Inventory of the Watts House Collections at the Scappoose Historical Society

I am not sure if I ever sent this out. This is the final inventory of the Watts House basement conducted by Tricia Oberndorf and myself on February 16, 2018. The process took almost four hours and it is amazing what was found on the shelves. Thank you for your support in the major project of inventorying what is within the collection of the Scappoose Historical Society. I certainly had no idea when we started in August of 2016 where this would lead us. The work on the open boxes in the basement took a little over a month. Then we became involved in the library books. The overall largest part of the project was reviewing every single item for information on the Watts family. The database that was created now contains 1159 individuals and 393 marriages.

While much of the work was accomplished at the house, Karen and Dorothy generously brought books to my home so I could work in a more comfortable setting. This resulted in many pages of notes, including 150 pages for the Congregational Church books collection of over 40 books. There were books taken to the Columbia County Museum Association for scanning as they are very fragile and one of a kind copies. They also scanned the entire picture collection. These scans are now preserved on their computers and in online files. They have been very supportive of our work and shared many items with us that we were able to copy and add to the Watts Collection. Their staff is completely volunteer and spent hours on these projects.  They have requested for some time an agreement between the Scappoose Historical Society and the CCMA in regards to these files.

The books and pictures have all been returned to the Watts house. I am excited that this collection has a safe filing cabinet for storage. Thank you for allowing me to complete this major project. Copies of all files created have been placed in the white notebooks on the shelves in the basement. Most of what is in the notebooks may not need the protection of the filing cabinet, but they greatly enhance any future research done within the collection. After over 400 hours of work I breathe a sigh of relief that this project draws to a close. 

I am available to work on genealogies for local families on a limited basis. A few of these have been done and are in notebooks identified for those families. The list of original settlers from J. G. Watts ledger book is a good place to start.

In doing work for those who have donated time or services to the Scappoose Historical Society these were purely for those individuals and given free of charge to those individuals. No work for financial gain has been done in the process for this work. Instead I have donated hours of my time not only on the project but as a member of the society and a board member for a year. My health limits what I can do, but I hope to contribute to the society as I am able. Thank you again for this wonderful opportunity to get to know the Scappoose Community and the many wonderful volunteers who contribute to preserving it's history.

Sincerely,

Susan LeBlanc, BGS family history, AG accredited genealogist, professional genealogist