BERLIN
– Some old books from Berlin’s history have a new home, after the Berlin town
council voted to donate 13 dusty old ledgers of town records to the Calvin B.
Taylor House museum.
“Some of these are from 1901,
handwritten town minutes,” said Weisner.
“Because they’re town records, I don’t want to throw them away.”
The unusual find came to light when
staff began cleaning up the Planning Department offices.
“We used to have an old safe in our
building,” Weisner said. “They were inside the safe.”
The books contain Mayor and Town
Council meeting minutes, Planning Commission minutes, ordinanances, and voter
registration records.
The oldest book is from November 12, 1901, and the
youngest from March 12, 1990.
“Some of them are very old,
handwritten beautiful calligraphy, leather boundbooks,” said Weisner.
Mayor Tom Cardinale suggested having Ed Hammond, a town
resident with a keen interest in Berlin’s history, look at the ledgers.
“The Taylor House would like to have
them,” Weisner said.
“My guess is they’ll be better
maintained and better kept for posterity there,” said Council member Paula
Lynch.
“It just didn’t seem right to keep
them in this location,” Weisner said. “I think it’s more appropriate for them
to be accessible to the public.”
“This would be fun to just sit and read,” Cardinale said.
He added, “I’d like to spend my time reading that.”
“Come down to the museum,” said Mike
Beaman, a member of the Taylor House museum board.
“It’s closed,” Cardinale said.
We’ll open it up for you,” Beaman
said.
The museum opens Memorial Day
weekend, and remains open through the end of October, on Monday, Wednesday,
Friday, and Saturday.
Beaman also suggested the Mayor come
to more museum meetings.
Cardinale pleaded scheduling
conflicts and last minute notice.
The council voted unanimously to
donate the books to the Taylor House museum.
Sue Beaman, Mike Beaman’s wife, suggested
scanning the books into a computer.
Mike Beaman said that could be done.
“It’d be a good idea to scan ‘em in. It’d be a time consuming job.”
The museum has no immediate plans
about how to display the books.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said.