Florida couple donates piece of past to local committee

Published 12:00 am Monday, October 27, 2003

BURLINGTON- A piece of Lawrence County history has come home, a gift from a Florida couple who knew they had something of value and decided to share it.

Pat and Donna Morrison, of Seminole, Fla., last week donated to the Old Historic Jail at Burlington Committee an old school district ledger that once belonged to the Burlington Special School District, the forerunner of the present-day South Point Schools.

The ledger had been in Pat Morrison's family for years. He said he wanted to see the old book in the hands of people he knew would cherish it.

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Pat Morrison can trace his roots to Lawrence County. His mother, the late Jo Ellen Campbell Morrison, hailed from the Burlington area. His father was from West Virginia. They moved with him to Florida when he was a small child. He never knew much about his family's roots.

About the time his mother died in August, the Morrisons discovered the old ledger among her belongings.

The old bound volume had the words "Burlington Special School District" inscribed elegantly at the top, reminiscent of the days when the pace of life was less hurried and handwriting was an art form. Page after page detailed the regular meetings of a school district that existed in middle Lawrence County in the 1800s and early 1900s. More than official jargon, the entries also gave glimpses of life in Lawrence County in the days when $1,500 could pay for a school building and crayons cost pennies.

"I had only seen it one other time. My grandmother died in 1986, and then my mom had it ( the ledger) and she just put it away."

Most of the entries in the book were made by W.A. Campbell, who was both board member and board clerk. Pat Morrison knows that W.A. Campbell was his forebear, but he is not sure how they are related.

Knowing this old ledger would mean something to the community it came from, the Morrisons searched the Internet for a local entity that would have a use for it. They found The Lawrence County Register, a Web-site operated by Chesapeake librarian and local historian Martha Kounse. They sent her an e-mail asking if she knew of a use for the old ledger.

"I was so excited," Kounse said of the e-mail from the Morrisons. "The first thing I did was I called Dave (Milem, member of the Old Historic Jail at Burlington Committee) and said 'you won't believe this!' I just can't put into words how I felt."

The folks in Lawrence County exchanged phone calls and e-mails with the folks in Florida, and the Morrisons promised to bring the book northward when they got the chance. That chance came last week.

"This has really tickled me," Milem said. "How many times have I seen things like this at a yard sale, and I thought to myself, 'boy the right person would just kill for this.' You know, they could have sold this on E-bay and gotten money for it."

Kounse said the old book will be microfilmed with copies kept at the Ironton branch of the Briggs-Lawrence Library and at the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus. The book will be kept in a safe until the old jail is renovated and turned into a museum. Then it will be part of the museum's collection of local history.

"I'm glad it's back here," Pat Morrison said.

"This is where it belongs," his wife, Donna Morrison agreed.

"You can't replace something like this. You can't put a price tag on it. So much of it gets lost, it's always wonderful to find a piece of it, and get it back," Kounse said. "This is our history, our heritage."