Highland County Historical Society celebrates 50th anniversary, Part XXXVII
By Pamela Nickell
H.C. Historical Society
At the Log Cabin Cookout (kudos to Lana Daniels and crew for another very fine event) Saturday night, Jeanne Wilkerson, HCHS member and former long-term and hardworking HCHS Board member, told me she was enjoying these articles and that they read like I am having fun doing them. It was so good to hear that comment because she got it exactly right. They are just plain
fun to do.
The articles themselves, however, just scratch the surface of each object, its history and the donor(s) leaving much information to be researched by any reader interested in more details.
Here you see a picture of a Victorian Gentleman’s Chair. It is a rose carved walnut rocker with low arms and ivory and blue modern covering.
It is located in the front left parlor of the Highland House angled toward the center of the room by the fireplace. It is quite more elegant than Archie’s chair on “All in the Family,” where a television replaces the fireplace as a focal point, but the concept is the same. Typically in a Victorian home, a matching – but smaller – Lady’s chair would set alongside it or perhaps on the other side of the fireplace.
The chair came to the Highland House by way of Dr. Tracey Brown, a descendant of Governor Allen Trimble, who had inherited it from Josephine Rockhold Kibler (1845-1929). The story goes – from historian Jean Wallis – that when Dr. Brown moved from Hillsboro to Portsmouth, the chair was left at the Highland House. By the time the HCHS acquired the Highland House in 1966, Dr. Brown had passed away and the chair was among many items remaining in the building thereby becoming possessions of the Society. The chair is listed as the 55th item accessioned by the newly formed Highland House Museum.
This beautiful chair has a bit of additional significance now, as it was the very first item in the museum entered into the PastPerfect cataloging program recently donated by Society founding member Bob Hodson.
John Glaze, computer guru (for lack of a better title at this point), and Vicki Knauff, director, are overseeing the entry of the Highland House collections into this system. It is a gargantuan task due to the great number of museum holdings. Occasional helpers assist from time to time. Each and every item, down to every pick in the dental cabinet and picture in the library, will be photographed, described, numbered and entered into the permanent catalog.
The information comes, as it can be found, from hand written accession papers, books and notes done in styles varying with changing boards and directors over the past 50 years, some diligently entered but some not so much. Now it will be uniform and consistent through all changes of the gatekeepers.
As the computerized information mounts, it will be readily accessible whenever a member or visitor comes in with a query but perhaps only a name, description, year or other scrap of information.
This program is used in almost all major museums and we are very fortunate to have both it and the folks who can set it up! In fact, a recent public television broadcast about the Dayton Art Museum showed it in use. Nearby, both Greenfield and Wilmington Historical Societies use this system.
Preserve. Protect. Share. Let’s keep on.