Museum Newsletter - 31 March 2014

Friends of the Bullitt County History Museum
E-Newsletter
March 31, 2014 (Volume 10, Number 3)

Dear Friends,

Announcements...

>> Bullitt County Genealogical Society meeting April 19. Chris Leuken, Director of the West Point History Museum and a liaison with the Ancestral Trails society, will be the guest speaker. This fabulous young lady, and the other great folks at West Point, have been doing some great history work there. Come hear what she has to tell us. The meeting time is 11:00 a.m. Meeting place is the same, at Ridgway Memorial Library in Shepherdsville.

>> The Ancestral Trails Book Fair will be April 12, from 9-2:00 at its usual location. Always a very nice event, and we'll have a table there selling our books.

>> Mt. Washington Historical Society Meeting April 1. The Mt. Washington Historical Society will have its regular meeting this Tuesday, March 1, inside the annex building at 7:00 PM. President Greg Hilbert says that there are a few items on the agenda such as the spring festival and the upcoming election of officers on the fifteenth. Dale Salmon will be presenting an interactive History Shared.

Activity & News...

>> 2013 Volunteer Time Report. I don't think I have shown this data sheet to you yet. The image at left is the totals section of a daily volunteer-hours time sheet that I record all year long, for use in such things as grant applications, and to generally document one value of our ongoing work. This image shows the total and individual hours contributed to staffing the museum in 2013. The 4002 total hours are a few hours less than 2012, but about on pace for normal. That's a pretty darn good "normal," by the way. That many hours allows us to always have at least one person at the museum during all operating times.... and often two or more.

And that's just the official signed-in hours. Many of these listed volunteers contribute many, many hours every year outside of the museum, transcribing documents, recording cemetery information, speaking to groups, writing history stories, and staffing booths at festivals and book fairs.

Plus, we have many volunteers that might not show up on this staff list much or at all, but work for us in other ways such as off-site research, answering queries, or whatever else it takes to keep our operation running smoothly while helping our constituents.

We have such a good, devoted group! I have always been so proud of the work they do.

Some of our staff volunteers work a regular schedule at the museum. Some work when they can. All are highly valued. Thanks to every one!

Oh! Notice the "Started at the Museum" column at the right of the image. Those are the dates when each volunteer started with us. Notice those years and you are on your way to understanding the experienced professionalism of our staff.

Great work, friends!!

>> Web Site Additions. Our museum web master, Charles Hartley, has outdone himself this month, with a huge amount of great stuff added to the site. Be sure to click on these links to take a look.

>> Panoramic Photo Donated.

Jason Paul Lee donated a couple of photos to the museum this month. One was this large, framed panoramic photo of a bicentennial celebration that was held in Bullitt County in 1974. This shot was taken just outside the county courthouse, in which our museum now resides. The photo was taken with technology that seems pretty primitive by today's standards. I am told that the camera was on a mechanism that automatically rotated, capturing the wide-angle view of hundreds of people.

The photo is interesting for a couple of reasons. The main one is trying to identify everyone. We have created a numbered version of the photo and a list on which we (or visitors) can write in the names. Another interesting point is a trivia item. Because of the way the camera rotated, one person is pictured on both ends at the same time. He posed at one end, but as soon as the camera started, he ran behind everyone to the other end and quickly posed again. Sure enough, there he is again, both on the extreme right and on the extreme left.

The photo is on display at the museum. Thanks, Jason, for the great photo!

For Your Information...

>> Virginia Land Patents and Old Kentucky Land Patents available on-line and at Museum. Adam Shepherd came to Kentucky around 1781 as his father's representative to survey and claim land, including considerable land in what is now Bullitt County, and including the site of Shepherdsville, which is named for Adam Shepherd.

Between 1780 and 1804, surveys were made in the name of Peter Shepherd or his son. The link shown here leads to images of many of those original land patents. Given are the names of the individuals for whom the surveys were made, the county in which it was made, the watercourse identified on the survey, the number of acres of land within it, the numbers assigned to the surveys, and the names of the head surveyors.

The survey numbers refer to two series of surveys, the Virginia Patent Series (identified with the letters VA) and Old Kentucky Patent Series (identified with the letters OK). Images of the original documents may be seen on the Kentucky Secretary of State web site. They are also available for viewing on the computers at the Bullitt County History Museum on the "shared folders" section of our computers.

>> Researching the War of 1812? Here is a link to some video about researching War of 1812.

>> Some Kentucky Smartphone Apps. Traveling through Kentucky? If you have a smartphone, you might want to consider the "Kentucky B&B" app, that lists information about many Bed and Breakfast places in the state. "Kentucky 511" is an app designed by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, providing "right-now" traffic and traveler information, state road reports, ramp closures, traffic speeds, and even camera locations throughout the state.

That's it for this month, my friends.

Thank you for being a friend of the Bullitt County History Museum.

David Strange
Bullitt County History Museum
Executive Director
Museum Phone: 502-921-0161
E-Mail address: David.Strange@BullittCountyHistory.org