Greenwood Cemetery Internship Part Deux: Week 7

This appears to be a somewhat restful week. I don't have any major tasks on the schedule, mostly just wrapping up some research and housekeeping-type things. So this post should be rather short.

My undergraduate intern is working on two interesting topics right now. He's just finishing up his essay on Francis Eppes, the grandson of President Thomas Jefferson who is buried in the Eppes-Shine plot at Greenwood. Eppes is one of those figures who has been much exalted in previous histories of Orlando because of his connections to Jefferson, but who recently has come under fire for his connections to slavery and the Confederacy. This essay has been a bit of a challenge for my intern, but I think he's done very well at walking the delicate line that public historians encounter when confronted with difficult topics. His next topic, however, will be fun (if not for him, then at least for me). He will be working on William Reynolds, a Union Lieutenant and escapee from Libby Prison.

My 3rd Great-grandfather, Cpt. J. C. Buchanan, seen here in an image taken after his service in the Civil War. He was shot in the right arm at the Battle of Antietam. He was a member of the Michigan G.A.R. much like Lt. William Reynolds.

This essay will be fun for a number of reasons; the first is that the Libby Prison escape story is a fantastic one that will be useful to educate the public about the Civil War and its connections to Orlando, but also that Lt. Reynolds had an interesting life in his own right and was connected to the area of Michigan where my own family was from. My quick look into Reynolds, when I selected him for my intern to research, tells me that I might find a link between him and my Grand Army of the Republic ancestor, my third great-grandfather, Captain John Claudius Buchanan. They may not have known each other personally, but they probably attended an encampment together while he was in Michigan before moving to Orlando. These sorts of connections are great because it just goes to show how small the world really is and how connected we are to each other.

I'm still working on finalizing my research on Mayor Jewell at the moment. His Civil War records don't align with the stories he told later on in life, so I want to be sure that I have everything as well documented as I can. I'm also waiting to access the Mayor's court dockets at the history center to see the sources on one of the components of his story. Hopefully, I'll be able to see those next week since they're located in the offsite storage facility. Otherwise, the only big thing that I'm working on right now is the poster that I'll be presenting at the Florida Historical Society annual meeting and symposium. Unfortunately, I don't have anything to share here from that just yet. I will say that I'm hoping to be able to make this poster interactive and serve to collect more data on what the public wants to see on the tour.