An Island Called Boone County

Archival Quality Communication

AQC for Today, for Tomorrow, and for ever . . . .

I was working at one of the library tables the other day and had a GIS map of Boone County on the table. One of our pages, Joseph Pace, remarked as he passed, "That looks like an island!" and I had to agree. I was reminded of a book on one of my shelves at home entitled An Island Called California, which is about the ecology of that state. But is any place (even California) really a complete entity within itself? This started a train of thought . . .

Many writers on local history treat their county as if it were an island. The county line is a true boundary only to the surveyor, constable, and tax collectors: The rest of us cross it with impunity. Even islands are connected with the rest of the world, for the Ocean, like the Ohio which is our major boundary, is a connection with what lies on the other side. If the historian only looks at what has happened within the boundaries of his county-island he will never really understand what has happened there, for many of the most important things influencing that history happened far away. Wars, for example, have enormous influence on county history — death toll, patriotism, returning heroes, just think about it — but never does a county start a war, not nowadays anyway. (Ronald Reagan said that governments start wars, not people!) You can talk about what people did here during the "Great War" (now called World War I), but you will not truly understand even that unless you look elsewhere.

Focus on the local can create too much distortion in trying to appreciate the contribution of a single area. How can we look at local history in the broader context? The focus on a county, town, or geographical area is a valid way to see the past. The county is a governmental unit that attracts history to itself. People in a town or area are a community, and though they do not all pursue idential aims, they think of themselves as bound together at least by affection (or occasionally hatred) of their home-town. The local area can be compared to the "cells" in a body; they are a structure, but are part of an even larger structure. You can say a lot about a cell and not understand how it functions in its larger context. The larger structure is, in many ways, not like the "cell" at all.

In Kentucky the county is a definite focus of history. Each county is part of Kentucky, just as Kentucky (for good or ill) is part of the greater United States of America. Kentuckians were noted early for their allegiance to the Commonwealth, and particularly to their home county. The county was a primary focus or center for a core of feelings that are sometimes designated by various terms, such as, loyalty, patriotism, esprit, and "home". There may be mixed feelings, of course. Within a community there may be competition, jealousy, competition, disappointment; and these tensions may become so great that people kill one another, or families move; or (as often happens) individuals, and their relations, continue to live in a state of opposition for long periods. This too is a community focus, and it is certainly a subject for the historian. Often such negative feelings are projected only on the opposing person or family, and the home area continues to inspire only feelings of love and reverence.

It is possible to study some aspects of county history apart from the history of the community as a whole. For example, business and economic relations are embedded within the functioning of the community's social relations. These people buy at this store because they are of a like political party, or these patronize this mill because people at that church don't like people like us. We can study these relations statistically, like the figures from the Bureau of the Census, that give average income, and the number of bushels of wheat ground per year, and so forth. But this is abstract. Everyone in the community knows that Mr. X had to shut down his mill because of incident Y, and "nobody" cared to trade there anymore. Economic theory will only reveal that there was a monetary contraction about that time, and by a certain date there were only two grocery stores in town instead of the four that had been there at the beginning of the recession. It should also be obvious that economic matters cannot be understood in the context of the insular county.

The historian should be aware of what is happening elsewhere to help him (or her) understand the ways in which this county is unique, and in which it is typical. In Boone County (Kentucky) history I find that one of our historians, Paul Tanner, who worked in the Revenue Office in Frankfort for many years, did a lot of statistical work on slavery in Boone County. He wrote the best work to date on the subject. He does not content himself with figures for Boone County. He makes many comparisons between Kentucky counties; but even more importantly, he compares these figures to counties in other states. Boone County, he finds, had a higher population of mulattoes than any other county in the entire South. What is the significance of this? You cannot begin to interpret this fact until you create the fact. Once this is known you can start to think about it, and perhaps find an answer. You will never find an answer, however much internal research you may do, so long as you treat the county like an island.

This is an Archival Quality Communication

James Duvall, M. A.
Big Bone, Kentucky