Alumni Association. The increase in membership allows the society to offer numerous and exciting programs for our community. Our current membership is 118.
Have you checked the SCHS web site www.shelbykyhistory.org,? We are currently working to enhance the web site, so stay tuned for a new look and a user friendly site, with lots of links and photos. Be sure to investigate the links that show up within the site. The society is always looking for ways to improve and enhance the site. Are you interested in learning more about the technical aspects of web sites andcmmunications? If so, please contact Kerry Magan, 502.633-4365, kpmplc@bellsouth.net.
We are grateful to the task force, Sanda Jones, Michelle DeEsch, and Jim Cleveland, for the following report, which we will begin to enact March 1.
1. March will be a working month for the board and interested persons to do active work to get the museum ready for visitors by April 1.The museum will not be staffed with volunteers in March; it will be closed to the public, unless requested by a group for a specific date. Members of the board and others brought in will inventory the office, determine what should be offered for sale and how that sale will be accomplished, work on fundraising ideas, and scheduling of Fountain Tour groups and school and civic groups. The museum will re-open April 7. It will be open through October on Thursdays and Fridays from 10am-2pm and the 2nd and 4th Saturdays from 10am-2pm. It will be staffed during these times with docents.
2. All docents will complete a training course. The six Saturdays beginning July 2 (WWII exhibit will be open), and ending August 6, will be staffed by paid docents, who have completed the training.
3. Museum Committee is charged with creating a self-guided tour that all visitors can use. The “Shelbyville Then and Now “ booklet will be used, and a WWII supplement is needed. Audio guide could be explored.The Museum Committee is charged with identifying tasks docents can accomplish to help the museum exhibits.
4. Collections Committee is charged with identifying tasks for museum volunteers that involve helping them with the collection.
5. The Communications Committee is charged with identifying tasks the docents can accomplish that will help with communication goals.
6. and 7. The Development Committee and the Education Programs Committee are charged with identifying tasks the docents can accomplish to help with fund raising and with research, programs, history camp projects, and other goals of these committees.All committees can prepare their docent wish lists in March at the activity days in the upstairs office. we need them by March 26 so they can be shared at the April 2 board meeting.We want to be ready to go by April 7.
Thanks to everyone, expecially the task force!
This year the Board of the Shelby County Historical Society adopted two goals: To increase the engagement of the community in our history programs and to increase the quality of our collection. We hope you agree with us and will help us make this happen. We plan to do this through History Camp, museum exhibits, publications and our website.
Shelby County Historical Society currently has 106 current or lifetime family memberships. This will be the last newsletter to those not paid through 2011. Membership in the historical society offers you our quarterly newsletter, free admission to the museum exhibits, the general membership meetings that are open to the public (except for the annual dinner), guided history tour of the downtown homes, shops, and businesses (upon appointment), free brochures, pamphlets and invitations to upcoming events,
dinners, fundraisers, and more.
We are upgrading our website in order to bring you more history of our past while in the comfort of your home, however, the real experience is seeing for yourself what your membership has to offer. You are Invited to Join/Renew your membership in The Shelby County Historical Society!
Individual and family memberships are $25.00 annually. Mail your check to Shelby County Historical
Society, PO Box 444, Shelbyville, KY 40066.Any amount over $ 25 is tax deductible and will be deposited into the Endowment Fund. Interest from the Endowment Fund supports the education programs of the society, including museum exhibits and community programs.
Sponsor: $ 50 - $ 99
Founder: $ 100 - $ 999
Benefactor: $ 1,000 or more
If you wish to change the way you receive your newsletter, please send a letter to the PO Box or an e-mail to Kerry Magan, kpmlc@bellsouth.net.
Shelbyville’s recent history will come alive in a Shelby County Historical Society meeting in March with four of the city’s former mayors and the current mayor. The mayors will participate in a discussion led by Jack Brammer, the society’s vice president, at a March 17 meeting of the historical society at the home of Ron and Kay Waldridge at 1520 Cropper Road. It will begin at 7 p.m.
Participating in the panel discussion will be Marshall Long, who was mayor from 1974 to 1982; Neil S. Hackworth, who was mayor from 1982 to 1995; Donald Cubert Sr., who was mayor in 1995; David Eaton, who was mayor from 1995 to 2002; and Tom Hardesty, the current mayor who first took office in 2003. I will ask the mayors to discuss accomplishments and problems in their terms of office and to give their views on the future of downtown Shelbyville.
Questions will be taken from the audience. The meeting is free to society members, students and persons who accompany students. The cost for non-members is $5.00. Everyone is invited to join the Historical Society for $25.00 per year, and may do so at the door March 17.
Questions about the meeting may be directed to Brammer at 502-633-6478 or jbrammer@heraldleader.com.
Come join our museum committee as we partner with the VFW post for our next exhibit about World War II. The VFW post will house military exhibits and feature military heroes. The “Denhardt” room at the museum will feature a homefront exhibit including a recreated 1940s kitchen and mutimedia stories and images about Shelby Countians and the war effort.This will be in place to serve as backdrop for this year’s history camp theme. Sharon Hackworth is our chairperson for this undertaking.
We need you in multiple ways. Do you have memories to share about what life was like here from 1941-1945? Contact James or Julie Mulcahy to record an oral history segment. Do you have photographs, clippings, items or mementos you can share for the exhibit? Contact Debby Magan or Charles Long for details about how to loan items for the exhibit. Do you want to help with the process of getting our plans to reality? Please join us at the next museum committee meeting March 24 at 6:30 p.m. at the museum
You don’t have to be a SCHS member to get involved— spread the word in our community. Can you help us involve our local merchants in supporting the WWII theme, or help with fundraising efforts? Then we need you. And, it’s very important, we need your financial support for this exhibit. On your check to SCHS specify that it is for the WWII exhibit, or for support of History Camp if you prefer.
See you March 24 at 6:30 p.m. at the museum. We need you!
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