"How I Came To Write 'The Will'" -- Playwright Sandra Seaton finds inspiration at the Tennessee State Library and Archives

Sandra Seaton is a playwright and librettist. As the author of 10 plays, the libretto for a solo opera, a spoken word piece, and short fiction, Seaton’s work has been performed in cities throughout the country. She received the Mark Twain Award from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature in 2012, and has taught creative writing and African-American literature at Central Michigan University for 15 years as a professor of English.

In this entry on the TSLA Blog, Seaton recalls her visit to the Tennessee State Library and Archives where she found the wills of her great-great grandparents, Cyrus and Eliza, while researching her family history. This discovery later inspired her to write, “The Will,” a play which dramatizes the human consequences of the Civil War as experienced by an African-American family in a small town in Tennessee.

How I Came to Write “The Will”

By Sandra Seaton

   Since childhood, I had heard the story about an ancestor of mine named Israel who sassed a white man and had to be smuggled out of town disguised as a woman. According to the story, when the Ku Klux Klan came to the house looking for Israel, my great-great-grandmother Eliza refused to disclose his whereabouts. Just minutes before, she had hid Israel upstairs under a mattress. After his escape, no one saw or heard from him again.

   I had been told often that my great-great-grandmother, Eliza Webster, her parents Annie and Demps Cherry, and four others (all free blacks) had founded the first black Baptist Church Mt. Lebanon, in Tennessee in the 1840s. I also knew that Eliza and her husband Cyrus had 22 children together, seven of whom died in the smallpox epidemic. That was all I knew. With what resources I had, I had been doing some research (snooping in attics, basements, churches, and talking to people) since 1989. On my trips to Tennessee I went to churches, cemeteries, and courthouses. As a native of Tennessee and through family oral traditions, I knew that an African American free black community existed in middle Tennessee before the Civil War, one with ties to the free black community in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

   I was anxious to find out any information I could about Cyrus and Eliza, so I made a trip to the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville. Census records revealed that Cyrus had held farmland in Columbia before the Civil War. An 1850 record listed Cyrus, Eliza and a few of their children. Fascinated by the thought of African Americans of that era holding property in the South, and because of my desire to realize a full picture of the world of African Americans, I took a room at a hotel downtown and spent days at the Archives. I think I spent half the time trying to coax the microfilm readers or rewinding the rolls of film. I followed a number of leads but hadn’t turned up much.

   On my last day at the State Archives, a very hot summer afternoon about ten minutes before closing, I found the wills of my great-great grandfather and grandmother. As I read the two wills, I was awe-struck by their evocation of individuals and a way of life entirely different from the stereotypes about African Americans of their place and time. As I read, I was amazed by the beauty of the language and the care evident in each perfectly crafted sentence. My great-great-grandfather Cyrus’s will showed great planning and care. He was the nurturer, and his will revealed an appreciation for things like teapots, mirrors, and blankets. Throughout the will, he used terms of endearment for each family member, describing one relative as “a gentle, loving man.” My great-great-grandmother’s will, Eliza’s, on the other hand, concerned itself with the disposition of the land, down to the last foot.

   I was startled to notice that both wills mentioned Israel. Cyrus’s will left money and household items to Israel should he return. Eliza’s will contained a touching bequest to Israel pointing any reader of the will away from Israel’s actual destination. Archives are even quieter than libraries, but you know when I read those two wills, I couldn’t help it; I cried and cried. It was as if after all those years, there they were waiting quietly for me to find them.

Cyrus Webster's will, probated on Dec. 4, 1891, located within TSLA's Maury County Microfilm Records, Reel 184, Vol. G.
Tennessee State Library and Archives

Armed with copies of these wills, and at the encouragement of her grandmother, Emma, Sandra Seaton made a visit to Greenwood Cemetery, determined to find out more about Cyrus, Eliza and Israel. There, she made a startling discovery, inscribed in stone on the graves that marked her family members’ final resting place. She wrote:

   I desperately wanted to go to Greenwood. I knew there was no way my aunt was going to go with me, so I found a family friend, Mr. Herbert Johnson, and the two of us put on our old shoes and waded through the grass. Although Mr. Herbert, who was in ill health at that time, needed a cane to get around, nothing could stop this committed history buff from making the trip to Greenwood. We had looked at just about every tombstone we could find when we came to a group over in one corner that faced away from the rest. There they were, my family’s graves, just like Grandma Emma had said—Cyrus, Eliza, Eliza’s parents, Annie and Dempsey Cherry, seven little graves off in a corner, and next to Cyrus a very large monument with the name Anna Sanders at the top.

