While organizing items from the Bisbee Unified School District collection, I came across a puzzling three-page record.
The writing in an elegant fountain pen references 1885, but the condition of the document hints at a more recent creation. Notice the second-to-last line on the first page, “copied from Judge Peel’s Books,” and “warrants” on page three. Why were a judge and warrants referenced on school district records? Why are the amounts so large for the time? $100 in 1885 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $3,300 today. With few records surviving from so long ago, my curiosity piqued.
Executive Director Annie Larkin and I took to the research library within the museum. Our first stop was to Bisbee directories from the period. We searched for the names referenced on the document, including McComas, which Annie recognized. Annie conjectured that this McComas was related to the McComas family, a husband and wife famously murdered in 1883 by Chiricahua Apache. The Apache potentially adopted their young son, Charley.
Unable to find concrete information on any of the names listed on the record in the research library, I turned to Chronicling America, a Library of Congress database of newspapers dating back to the 1700s. Searching for names on the record revealed some interesting insights. The McComas referenced in the record refers to William McComas, a teacher in Bisbee and the “only surviving member of the family of the late Judge McComas who was murdered” (“The Daily Tombstone,” 1886). Mrs. H.G. Howe, the person who copied the records, ran a school in the late 1800s and is most likely the “Howe” who signed the record (“The Daily Tombstone Epitaph,” 1886). Judge Peel was also the county superintendent of schools at the time (“The Daily Tombstone,” 1886). Daisy Robinson, listed at the top of page three, was a teacher (“The Daily Tombstone Epitaph,” 1886). She passed her teaching certification in 1886.
My conclusion is that this record details school finances from 1885. Mrs. H.G. Howe copied the record from Superintendent Judge Peel’s books, potentially in the early 20th century. The people and businesses listed on the record were paid by the school district, overseen by Judge Peel. Warrants refer to payments, not in the same criminal-related context we know of the world today. We learned that teachers in Bisbee were paid the equivalent of approximately $3,300 at a time, perhaps per month, in 1885. Notice the pay differences for teachers; Daisy Robinson was paid $90 while William McComas was paid $100. Most interestingly, we learned William McComas lived in Bisbee, potentially at the same time his family was killed and his little brother was taken in by the Apache.
This single record found in the archives provides us with an abundance of intriguing history. The Bisbee Mining & Historical Museum houses thousands of similar records, each filled with fascinating clues about the past.
References
Daily Tombstone Epitaph. (1886a, January 30). Daily Tombstone Epitaph, 3. Accessed from Chronicling America https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/
Daily Tombstone Epitaph. (1886b, March 8). Daily Tombstone Epitaph, 3. Accessed from Chronicling America https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/
The Daily Tombstone. (1886a, January 29). The Daily Tombstone, 3. Accessed from Chronicling America https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/
The Daily Tombstone. (1886b, May 19). The Daily Tombstone, 3. Accessed from Chronicling America https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/