Tag: Relics

Abe Lincoln, Museums

The big reveal of Springfield, Illinois Abraham Lincoln scholar Wayne C. “Doc” Temple’s collection of Native American Indian Artifacts at the Richwood, Ohio History Museum.

Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

On Thursday, March 9, 2023, I visited the Richwood, Ohio History museum and library with my wife Rhonda S. Hunter. We dropped off the Temple family collection of Native American Indian artifacts collected over the course of at least two decades from @1900 past World War I. The compilation, contained in an old can of Cocoa, had not seen the light of day for nearly a century. Doc, Springfield Illinois’ premiere Abraham Lincoln scholar for over 60 years, also wrote the definitive book on the subject in 1966, Indian Villages of the Illinois Country: Historic Tribes, and several scholarly articles and papers on the subject for the University of Illinois. The artifacts were dug in the farm fields in and around Richwood Ohio so it seemed fitting that Doc’s collection go back to their place of origin. We were as happy to deliver them as the museum officials were to receive them.

Doc’s arrowhead collection had been stored in this cocoa box for a century.
Rhonda Hunter with the piece from the collection that Doc recalled specifically. I believe it is a hammer or tomahawk head.
Richwood Museum staffer Dustin Lowe and Alana E. Hunter with Doc’s collection.