   The inscriptions were barely readable. I had heard of people doing grave rubbings so we went to a nearby drycleaner’s for some thin paper and to Kmart for crayons. Back then, grave markers could tell whole stories. After reading their wills at the archives, it was no surprise that the tombstones were finely scripted. We rubbed and rubbed, but were only mildly successful in making out dates for Cyrus and Eliza. For Anna, I was able to make out something that I didn’t understand, the words “cousin of Israel Grant.” Fresh out of paper, Mr. Herbert and I went to an auto shop next door. Maybe they had something we could use. I felt a little uneasy about announcing our purpose, poking around the white cemetery. A young white guy at the counter was casual about the whole thing. He had family over in Greenwood, couldn’t help out with paper, but was on his way home for lunch; he’d bring back a local historian’s book on the cemetery. Just look in the seat of my pick-up he told me.

   Sure enough, an hour later, the car window rolled down, the book lay there on the seat, waiting. The section on Cyrus and Eliza listed their inscription and the names of the graves of their seven young children and no more. There was no information on Anna Sanders. I called the local historical society. The woman on the phone told me to go to the grocery store, get some cornstarch or flour, throw it on the inscriptions, and dust it off. I threw cornstarch on Cyrus’s mother Anna’s grave and contemplated the words, “cousin of Israel Grant;” they just didn’t make any sense. My grandmother had always said we were related to Ulysses S. Grant. So was Anna the Grant connection? A light dusting revealed something I never expected to find: “Anna Sanders, 1790-1852, mother of Cyrus Webster and consort of Israel Grant.” Consort of Israel Grant! Cyrus had erected a monument over his mother’s grave, one of the largest in the cemetery. And he was proud of his ancestry, not only proud that a white man was his father, but that his mother was the common-law wife to this man, a relationship he cared enough about to inscribe on her tombstone. Here was Cyrus’s legacy, the example of a courageous man, courageous enough during slavery, 1852, to announce this relationship to a hostile world, and honest enough to show his love for his father by naming his first born son Israel.

From that day forward, fired with curiosity and ambition, Sandra Seaton set out to write a play that dramatized the people whose characters were expressed in these wills. She wrote “The Will” shortly thereafter—a play that reveals both the conflicts of Reconstruction and the range of African American culture.

Readers may learn more about “The Will” and other works by Sandra Seaton by visiting her website at: http://www.sandraseaton.com/. The Tennessee State Library and Archives is grateful to have had a part in helping Sandra discover her family’s history. We hope this blog post will inspire you to visit us and possibly help you write your own family’s story.

The State Library and Archives is a division of the Tennessee Department of State and Tre Hargett, Secretary of State.

Preservation Week reminds us of the importance of microfilm...

April 27 through May 3 marks this year's annual observance of Preservation Week, a week long opportunity to give libraries, archives and other institutions the chance to connect our communities through events, activities, and resources that highlight what we can do, individually and together, to preserve our personal and shared collections.

One important preservation activity of the Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA) is our microfilm processing program. TSLA has been producing and duplicating microfilm for over 60 years. Although much of what we film is from our own collections, we also often film county records as a part of a mutually beneficial special project to ensure preservation standards. In return, local public libraries receive copies of the microfilm, and we store copies for use by TSLA patrons, as well as maintaining the negatives in our climate-controlled vault.

Preserving Microfilm

Microfilm processing is a highly detailed, technical process. While there are workshops and seminars for microfilm training, microfilm technicians primarily learn their trade through an apprenticeship.

Keeping a set of duplicates at an off-site storage facility is one of the safest ways to ensure the survival of your records, especially in the case of theft, flood or fire. The six primary groups of records we film are:

• Local County Permanent Records
• County Loose Records Special Projects
• TSLA Manuscript Collections
• State Agency Record Groups
• Collections on loan for microfilming
• Newspapers

After each document organized, targeted and photographed, our microfilm technician preps the film and runs it through our microfilm processor. This process is tedious and delicate- the smallest mistake could ruin the exposure of a roll of film. TSLA is fortunate to have such highly skilled microfilm technicians.

Digital versus Film

Though there are a vast number of digital preservation mediums, microfilm is still considered the best long-term form of preservation for historic records. While digital files are useful and often more accessible to patrons, the files are subject to “bit rot” and eventual obsolescence. If kept in a proper environment, microfilm will last approximately 300 to 500 years, and even if all microfilm readers were destroyed, the information on the rolls could be accessed by simply holding the film up to a light with a magnifier. TSLA proudly maintains the stewardship of Tennessee’s treasures, and, through microfilming our collections, ensures the records will be available to our patrons for hundreds of years. TSLA has produced nearly 200,000 reels of microfilm negatives since its inception, and produces more each year.

After a roll of microfilm is processed, a quality control inspection is given, which includes a visual inspection that consists of a density and resolution check, as well as determining if there was a camera problem or operator error. In addition to methylene blue tests, this inspection ensures the film meets ANSI/AIIM standards.

Public Availability

Microfilming also allows us to sell (at cost) copies of our rolls to our patrons, which in turn allows patrons to study the film at their local archives or libraries. While not everything is available for sale due to various restrictions, many different types of records are available for purchase such as county records, newspapers, and manuscript collections. 35mm rolls are currently $25 a piece, while 16mm rolls are $20 a piece. You can browse our collections at http://www.tn.gov/tsla/Collections.htm and if you have any questions about purchasing microfilm please call 615-741-2997.

