Antebellum Jefferson, Texas: Everyday Life in an East Texas Town

Appendix: Sources

575 APPROACH The present study is an outgrowth of A History of Navigation on Cypress Bayou and the Lakes. The navigation history covered all of the ports and landings west of Shreveport and all navigation activities from 1800 to the present. Jefferson, as the major port on the route, served as a unifying element for the narrative. However, a large amount of information on Jefferson that had been obtained from regional newspapers could not be incorporated in the text. In addition, as the navigation history was being prepared for production, W. W. Withenbury’s Red River reminiscences were obtained from the Cincinnati Commercial, which provided clues with respect to the first steamboats on Caddo Lake and a firm date for the arrival of the first steamboat at Jefferson. In the interim, a considerable amount of time has been spent collecting materials for a history of navigation on the Upper Red River and as a base for the publication of Withenbury’s reminiscences, which deal primarily with trips to the Upper Red River. These efforts have provided a greater understanding of Jefferson’s role in regional trade. The present study was originally intended as a narrative history that would cover the period of Jefferson’s commercial primacy, from 1845 to 1874. The intention was abandoned with the discovery of the extraordinary resources available for local histories in the federal censuses ; city records; and county tax rolls, deed records, probate records, district court minutes, and commissioners court minutes. The volume aPPenDix: sources 576 Antebellum Jefferson, Texas of materials and the detailed analysis needed to make them useful required that the present text end with the advent of the Civil War and that a topical rather than a narrative approach be used for the presentation of the materials. A topical approach lacks the drama of narrative , but provides a different sort of intensity as one encounters many of the same people in different roles in different chapters. The present study is based primarily on public records and regional and Jefferson newspapers that were purchased on microfilm from state and commercial sources and reviewed on a reader at home. The only absolutely essential source that was not available on microfilm is the city records, which are housed in the City Hall. The author of the present study is not a Jefferson resident or an academician and works fulltime in applied research on matters unrelated to history. Microfilm is ideally suited to night and weekend work and historical investigations at a geographic distance. Because these are public records, there are similar records for towns other than Jefferson; and, with the availability of microfilm, an opportunity for similar investigations by persons similarly situated. The navigation history was heavily dependent on federal manuscripts housed at Louisiana State University, the present study on public records available on microfilm, and documentation for Withenbury ’s reminiscences on Internet sources. The future of historic research will obviously be heavily dependent on the Internet, signaled in Texas by the conversion of the Handbook of Texas to an electronic format. The conversion of paper, microfilm, and map sources (including many of those used in the present study) to an electronic format is proceeding at a rapid pace. Eventually, most important sources will be instantaneously available everywhere and, with the power of search engines, the ability to readily identify items of interest will be given to anyone interested in the information. The Internet was not used in the present study, with the exception of the Handbook of Texas Online and the acquisition of important information on Berry Durham. The present study is based almost entirely on primary sources, which are mentioned in the text rather than in footnotes. All of the newspaper articles on Jefferson from Jefferson and regional newspa- 577 Appendix: Sources pers for the period 1842–1875 have been typed into an electronic format and are on file with the Historic Jefferson Foundation, along with paper copies of all advertisements. Only one chapter (Religion) relies heavily on secondary sources. Secondary sources were used primarily to confirm or clarify impressions (such as the near absence of participatory sports in the antebellum South) gathered from the reading of thousands of regional newspapers. The major sources and how they were used are discussed in the following sections. The discussion of secondary sources is not intended as a review of the literature on each topic, but rather limited to works that were found helpful...