NEWS

Perry donates 'invaluable' historic papers to County Archives

Jimmy Settle
jsettle@theleafchronicle.com

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Retired Clarksville Fire Rescue Capt. Danny Perry could have had a 1969 Camaro just like the one he drove in his youth. That was once his dream, at least.

Instead, thanks to Perry and his wife, Sheena, the residents of Montgomery County have renewed access to an invaluable collection of pre-Civil War court and family documents, previously thought to be forever lost to the community after an 1878 fire claimed the courthouse.

On Tuesday morning, Perry officially turned the old suitcase full of mostly handwritten documents over to the County Archives Department in Veterans Plaza, led by an elated Jill Hastings-Johnson. County Mayor Jim Durrett also was on hand, and described Perry's donation as one of the more generous acts of selflessness he's ever witnessed.

"This is just a testament to who Danny Perry is," Durrett said. "He's restored more of our legacy. It's being provided to our county by an individual who cares more about his community than he cares about himself."

For Perry, it was just the right thing to do. "These papers are home now ... they're where they belong," he said.

"This is just an exciting day for us, and the whole community," Hastings-Johnson said. "These are court records, business records and family papers reflecting people from all walks of life in Montgomery County, particularly in the years just prior to the Civil War. So many people in Clarksville-Montgomery County today could probably look through these papers and find something reflecting their ancestry."

A September 1859 handbill for a chancery sale in pre-Civil War Clarksville is part of the collection that Danny Perry has given to the county.

Other items in the collection include a handbill for a Chancery Court land sale dated September 1859, conducted for the local McClure family.

"Because the courthouse burned in 1878 we haven't had a lot of court papers archived from the years prior to then. This collection is invaluable," Hastings-Johnson said, "and we are so grateful to Danny Perry for his unselfish generosity to the entire community."

Additionally, there is a collection of letters that passed between local iron industry leader George Lewis and wife Marguerite before and during the Civil War in northern Middle Tennessee. Iron production and tobacco farming were two of the region's economic staples during that era.

"After the fall of Fort Donelson, the (Union) knew of the Cumberland Iron Works in Stewart County ... and although Mr. Lewis was a civilian at the time — he was quite wealthy — they arrested him for manufacturing weapons for the Confederacy. He was held as a prisoner of war for several days," Perry said.

Some of the records donated to the county by Danny Perry

In all, the family and business records generally dated between the 1820s and 1860s have been professionally appraised at a current monetary value of about $100,000, while the Lewis letters are valued by historians today at around $25,000. Perry spent "several thousand" dollars of his own money to purchase the historic collection from a man in northern Alabama, but preferred not to specify Tuesday morning exactly how much it cost him.

Perry retired in January after 25 years of service to Clarksville Fire Rescue. It's not just the historic papers themselves that Perry sacrificed for the public good. In a way, it also cost him his dream of having the nostalgic Camaro.

Asked about that, he said, "There was a guy from Alabama who had actually inherited this collection of papers, and for years it was locked up in this old suitcase," Perry said, pointing to the suitcase, which was at the archives office Tuesday. "I had been saving up money for that '69 Camaro, but in the end I spent my car money on this collection.

"I just couldn't let it go unprotected. And we have more items still to donate at a later time. This is where it belongs, in the county's archives. It doesn't belong locked up somewhere in my house. It belongs to the people, and I'm just trying to give it back to the community that has given so much to me," he said.

Jimmy Settle, 245-0247

Business editor

jimmysettle@theleafchronicle.com

Twitter: @settle_leaf