Friday 16th October 2009 - A Quiet Day

          I've now dropped into my usual October sleeping pattern, which means I can hardly stay up beyond eleven, and can sleep till well after eight.  I'm staying in quite an elderly motel, so it's very noisy.  People seem to leave on-the-hour: so I waken briefly at five (sometimes), six, seven, and eight.  Then I think about getting up.  By the time I'm washed and scrubbed and breakfasted, it's usually after eleven.

          Today, I discovered another nest of grown-up ladies, called the Columbiana County Archives and Research Center.  It was reasonably well-stocked, with both archive material, and grown-up ladies.  I discovered almost nothing new from the archives, since they had nothing about post offices.  But the grown-up ladies are always capable of surprising me.  Today there was a long (and, I have to say, specific and knowledgable) discussion about the sexual predilections of certain early immigrants.  I think they were so used to their own company they just forgot I was there.  And by the time they'd got up a head of steam, I was afraid to remind them of my presence.  But it was all, of course, in the best possible taste.

          When I got to my next nest, at the courthouse, they had almost given up on me.  But they had brought in a mass of material: a couple of really thick books, together with maps and arrticles culled from the internet.  I must have laid on the 'liitle boy lost' a bit thick yesterday.

 

          All I got, for a day of reading, was another McBean soup.  I think I have to wait for Washington, to find the post office records, although it might be worth trying to find if there are any papers from the Governor of the time about postmaster appointments. 

          There was one curious bit of information.  I had already found out that John McB had got the patent for the appropriate 'quarter' in 1816,, and immediately sold half to William, but it now turns out that John then popped his cloggs in 1817, and William, as his administrator, had to sell the land to John's wife to raise cash to pay his (John's) debts.  So, although the wife appeared to be a joint owner in th edeeds, it didn't seem to quite work as common owners.

 

          Then,  because of budget cutbacks, the library closed, and I lost my internet connection.