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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 96 Collections and/or Records:

Walter Mason Camp interview with Jesse M. Lee

 Digital Record
Identifier: MSS57_S3_SS1_I17_B2a_F19
Dates: 1912 October 27

Walter Mason Camp interview with John B. McGuire

 Digital Record
Identifier: MSS57_S3_SS1_I22_B2a_F19
Dates: between 1903 and 1923

Walter Mason Camp interview with John H. Seger

 Digital Record
Identifier: MSS57_S3_SS1_I29_B2a_F20
Dates: 1916 October 21

Walter Mason Camp interview with John Siversten

 Digital Record
Identifier: MSS57_S3_SS1_I30_B2a_F20
Dates: between 1903 and 1923

Walter Mason Camp interview with John Wade

 Digital Record
Identifier: MSS57_S3_SS1_I33_B2a_F20
Dates: 1915 February 5

Walter Mason Camp interview with Joseph Culbertson

 Digital Record
Identifier: MSS57_S3_SS1_I8_B2a_F18
Dates: between 1914 and 1923

Walter Mason Camp interview with Latrobe Bromwell

 Digital Record
Identifier: MSS57_S3_SS1_I6_B2a_F17
Dates: between 1903 and 1923

Walter Mason Camp interview with No Feather (Weptas Nut)

 Digital Record
Identifier: MSS57_S3_SS1_I23_B2a_F19
Dates: 1915 February 15

Walter Mason Camp interview with Patrick Corcoran

 Digital Record
Identifier: MSS57_S3_SS1_I7_B2a_F18
Dates: between 1903 and 1920

Walter Mason Camp interview with Richard Hanley

 Digital Record
Identifier: MSS57_S3_SS1_I14_B2a_F18
Dates: 1910 October 4

Additional filters:

Type
Digital Record 76
Archival Object 13
Collection 7
 
Subject
Indians of North America -- Wars -- 1866-1895 85
Interviews 42
Letters 41
Military 7
Politics, Government, and Law 7