Original Documents

What are original documents?

The Windsor Historical Society's collection of old documents, beautifully preserved by the Society, provides a rare glimpse of Windsor's history. All the documents in this section are from the collection. The documents range from official military and town records to actual letters from Windsor soldiers. You may be surprised by the personal nature of these documents. One might expect to find accounts of battles or descriptions of life written as if they were in a history book. This is not the case. Many of the documents are quite personal in nature, and illustrate the human side of the war. For example, there are several letters between two brothers that emphasize the loneliness of being away from home, and the difficulties of being separated from loved ones. Their words remind us that war is not just about battles won or lost. It is about human beings, and the tremendous sacrifices that people make to fight for what they believe.

How to read an original document

It is often difficult to read these old documents, because people wrote everything by hand, and sometimes the handwriting is not so good! People wrote in script with quill pens and ink. Quill pens were usually carved by hand from crow or duck feathers. There is a wide variation of letter shapes, even within the same letter. Also, some of the letter shapes were different than what we are used to today. For example, the letter s, when used within a word, was written so that it looked like a lower case f. The language used during that time was also more flowery than it is today - probably a throwback to their English roots. Some phrases may not be familiar to us, but a close look and a little bit of time will usually result in an accurate translation.