![\"Clarksville's](\"http:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/customshouselogo.jpg\" "\\"Clarksville's")
Clarksville, TN<\/strong> – A large measure of teamwork is going into the restoration and publication of the diary of Serepta Jordan, who recorded her life in Clarskville from 1857 to 1864 in crisp hardwriting in a repurposed leather-bound ledger book.<\/p>\nThe diary is part of the collection of the Clarksville\u2019s Customs House Museum and Cultural Center, which welcomed a $3,000 Archive Development Grant on Thursday delivered by Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett.<\/p>\n
![\"Kali](\"http:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Customs-House-gets-state-grant-for-diary-project.jpg\" "\\"Kali")
<\/a>Kali Mason, Customs House Curator of Collections, carefully handles pages of the diary of Serepta Jordon as Mayor Kim McMillan, Millie Armstrong, Tenessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett and Customs House Executive Director Jim Zimmer look at the fragile document. Hargett delivered a $3,000 state grant check to the museum Thursday that will be used to continue the restoration of the historic diary.<\/p><\/div>\n
The grant will be used to continue the diary project.<\/p>\n
Kali Mason, Customs House Curator of Collections, donned white gloves to unbox and unwrap the large, weathered, three-inch thick book. Hargett, Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan and Millie Armstrong, Jordan\u2019s great-great-great granddaughter, hovered close over the pages and marveled at line after line of Jordan\u2019s small but impeccable handwriting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not just a local person\u2019s diary, it\u2019s a document of women\u2019s history,\u201d Customs House Executive Director Jim Zimmer noted. \u201cWe appreciate this grant from the state, which will help us continue to stabilize this important but fragile historical treasure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nearby, the quartet of local women who is transcribing the text of diary \u2013 county historian Eleanor Williams, Ellen Kanervo, Minoa Uffleman and Phyllis Smith \u2013 gathered to describe some of the information that Serepta \u201cRep\u201d Jordon dutifully recorded in her daily record. <\/p>\n
The pages are filled with the writer\u2019s observations, feelings and experiences from the Civil War era in Clarksville. The daily entries fill page after page, with some sections divided into passages dated and labeled \u201cmorning,\u201d \u201cmidday\u201d and \u201cevening.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll these talented people are working together to preserve this unique piece of local history,\u201d Mayor McMillan said. \u201cThis speaks to the high interest in our heritage, and to the quality of our Customs House Museum and Cultural Center. It\u2019s an exciting and important project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the transcription is completed and edited, the diary will be published in a format that can be easily read and shared. The diary project is the second for the team, who earlier edited a local work, \u201cThe Diary of Nannie Haskins Willians, A Southern Woman’s Story of Rebellion and Reconstruction, 1863-1890,\u201d which was published in 2014 by the University of Tennessee Press.<\/p>\n