Howard County Historical Society 1

Over the past several weeks I have had the distinct pleasure to work at the Howard County Historical Society. This organization manages an archive and museum dedicated to preserving the history of Howard County. During my time working as an intern, I have worked in the society’s archives taking inventory and preparing collections for accessioning.

I have spent the majority of my time in the internship working on the society’s Commodore Joshua Barney Collection. I was given this collection on the first day and have been working to prepare it for accessioning since then. The collection was donated to the society by Bob and Wava Skaggs, the previous owners of the Howard County Joshua Barney House.

The Skaggs purchased the house in the early 70’s when the only thing denoting the house as historic was a small plaque. When the Skaggs finally found this plaque, several months after purchasing the house, Bob and Wava began to research the history of Joshua Barney. Contacting historical societies and content experts by mail, the Skaggs produced a large collection of primary and secondary research on Joshua Barney and his family. They continued to collect information from 1970 to 2003.

The collection that the Skaggs produced contains over 500 items spread across 4 boxes and 97 folders. One of the first jobs assigned to me was to take inventory of all of these items. It was incredibly engaging to be the first person at the society to go through all of these items. Included in the collection was a wide array of different items.

Generally, items fell into three broad categories. The first was primary sources relating to Joshua Barney. In their years of research, the Skaggs had accumulated copies of a multitude of journals, letters, maps, and works of art from Joshua Barney and his family. This included fascinating documents like the original ledger of plunder from Barney’s Flagship Bessie and Barney’s personal account of the catastrophic Battle of Bladensburg. The second category of items was secondary sources pertaining to the remembrance and restoration of events and locations related to Joshua Barney. The Skaggs had collected countless newspaper stories detailing the 150th anniversary of the War of 1812 and the excavation efforts of the Flotilla of the Patuxent in the mid-80’s. Finally, the third category of items in the collection was personal letters between the Skaggs and content experts on Joshua Barney. These letters highlighted the dedication that the Skaggs had for their research.

While going through this collection, I have learned many things, both about the period and about the field of public history as a whole. Perhaps one of the most educational experiences was my creation of a spreadsheet report that contained every item in the collection. During the sheet’s creation, I learned to use conditional formatting and formulas to speed up and automate some parts of data entry. Using these new skills, I was able to create a highly functional spreadsheet that allowed me to quickly sort and summarize the entire 500 item collection.