Dear Ruth, > Rather than transcribe the whole thing, since my typing is quite slow, I > went through and listed the date and all names given on that date. I > figure this gives sort of a timeline of when folks appeared and disappeared > in the neighborhood. I plan to give the book and a printout of the list to > the town school district as it really belongs to the town. I hope they > will care for it properly or give it to the historical society so they can. I can well appreciate your not wanting to transcribe the whole school records. From experience I know that it takes a patience of a saint. And onne with fast typing fingers at that! But what you've already done is invaluable regarding history and genealogy. Yes please share the list of dates and names with the local school district. But frankly, around here I sense that the the book and the printout of information would only be stored in a box somewhere and never see the light of day again. I may be wrong but I've never been made aware that the school districts are making any effort to record their history. I do know from personal knowledge that here in the Town of Porter, the historical society museum has received a number of old school records from a number of families that have had them in their posession for a number of generations. From personal observation, for the most part the school records were kept in the hands of the School District Clerk or the present school teacher and never archived in a separate official school or town "facility." > > Now I am on to transcribing the box of Civil War letters home that I found > in the attic. There are about 50 or so of them. Fortunately he had good > handwriting and it is easy to read. I hope you can find the time to trancscirbe those letters. Even though they may be "Vermont" letters, please post them to our list. BTW, when you do transcribe them, don't change the spelling or correct the grammar. Errors of that sort is what gives them a certain twang that you can almost hear over 140 years later. vee

Vee, I will give the #3 School District book back to the Town of Dummerston School District as I feel that it is really their property. I will also give them a copy of the list of names found in the book. I also plan to give a copy of the list to the historical society so people can look there for the info. The School District may well give the book to the Historical Soc. to keep in their collection. Interestingly enough the Civil War letters are NOT Vermont material. They were written by a Luther WHEELER and his parents and siblings apparently lived in Saratoga Springs, NY as that is where they are addressed to. It appears that he was related to the HOUGHTON family, or a close friend, as he mentions seeing "uncle" Don HOUGHTON. What I don't know is if "uncle" means related or close friend of the family. These letters were in my ggrandmother HOUGHTON's things in the attic. She died in 1935/6 and I'm sure nobody has looked at them since. If my grandmother had known they were there they would have been destroyed long ago. I remember my grandmother burning lots of letters that were in the attic as she believed they were private correspondence and should not be read by others. A lot of those were probably written home by my great grand uncle, George HOUGHTON, who was a photographer at the Civil War. I don't know what I am going to do with these letters when I get done transcribing them. As I do them I am putting them flat in sheet covers. They are in remarkable shape considering that they have been very tightly folded in small envelopes for 140 years and kept in a shoe box. Someone went through them at some point and numbered them, took the stamps off, and made notations on the envelops and some on the letters themselves. I had trouble finding sheet protectors large enough for the oversized paper that most of these seem to have been written on but finally found some that are working pretty well. Now I have to find an oversized binder for the sheets. I think I have found something in Light Impressions that will work. I am up to Letter #12 of 64 but there are a few missing. It is so exciting to read them and I am resisting the temptation to read them all first and just read one, transcribe it and go to the next. This man is quite well educated as his spelling and grammar are exceptional. The only thing I can't get is his punctuation, sometimes his full stop and comma look more like a dash but I just put what I think he meant. If I were writing a letter in a tent by candle or lantern after marching all day I don't think my letters would be anywhere near as readable. Ruth At 11:41 PM -0500 2/22/04, Vee L. Housman wrote: >Dear Ruth, > >I do know from personal knowledge that here in the Town of Porter, the >historical society museum has received a number of old school records from a >number of families that have had them in their posession for a number of >generations. From personal observation, for the most part the school >records were kept in the hands of the School District Clerk or the present >school teacher and never archived in a separate official school or town >"facility." >> >> Now I am on to transcribing the box of Civil War letters home that I found >> in the attic. There are about 50 or so of them. Fortunately he had good >> handwriting and it is easy to read. > >I hope you can find the time to trancscirbe those letters. Even though they >may be "Vermont" letters, please post them to our list. BTW, when you do >transcribe them, don't change the spelling or correct the grammar. Errors >of that sort is what gives them a certain twang that you can almost hear >over 140 years later. > >vee -- Ruth Barton [email protected] Dummerston, VT