Pulling a thread . . .

Evelyn C. McDonald
Arts & Culture Reporter
October 20, 2016 11:00 a.m.

“Pull a thread from the archive and a story pops out,” Jayne Nasrallah said. Jayne is the Collections Manager at the Amelia Island Museum of History. She says that archives are stories. I might add that the thread you pull might not connect you to the story you had in mind.

Jayne said that people visit the archives for various reasons. Some visitors have recently bought property here and want to know its history. Some are interested in people for genealogy purposes or are doing research for a biography. Novelists come looking for information about the south end of the island during the 1880s.

I wanted to write about the archives. I had done a photo of the courthouse fountain for the museum’s summer show of architectural details in Fernandina. So it seemed logical to see what the archives had to say about the fountain. The museum’s archives are accessible on the website and I found several references to the fountain and to the courthouse. I told Jayne that I was doing a piece for the Observer and gave her the reference numbers of the items I’d found. When I visited, she had located the boxes that contained the items I’d mentioned.

There were 9 items concerning the fountain, including photos, construction drawings, and an item on the dedication of the fountain to Mrs. Aubrey Williams. All well and good but pretty mundane, right? Here’s what I meant by saying that the thread you pull may turn into another story. One of the items was a brochure published in 1992 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the courthouse. The brochure mentioned that the courthouse originally had a balcony and showed a photo of the front with the balcony. Then came the surprise – William Jennings Bryant had given a speech from that balcony. The brochure didn’t give a date for his speech. All you mystery fans can probably guess what happened next.

Jayne and I started looking for mention of the date that Bryant spoke here. He wintered in south Miami from 1913 until his death in 1925. He ran for president in 1896, 1900 and 1908, and seems to have been the first politician to campaign in a car. He was also active in support of Prohibition. Any of those items could have resulted in a speaking engagement in Fernandina Beach. So far I haven’t been able to establish a date for the speech here but maybe someone reading this might know something. If so, please comment.

The museum archive has 4007 photos, 1086 library books, 2405 archives, and 623 objects so plenty of stories. Maybe there’s a story there that would interest you. The archives are open Tuesdays and Thursdays and Jayne is always glad to help.