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 ast
fall when I
interviewed Emory University history professor Michael Bellesiles
about his award-winning book, Arming America: The Origins of
a National Gun Culture, he claimed more than once that he had
used an archive of San Francisco County probate inventories located
at the San Francisco superior court. When it was determined that
the probate inventories he cited in his book, in correspondence
with other historians, and on his website, could not be found at
the San Francisco superior court because they were destroyed in
the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, he changed his story. "Did
I say San Francisco Superior Court? I can't remember exactly. I'm
working off a dim memory. Now if I remember correctly, the Mormon
Church's Family Research Library has these records. You can try
the Sutro Library, too."
Suffice it
to say, the Mormon Church's Family Research Library does not have
the archive Bellesiles purports to have used, nor does the Sutro.
Bellesiles
has had other explanations, too. In September, he told The Chronicle
of Higher Education that he had located the records and that
he had sent for them himself. But in November, Bellesiles changed
his story, again, when he wrote in the Organization of American
Historians's newsletter that he completely forgot where he viewed
the San Francisco probate records.
Here's his
latest tale: Writing in an Emory University publication, Academic
Exchange, Professor Bellesiles says he's located the San Francisco
probate records in California. "I was not hallucinating when
I read the San Francisco probate files. They are housed in the California
History Center. (Complicating matters is that fact that the center,
where I read these files in 1993, moved last year [to Martinez],
and it does not have a website.)"
The "California
History Center" Bellesiles refers to is actually the Contra
Costa County Historical Society History Center, and it does have
a website.
As the Chicago Tribune reported earlier this month, Bellesiles
has e-mailed colleagues that the records he cited could be found
there. However, the center's director, Betty Maffei, says there
is "no evidence that such a cache of San Francisco County records
exits at the History Center. We are a Contra Costa County archive;
we hold Contra Costa County records, not San Francisco records."
More, the CCCHS
cannot confirm that Bellesiles was at the center in 1993, as he
has stated. "We do not remember him visiting our collection
before his recent visit." In fact, says Maffei, Bellesiles
said nothing of his past visit to the archive. "He did not
tell us that he had been in our archives before and now wished to
confirm aspects of his previous research. He did not say he was
the author of a book and needed some help confirming his previous
work."
The CCCHS has
obtained, and compared against their own records, 26 pages of photocopied
records Bellesiles faxed some journalists. (I did not receive Bellesiles's
fax.) The center believes that the 26 pages they reviewed contain
almost all of the evidence that he compiled to support the supposed
existence of 1850's San Francisco estates in their collection. (According
to invoices and logs at the center, Bellesiles made fewer than 30
copies of records.)
Here is what
the center's staff and team of volunteer researchers found:
1. Every identifiable
estate in the 26 pages was a Contra Costa County estate, not a San
Francisco County estate.
2. Every identifiable
decedent in the 26 pages was a Contra Costa County resident, not
a San Francisco County resident.
3. Every judge
who signed orders in the 26 pages was a Contra Costa County judge,
not a San Francisco County judge.
4. The only
clerk who signed an order in the 26 pages signed as "Clerk"
of the "Probate Court Contra Costa County."
5. Bellesiles
makes reference to 1872 tax-assessment records and includes a copy
of one in the 26 pages. Its heading is: "Assessment List, County
of Contra Costa, 1872-73." This is from a Contra Costa County
taxpayer and taxing authority, not from San Francisco.
Not bad for
a staff Bellesiles claims "appeared unaware that they had any
probate materials in their collection." Says Maffei, "We
were disappointed to read Michael Bellesiles's criticism of our
staff and History Center. In fact, all of our dedicated volunteer
staff know that the probates along with the civil and criminal case
files are the core of our collection. We have been directing researchers
to these records every week since 1984."
To view the
center's notes on the supposed San Francisco records in the Contra
Costa County Historical Society History Center, click
here.
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