These past couple weeks I have been jumping around from helping at collections over at the Center in the Square location to helping with exhibits over at Link. While being at collections I’ve been accessioning items that have been donated and I’ve been able to see a few gems. For example, there where a bottle of whiskey donated that super fascinating because of the back story. On the very top of the bottle it has written on it, “made spring 1912, bottled spring 1918” In the donor’s letter they said that the man who bought this whiskey bought it the night before the Prohibition law was in place and he never opened the bottle.
Another day while accessioning in collections I found a donation that had “postcards” in it, but Ashley decided that these were not postcards, but they are instead just hand tinted pictures. The one I found is a picture of the incline that used to be at Mill Mountain. My mom told me when I was younger that there used to be an incline machine that would take you all the way to the top of the mountain, I used to think it was the coolest thing ever but could never picture what it would have looked like.
While working at Link one morning, I was told to inventory the items that were in exhibits, so I had to look for accession numbers on every little thing. In the one exhibit that is suppose to be about areas around Roanoke from 1840 to 1858. I came across a letter that was from a man named E.L. Stuart dated January 2nd, 1854. In the letter Staurt talks about how he is willing to sell this man his slaves for $150 because another man had not responded back about the offer he gave him.
I’m excited to see what else I can find in the museum!