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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 8 Collections and/or Records:

Walter Mason Camp photograph collection

 Collection — Box 1: [Barcode: 31197233280335]
Identifier: MSS P 16
Scope and Contents Collection contains photographs of battlefields, groups of Native Americans, and portraits of notable individuals who were prominent in the Indian Wars including George A. Custer and other U.S. Army and Native American participants. Original prints (including albumen, cartes-de-visite, and cabinet cards), copy prints, postcards, halftones, engravings, and selected copy negatives prepared by the repository staff. The bulk of the collection was compiled by Walter Mason Camp and pertains almost...
Dates: 1862-1929

KBYU interview with Thomas R. Wells

 File — Folder 1: [Barcode: 31197225546586]
Identifier: MSS 3786
Scope and Contents KBYU broadcast report on L. Tom Perry Special Collections Photo Archives projects designed to make photographs, many of which from Church Archives, available on the Internet. Interviewee Tom Wells explains the process (i.e., preservation, description, access, and Internet folksonomy) used in preparing the digital collections. Report discusses some photographers in the collection, including: Walter Mason Camp, photographer of the Indian Wars of North America; Edith Irvine, photographer of San...
Dates: 2006

L. A. Huffman photograph of Godfrey and Walter Mason Camp in Rocky Ridge, 1916

 Item — Box 1: [Barcode: 31197233280335], Folder: 15
Identifier: MSS P 16 Item 206

L. A. Huffman photograph of Godfrey and Walter Mason Camp on DeWolf's Lone Grave, 1916

 Item — Box 1: [Barcode: 31197233280335], Folder: 15
Identifier: MSS P 16 Item 205

L. A. Huffman photographs of Godfrey, Walter Mason Camp, and Bird Grinnel, 1916

 Item — Box 1: [Barcode: 31197233280335], Folder: 15
Identifier: MSS P 16 Item 204

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