There are many records in the Archives. Anne took me down to level 2 to see some of them. The place is like a rabbit warren with shelves. One of the earliest records she showed me was originally written on sheepskin (the pulp paper industry was not in full swing in 1636 when this record was begun). One book contains a case of a man who was jailed because he broke the Sabbath. Today, in 2012, they would probably jail most of the nation for breaking the Sabbath. Imagine how many books that would fill? There is not an archive big enough to contain all the court cases that would generate.
There were boxes of Indian affairs records, particularly for the Penobscott Indians.
There were stacks and stacks of records everywhere I looked. Maine has been in existence for a very long time………….and a vast amount of recording has been done. We don’t know how many records have been kept through the ages, but if this is representative of just one corner of the world, imagine how many libraries and vaults could be filled if all events had been recorded?
Anne showed me records from the Civil War. One account book that I looked at detailed the amount and size of the uniform etc. for one soldier.
There were records ready to be archived.
One stack of books I looked at were thick law books. I asked her if these laws were still active and she said she thought they were still active. And I thought there were many laws we had to obey now – imagine if I looked at all the laws in these books – I might not want to get out of bed of a morning for fear I would be breaking one or more of them.
These 22 books are our output for this week. We hope that they all pass – last weeks passed and we are happy. Happiness is passed folders.
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