Hidden History

I'm reminded of the Ray Stevens' song, It's Me Again Margaret, because once again the urge to blog has struck and the topic is the history right under our noses that escapes notice. Seems like the only thing I blog about.

Monday night I presented a program on the Civil War in Minden at the Dorcheat Historical Association's A Night for the Museum. As almost always happens when I present a program, history and historical information just seems to crawl out of the woodwork. Three different people came forward and spoke to me either about historical topics of which I was not aware or with artifacts of our past.

One man told me of being shown a huge collection of Civil War artifacts found by a man spading up his garden in Sibley. The fellow speaking to me was shown all the items over 40 years ago, and the man who owned them is long dead and I would imagine the articles were scattered. However, the quantity of artifacts described indicate that there was some sort of sizeable presence of Confederate forces in that area at some point during the war. I've never seen that documented before, so it adds a little to the knowledge of Confederate activity in our area.

A second man showed me and actually gave me a plain paper copy of a photograph of his grandfather and grandmother. The grandfather in question served as Sheriff of Webster Parish for 12 years during the early 20th Century and although I have written about him on several occasions, I had never before seen his picture. It was good to put a face to the name I knew so well. A few years ago, while Ted Riser was still Sheriff, we were trying to put together pictures of all the Webster Parish Sheriffs. I don't know if Gary Sexton continued the project but at least I now know where one image can be obtained.

The third man brought the original letters filed by his grandfather to apply for a Confederate Pension from the State of Louisiana. The grandfather was not from this part of the state, so it really wasn't local history, but this was the first time I had been shown the actual letters. I've used many of those files and seen the microfilm copies of pension files, but it was fun to see the "real thing."

These are examples of the reasons I am so glad we finally have a first-class museum in Minden, and, as I've said before, I still have faith that some of those artifacts stowed away in the attics of Minden might yet be revealed and eventually be on display at the Dorcheat Museum.