Among the items discovered while sorting through old files in my home office is the “morgue” from The Bristol Enterprise, the weekly newspaper established by Richard W. Musgrove, a Civil War veteran, in the late nineteenth century. Through the early 1970s, before computers began playing a role in the business, newspapers maintained what essentially was a scrapbook of newspaper clippings to be used as a reference for future stories. Known as a “morgue” — partly because many of the clippings were of obituaries — the names of those involved, as well as the town or place of origin, were underlined in red for quick reference when going back through the archives.
I do not recall how I came to possess the morgue containing clippings from the 1940s, although I did try to save material that subsequent owners of the paper — Sherwin-Dodge Publishing and Salmon Press — felt no need to preserve. I was unable to get hold of the wealth of old photos that were destined for the trash, but I did save a few items of nostalgic importance, such as the weekly press log that recorded the size and number of papers printed. Such items were largely unimportant except for those such myself. As an apprentice printer during my high school years, I learned to operate the flatbed press, feeding the sheets, one at a time, through the grippers and around the cylinder.
Now engaged in sorting through the material VVV, I discovered that 1940s morgue and flipped through the pages until one obituary caught my eye: Fred H. Akerman. He died in July 1944 (no date was provided; it said he passed on “Sunday afternoon in the Mary Hitchcock Hospital, Hanover”) after having served 37 years as Bristol postmaster and staying on as assistant postmaster when George B. Cavis became postmaster.
He was affiliated with several local organizations — Order of the Eastern Star, the Masonic Temple, Minot-Sleeper Library, vice-president and trustee of the Bristol Bank, treasurer of the Methodist Church, and a member of the Kelley Park Commission. Most interesting, however, was learning that “[h]is great love for his native Alexandria and [Mount] Cardigan prompted him to become a member of the Appalachian Mountain Club, which purchased and developed his birthplace, under Cardigan, now known as Cardigan Ski Lodge.”
The article also noted, “For 12 years, covering two periods, he was foreman of the Enterprise Office, commencing work in the office as a youngster, in February, 1882. Prior to this he had cut mica in Groton.”
Conducting the funeral at the Methodist Church was Rev. A. Brownlow Thompson. Today, the church has been turned into the town’s community center, known as the Tapply-Thompson Community Center, named after its first recreation director, Richard “Wink” Tapply, and Rev. Thompson.
For those who are familiar with Bristol history, other names of those attending the funeral also will be familiar: “The honorary bearers were William G. White, Charles R. Follansbee, William H. Price, Hadley B. Worthen, Harry D. Rollins, Henry B. Bacon, Charles E. Rounds, and Karl G. Cavis.”
The obituary continues, “The active bearers were Gaylord G. Cummings, George W. Tucker, John O. Lovejoy, Charles G. Powden, Louis E. Allard, and L. Kenneth Tilton.”
As further evidence of Fred Akerman’s influence in the community, the article noted that “Places of business were closed during the service.”
Those newspaper morgues preserved “institutional knowledge” beyond any one person’s memory. Institutional knowledge used to be greatly valued, but it has become less and less important as time moves on. The rapidity with which things are changing quickly renders memories of what used to be valueless to those living today.
Is it really valueless, though? Isn’t there some value in knowing how and why things like the Cardigan Ski Lodge, now known as Cardigan Mountain Lodge, came about? Or how Wink Tapply and A.B. Thompson transformed society’s appreciation for community recreation?
On the latter point, there is a new book offered as a fundraiser for the Tapply-Thompson Community Center and the Slim Baker Foundation for Outdoor Living. See my review of Bus and Wink: Adventures of Youth; Stories Told Around the Campfire in this week’s The Laker. The book is available by going online to ttccrec.org, or by calling 603-744-2713.
