Skip to main content

Walter Mason Camp research and reference file, between 1870 and 1943

 Series
Identifier: MSS 57 Series 7

Scope and Contents

Contains primary and secondary sources about various people, places and events involved in the Indian Wars. This includes articles, newspaper clippings, copies of accounts, letters, printed epherema, diaries, copies of reports, obituaries, notes, and maps. The research and reference file contains mostly materials collected by Camp and authored by others. Also, it contains everything that would not fit in any of the other categories in the collection.

Dates

  • Other: between 1870 and 1943

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Most of the collection is open for public research. However, Walter Mason Camp interviews (Series 3) and Walter Mason Camp notes (Series 4) are "Condition restricted" and researchers are asked to use the microfilm copy or transcriptions in Series 5.

Conditions Governing Use

It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain any necessary copyright clearances. Permission to publish material from the Walter Mason Camp papers must be obtained from the Supervior of Reference Services and/or the L. Tom Perry Special Collections Coordinating Committee.

Biographical History

From the Collection:

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 India 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 faithfull 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 Little Bighorn River fight and other battles. He personally visited over forty battlefields and interviewed almost 200 survivors of western battles. Walter Camp died on August 3, 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.

Extent

1 box

Language of Materials

English

Arrangement

Arranged alphabetically by name of subject (last name if the subject is a person).

Other Finding Aids

Folder-level inventory available online. http://files.lib.byu.edu/ead/XML/MSS57.xml

General

Contents: Baldwin, Frank D. -- Barnitz, Albert -- Barry, D. F., photographer -- Beecher Island Fight -- Benteen, Frederich W. -- Berwald, Frank -- Capron, (Eloiset?) -- Connor-Cole Expedition -- Crook's Report, May 7, 1876 -- Curly (the Crow scout) -- Custer Battlefield -- Maps -- Custer, Tom -- Finerty, John F. -- Fort Keough and Miles City, Montana -- Fort Phil Kearney -- Fort Wallace, Kansas -- Gerard, Frederick F. -- Grinnel, George Bird -- Hammon, John E. -- Herendeen, George -- McDougall, Major Tom M. -- McGuire, John -- McIntosh, Lt. Donald -- Miles, Nelson A. -- Miscellaneous -- Ogden, Sgt. John S. -- Letter, July 17, 1876 -- Order of the Indian War -- Redwater Creek Fight -- Reno, Major M. A. -- Reynolds, Charlie -- Roe, Charles F. -- Ronsheim, Milton -- Roy, Stanislas -- Ryan, Martin -- Scott, Gen, Hugh L. -- "The Sentinel" -- Sitting Bull -- Two Moons -- Two Strikes -- Wagon Corral Fight on the Washita, 1874 Sept. 9-12 -- Wounded Knee Fight, 1890.

Repository Details

Part of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections Repository

Contact:
1130 HBLL
Brigham Young University
Provo Utah 84602 United States