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Camp, Walter Mason, 1867-1925

 Person

Dates

  • Existence: 1867 - 1925

Biographical History

Walter Mason Camp (1867-1925) was a railroad engineer and writer, in the midwestern United States. Camp also performed research on the history of the Indian Wars of the Plains, in particular the Battle of the Little Big Horn of 1876.

Walter Camp was born on April 21, 1867 to Treat Bosworth Camp and Hannah A. Brown in Camptown, Pennsylvania. In 1883, he began his railroad service on the Lehigh Valley Railroad as a trackman, which would lead to his forty-two year railroad career. He entered Pennsylvania State College in the fall of 1887, and graduated as a civil engineer in 1891. In 1895 Camp resumed post graduate studies in electrical and steam engineering at the University of Wisconsin. In 1898 Walter married Emeline L. F. Sayles in Blue Island, Illinois. Walter Camp became the engineering editor of the "Railway and Engineering Review" in 1897 and served faithful and well as a railway editor for the following twenty-eight years.

Walter Camp's interest in documenting the Indian Wars began in 1903, after which his vacations for the following twenty summers were spent in research among the Indians and in talking with people who had survived the Battle of the Little Big Horn and other battles. He personally visited over forty battlefields and interviewed almost 200 survivors of western battles. Walter Camp died in 1925 in Kankakee, Illinois having published very little of his Indian wars research, but having collected an amount of original source material during his lifetime.

Citation:
Railway Review, Aug. 8, 1925: p. 197-198 (Walter Mason Camp; Walter M. Camp; b. 1867 Camptown, Pennsylvania; d. 1925 Kankakee, Illinois; parents: Treat Bosworth Camp and Hannah A. Brown; worked Lehi Valley railroad; student Penn State College; graduate University of Wisconsin; married Emeline L. F. Sayles, Railway and Engineering Review editor; research on Indians of the Plains during summers, Battle of the Little Big Horn)

Custer in '76, Kenneth Hammer, 1976 (Camp, Walter M.)

Manuscripts, Hammer, Kenneth and Dennis Rowley, 1975 (Custer's Man Camp--Oral Historian Without Peer)

Found in 2 Collections and/or Records:

Walter Mason Camp : born April 21, 1867--died August 3, 1925, 1925 August 8

 Digital Record
Identifier: MSS57_S1_F1_B1_F1
Dates: 1925 August 8

Walter Mason Camp writings, between 1910 and 1923

 Series
Identifier: MSS 57 Series 6
Scope and Contents

Contains drafts of the planned book, articles, and speeches written by Camp on the 7th Cavalry. These include materials from "Death of F. F. Gerard, a Custer Scout," "Some of the Indian Battles and Battlefield, Order of the Indian Wars Address," and "The Story of Custer and the Seventh Cavalry."

Dates: Other: between 1910 and 1923

Filtered By

  • Subject: Articles X

Additional filters:

Type
Archival Object 1
Digital Record 1
 
Subject
Drafts (Documents) 1
Little Bighorn, Battle of the, Mont., 1876 1
Obituaries 1
Speeches, addresses, etc., American 1