Rounding Out the 2024 Road Trips

In her latest CCRP Records Room Road Trips blog my fellow traveling consulting archivist colleague and friend, Tracy Harter appeared to suggest that I had concluded my 2024 travel log entries for our award winning blog series. Not so fast (or au contraire) my friend! The fact of the matter is that I am always at least one blog post (and sometimes two) behind my timely and responsible colleague Tracy Harter. In other words, this will be my final Records Room Road Trips entry for the 2024 travel season.

To begin my Records Room Road Trips (RRRT) season finale, I head back to my central southwestern Virginia hub of Salem to visit the last of the remaining circuit court clerks’ offices in time to coincide with the announcement of the 2025 Circuit Court Records Preservation Program (CCRP) grant cycle. My first stop (which was my second visit there this season) was to the office of Montgomery County Circuit Court Clerk Tiffany Couch in Christiansburg. As was noted on my last visit in July (and my previous RRRT blog post), the clerk expressed an interest in conserving the twenty 1904 voter registers that had been identified in the collection. Since that trip, three more voter registers from that era had been identified at the Library of Virginia, and as a result, the transfer of those volumes back to the clerk’s office was the main incentive for my return. We try to perform these long-distance records transfers on the first or last day of trips that involve overnight stays. The reason for this established protocol is that Greg Crawford, the state archivist, does not permit Library of Virginia archivists to store the records overnight in either the state vehicle (in this case, the Local Records van) or a hotel room. As a result, when records are being transferred from the Library of Virginia to a circuit court clerk’s office, that clerk’s office will always be our first stop. And, if there are records in a clerk’s office that are being transferred to the Library of Virginia, that will occur on the final day of the trip, even if it means going out of our way to double-back to retrieve the records. In any event, after the transfer paperwork was completed, I filled out the remainder of the day examining items as potential candidates for CCRP conservation grants.

As far as viable candidates for conservation, the Montgomery County circuit court clerk’s office has no shortage with plenty of tape stripped, cellulose acetate laminated, and plain old rundown land tax books, among others in the collection. Before I left, I wrote up condition reports for five items.

The second day of my western swing out of Salem was to visit Craig County Circuit Court Clerk Sharon Oliver in New Castle. Of the distant courthouses that I travel to, Craig County is one that I have been fortunate enough to visit frequently over the course of the last nine years. It’s cool to be able to work in a job like this if you love history because aside from the historical significance of the records that we work with, we have the opportunity to visit old and historic courthouses like the Craig County Courthouse, which is remarkable for a number of reasons. The county was established in 1851 and the courthouse, the current one that is still in use, was constructed two years later, in 1853. In June of 1864 (during the Civil War), Union troops under the command of David Hunter tried to set the courthouse on fire. During the raid, many of the court records were dragged into the courtyard and destroyed. On my first visit there in June 2016, I was given a tour of the old building by Deputy Clerk Kathy Martin, where she showed me a banister in a courtroom that had been hacked with a saber by Union troops. (A flyer at the courthouse says it was a hatchet on a newel post, so take your pick.) Additionally, she showed me the original circuit court clerk’s office safe and vaults, which are now located in the Craig County Commissioner of Revenue’s office, just down the hall from the clerk’s office. Before I went to the circuit court clerk’s office on this visit, I stopped in at the Commissioner of Revenue’s office to take these photographs. (I’m a sucker for old safes and courthouse vaults.)

Over the course of the past few years, the clerk has had an ongoing project to conserve some recently re-discovered property and land tax books, and on this visit, I continued with that project. However, things had been rearranged some in the archival storage area, making access to the large and unwieldy volumes much easier. On my previous visits, the volumes were unceremoniously crammed into a difficult-to-get-at cabinet and there was little to no room to spread out and get a handle on the volumes that were randomly stacked inside. Since then, large shelving units had been added to the storage area, making the property and land tax books easier to get at and offering space (on the new shelving) to try to organize the books. The volumes were still disorganized, however with the new setup it was much easier to get a handle on things and in the end, I wrote up condition reports for seven property and land tax books.

On the third day of my travels out of Salem, I went to the office of Floyd County Circuit Court Clerk Rhonda Vaughn in beautiful downtown Floyd. On previous visits, the clerk had been content with the continued conservation of marriage records, however, for storage reasons more than anything else, she wanted to go in a different direction on this visit. Loose records, such as marriage records (which usually number around 250 documents per bundle), are more likely given the “full treatment” at the conservation lab.

