Disarming America, Part III
Award-winning author Michael Bellesiles changes his story again.

By Melissa Seckora, NR editorial associate
January 29, 2002, 9:30 a.m.

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.