The marble-topped washstand tells its story

In April 1875, Alpheus C. "A.C." Stevenson set out from northern Cape Girardeau County on a trip that would take him and his wagon party through Missouri to Kansas. Fortunately for us, he wrote about it, and one of his descendants decided to retrace it.

I never would have known about this trek and accompanying diary if it weren't for an out-of-state patron, Karon Jahn, who stopped in to the Archive Center in March, looking for anything we had on the Stevenson family. She wound up spending about 12 hours here that week, poring over maps and estate papers, piecing together a family history she'd known about only hazily.

Karon generously allowed the Cape Girardeau County Genealogical Society to keep copies of the documents, and they offer a fascinating glimpse into the county's history. Few documents are as exciting to historians as diaries, because, unlike most government documents, they might give you an idea of the "why." They certainly help fill in some gaps around the dry recounting of dates and place names that are so often the focus.

A.C.'s voice comes through in this diary. At first, it's all social events and catching up with friends and family. Then, he writes of hardships -- illness, weather, insects. Reading between the lines, it's obvious this journey was not comfortable. Hard seats, mud, bogs abound, but there are friendly people he stops to visit, and he duly records it all.

As of the 1870 census, the county's population was about 17,500, and by 1880, it was close to 21,000. Now, we're closer to 82,000. Cash money was scarce, paved roadways were few. The Little River Drainage District was still in the future, meaning swampland was considerably more prevalent. Traveling wasn't a jaunt, is my point, but A.C. did it, and wrote about it -- and his descendant drove the same route earlier this year. How great is that?

I promised a washstand story, and A.C.'s son Hugh "H.R." Stevenson, delivered. He was 90 years old in about 1975 when he hand-wrote a story about this delicate piece of furniture and how it had passed from hand to hand through his family line. Alpheus bought it in 1880, at a sale in New Wells. H.R. writes about A.C.'s turn as postmaster at Neely's Landing, then a stint in Shawneetown, and finally settling on a farm near New Wells.

Again, this narrative gives us precious insight into what it was actually like to live in Cape Girardeau County in the 1800s. I can pull an individual's estate papers, tell you how much one of his neighbors paid for his sheep or the furniture his family didn't want, but I can't tell you what their house looked like (necessarily) or what it felt like to sit in a room and hear their stories -- except for Karon's contribution.