The full treatment is applicable for many volumes but can be particularly appropriate for loose records. The full treatment generally consists of mending and tape removal (as/if necessary), before the pages/documents are deacidified, encapsulated in archival polyester sleeves, and then bound in a new post binder. This is good for volumes that already have the pages detached (and post bound), such as with tape stripped and cellulose acetate laminated volumes. It is also a good fit for volumes where the pages have become extremely brittle or in instances where the pages have a lot of tape repairs, making it the most cost-effective form of conservation. But it is particularly good for loose records because, first, the pages/documents are already loose and unbound, and secondly, the sleeved documents in a post binder gives the documents an organized and easily manageable way of storing the formerly loose records. Usually, the documents are sorted in a chronological (and then alphabetical) order, thus permitting the addition of tabbed dividers for each year.

On this visit, the suggested candidates had a surprisingly martial theme to them, with the following loose records candidates: 59 Civil War Pension Applications, 1901-1909; 37 Ironclad Oaths of Office under Military Appointment, 1869; 26 Lists of Names of Persons Who Have Entered Military Service from Floyd County, Va., 1917-1919; and 68 Lists of Civil War Pension Rolls, 1900-1908. A few volumes were also examined as potential candidates, including the 200-page Muster Roll in the Wars with Germany. All totaled, condition reports were created for eight items on this visit.

A week or so after returning from Salem I went on a day trip from Richmond to the office of Charlotte County Circuit Court Clerk Annette Clowdis in Charlotte Court House. The purpose of this trip was unusual, but not uncommon. From various visits over the past few years, items in need of conservation had been identified and condition reports created so that there were enough good candidates in the queue for the upcoming grant cycle. However, as the grant deadline approached, I was contacted by the clerk because she had identified other items in need of conservation that were not included in the list which she wanted to prioritize, and as a result, I made the trip.

We encourage the clerks and their staffs to let Tracy and I know when items in need of conservation have been identified, and it is not unusual for them to create a list of such items to share with us when we arrive. This is especially common for the regularly used volumes in the records room, such as deed books, and in this instance, those were exactly the type of items they had identified. The beauty of this system is twofold: First, no one should know the regularly used volumes most in need of conservation better than the staff, and secondly, it saves Tracy and me time identifying items in need of conservation after we arrive. The volumes identified were all sewn-bound deed books with detached pages, all of which were good candidates for rebinding. So, on this occasion, I spent my entire visit going through the volumes in the records room. In the end, I wrote up condition reports for seven deed books (to be rebound), and five land and one property tax books (to all get the “full treatment” described above).

Two weeks later, I was on the road again, for a one-night visit to the office of Accomack County Circuit Court Clerk Talia Taylor in Accomac. The purpose of this visit was simple as there were not enough items in the queue for the upcoming grant cycle. However, finding items that are good candidates for conservation is not a problem at the Accomack County circuit court clerk’s office as it is one of the localities that is burdened with records that were cellulose acetate laminated.

I am sorry to say that included in the bunch is the locality’s oldest record book, Accomack County Deeds & Wills, 1663-1666, which was laminated in 1940 and exhibits many of the unfortunate characteristics of documents laminated in that era: the pages are browning; the laminate is hardening, shriveling, and breaking; there is some slight bleed-through (where the ink from the other side of the page is visible); and then there is the ever-prevalent vinegar odor (or vinegar syndrome) that is often found in acetate film degradation. This important volume is stored in the office safe (another safe!) and has been submitted for conservation in the upcoming grant cycle. In all, I wound up examining and writing up condition reports for eighteen items, all of which were deed books and all of which were cellulose acetate laminated.

Prior to my outing to the Eastern Shore, I had performed something of a reconnaissance mission to the City of Williamsburg/James City County circuit court clerk’s office to examine some loose records, circa 1855-1912, that the clerk and her staff had identified for possible transfer to the Library of Virginia. As I have mentioned in the past, visits to the office of City of Williamsburg/James City County Circuit Court Clerk Elizabeth O’Connor are easy for me because I live in Williamsburg. Also easy for me was the fact, when they were flat-filing and labeling, the staff had gone through the various records and tagged all the records that were pre-1913 (a cutoff date for records deemed to be of extra historical significance). On this trip, I simply eyeballed and confirmed that the records were eligible for transfer and then I returned in December, after my visit to Accomack County, to box them up and bring them back to the Library.

So, no surprising twists or ending to my season finale, what we might term as the 2024 Records Room Road Trip roundup, roundup! Before you know it, we will be on the road again!