Society wants county records

The Jay County Historical Society is expressing interest in several old books in the courthouse basement that contain information about early schoolhouses, medical epidemics, defunct businesses and other topics.

The Jay County Commission on Public Records met Monday to approve destruction of old records when Jane Spencer, a member of the commission and also a member of the board of directors for the historical society, mentioned the books in the basement.

"There are many books of historical value," she said.

Spencer and other members of the society have sorted through some of the books and separated out a few of interest. She mentioned some books including court records, school ledgers from old one-room schoolhouses, health records that contain information of epidemics that hit the county as far back as the 1800s and welfare records that could contain receipts from long-gone businesses that might not appear anywhere else in the county's historical digest.

The books would be indexed and could be available for genealogical or historical reference, she said.

"Some of these are very, very old," Spencer added. "We do get floods and we lost a lot to floods before."

Since the books would contain information well older than most state records destruction schedules, commission members made no objections to turning the materials over to the historical society. Members did note, however, that the release of the court records would have to be cleared by the county's judges.

Commission member and county commissioner Milo Miller Jr. asked Spencer to come to next week's commissioners meeting to run it by fellow commissioners Jim Zimmerman and Faron Parr before they surrender ownership of the books to the historical society.

"As far as I'm concerned, you can have them all," Miller said.

In other business, the commission members appointed Portland Clerk-Treasurer Randy Geesaman to serve as commission chairman.

The commission also approved destruction of records for Jay Schools, Jay County Auditor, Jay County Clerk, Jay County Assessor and City of Portland. All records approved for destruction meet time requirements as dictated by their individual schedules.[[In-content Ad]]