The negatives we produce are stored in our secure vault, which is kept at 55 degrees Fahrenheit and below 45 percent humidity to ensure the long-term survival of the film.

The State Library and Archives is a division of the Tennessee Department of State and Tre Hargett, Secretary of State.

The first rough draft of history

April 21-27 marks Preservation Week, and May 1st is "MayDay," an annual event observed each year to raise awareness of the importance of taking simple steps to protect historical records. So the timing is perfect to bring awareness to the public about the work of the Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA) Preservation Services Section.

The Preservation Services Section of the Tennessee State Library and Archives provides preservation and increased access for the collections housed at TSLA and other records across the state. These services include microfilming, digital imaging, document restoration and preservation, and photographic duplication. The extensive microfilming program preserves state records -- both traditional and digital -- as well as local county records, newspapers, and manuscript collections.

Newspapers, in particular, provide the public with a window into what life was like in communities throughout the State of Tennessee. They are an important part of the collections held at the Tennessee State Library and Archives, and it is the duty of the Preservation Services Section to microfilm newspapers from across the state, preserving this critical information for future generations.

One of the earliest newspapers on microfilm at TSLA,
The Knoxville Gazette, published on November 5, 1791.

Preservation Services has microfilmed newspapers for almost 60 years. As early as the 1930s and 1940s the State Library began collecting the early examples of Tennessee newspapers. With the help of the Tennessee Historical Society and others, Mrs. John Trotwood Moore -- State Librarian and Archivist from 1929 to 1949 -- established an active collecting policy to preserve these historic newspapers. One of the earliest newspapers collected from these efforts was an edition of the Knoxville Gazette published on November 5, 1791.

By the 1950s, TSLA began to look for ways to collect even more newspapers from our state's past and preserve them for posterity. On September 4, 1957, "Operation Newspapers" was launched, and continued through the late 1960s, acquiring newspapers from anyone willing to donate or loan newspapers published prior to 1920.
  
The project, considered ground breaking at the time, was promoted by then State Librarian Dr. Dan Robison and operated by Horace Blades and James E. Pike. It unearthed many interesting examples such as the Pioneer of Jackson, Tennessee for 1822, Mrs. Grundy of Tracy City, and Pearl’s Gazette and Lottery Exchange Register just to name a few of the unusual titles. Mr. Blades and Mr. Pike even went to Houma, Louisiana to film a large collection of the Winchester Home Journal.

Thanks to these early efforts, TSLA maintains the largest collection of historic (and new) Tennessee newspapers in the country, providing the public with a rich chronicle of the history and current events of the Volunteer State.

In 1957 the call went out for “old newspapers” and thousands of pages in every condition came into TSLA. Almost all were salvaged, stabilized and microfilmed. By 1966 the project proudly preserved over 6,000,000 pages, 1200 rolls of microfilm and over 1000 different Tennessee titles.

Today TSLA's Preservation Services Section continues microfilming of current newspapers for preservation and access, preserving 200 Tennessee community newspapers from across the state.

Additionally, the Preservation Services Section microfilms any old newspapers that are sent to us. Just recently two unique titles arrived for filming that previously did not exist in the film collection -- the Quid-Nunc of Grand Junction and the Mason Call of Mason, Tennessee. 
 
Microfilming is a process that demands attention to detail. Individual newspapers are meticulously checked, collated and flattened, to make them ready for microfilming. Microfilming then takes place, with the camera operator taking a picture of each page, and the film is processed, reviewed, and duplicated.

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Traditional 35mm microfilm camera dedicated to newspaper preservation microfilming.

Many public libraries hold their community papers until the film is ready, and then purchase this film from TSLA for use by their own present and future patrons. Were it not for the diligent efforts of public libraries throughout the state to save these papers from certain destruction, we would not have such a vast record of community activity and important events in our state's history.
 
Digitization is also an important part of how we preserve newspapers at TSLA. We are actively participating in several digitization projects, including a collaborative effort with the University of Tennessee and the Library of Congress. Maintained by the Library of Congress, the "Chronicling America" Digital Newspaper Project provides access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages. It is a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages. So far, more than 200 rolls of microfilm containing 98,765 pages of Tennessee newspapers have been posted to the Chronicling America website as a sample of the whole collection. To see more about Tennessee's historic newspapers see: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

The UT project also maintains a blog of interesting items found in the Tennessee papers at: http://wp.lib.utk.edu/tndp/news/

For more newspaper titles, visit TSLA’s website and its online catalog and search for newspapers by community name: http://www.tn.gov/tsla/history/newspapers/tn-paper.htm

The Preservation Services Section of TSLA never stops in its quest to preserve the newspapers of Tennessee's communities. Newspapers are, after all, the "first rough draft of history." They provide valuable information about our shared past, and are an important piece of the puzzle of preservation.

The State Library and Archives is a division of the Tennessee Department of State and Tre Hargett, Secretary of State.