4 BIG FOUR RAILROAD PEORIA & EASTERN EMPLOYEE & DISCIPLINE LEDGERS CCC&StL P&E

Description

This auction is for a set of four Big Four Railroad, Peoria and Eastern Division employee ledgers from the early 1900s.
Railroad employment and discipline records of this sort are very rare and are very informative to railroad historians as they provide great details on events such as derailments, crashes and such, and who was disciplined for causing them.
They are also great sources for genealogists as well as they give residence, age, marital status and in some cases, date and cause of death for the employees.
These four ledgers were once part of the collection of railroad items belonging to “Red” Howell of Plainfield, Indiana.
I helped his widow sell his railroad collection several years ago but bought these from her myself with plans to preserve the information they contain.
I have digitized these ledgers and started the work of transcribing them but I have too many projects going and too little time so I am giving up this one so someone else can take it over.
The winning bidder will receive the four original large format ledgers as described below, as well as a flash drive with digital images of each page of the ledgers in jpeg format (each image of a page is about 4 megabytes) as well as four pdf format files, each containing all of the images for one of the four ledgers.
Additionally, you will receive 3 Excel spreadsheets containing the beginnings of my efforts to transcribe the ledgers.
The left-side pages of Ledgers 1 and 2 have been transcribed, and the layout work has been done for Ledger 4, but no entries have been transcribed for that one.
The left-side pages of each ledger are titled “The Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Co.” and “Staff and Discipline Record, __________ Division” on the right page.
Left-page column headers include: “No.”, “Name”, “Address”, “Recommended By”, “Occupation”, “Date Hired”, “Condition of Life”, “Age”, and “Remarks.”
The right page columns include: “Promoted”, “Promoted”, and “Record of Discipline” under which are columns with the sub-headings “Date”, “Circumstances”, “Date”, and “Circumstances.”
All ledgers are believed to be for the Peoria and Eastern Railway division of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Company.
This is written on the inside of the cover of Ledger 1 and in at least one place in right-side page headers of Ledgers 2 and 4. (the numbering of the ledgers is mine, not numbers indicated on the ledgers themselves)
Note that all of the ledgers contain many blank pages which were also included in the digitization for page numbering consistency.
When a new ledger was begun, names and information for current employees were transferred to the new book, grouped by alphabet, with blank pages left between letters of the alphabet for the addition of new hires.
When the next new book was started, many blank pages remained where too many pages had been left.  In a few instances, not enough blank pages were left and entries were continued to another location in the book.
Ledger 1 is essentially complete, including covers, and contains employment and discipline records of some 1400-1500 persons.
It contains entries for new hires into early 1908 and carries over from a previous book some individuals that were hired decades earlier.
Most entries in this book are for Firemen and Engineers.
Approximately 334 pages total, including blanks.
Ledger 2 is mostly complete and contains employment and discipline records of some 800 persons.
Page 1, containing many of the employees with the last name beginning with “A”, is missing, as are both covers.
Some pages near the end where names beginning with “Y” and “Z” might have been entered, if there were any, are also missing.
This book contains entries for new hires through 1927 and carries over from a previous book some individuals that were hired decades earlier.
Entries are for a variety of positions including Operators, Clerks, Crossing Watchmen, Baggagemen, Agents, etc.
Approximately 410 pages total, including blanks.
Ledger 3 is in the poorest condition of the set.
It is incomplete but still contains employment and discipline records of some 400 persons.
Pages 1 and 2 containing many of the employees with the last name beginning with “A” are missing.
Some of the pages with names beginning with “B” are torn so that the names are fully or partially missing.
The ledger ends after the names beginning with “I” and the back cover is missing.
This book contains entries for new hires into 1911 and carries over from a previous book some individuals that were hired decades earlier.
Entries are for a variety of positions including Operators, Clerks, Brakemen, etc.
Approximately 127 pages total, including blanks.
Ledger 4 is mostly complete and contains employment and discipline records of some 1500 persons.
The covers and pages 1 -10 containing employees with the last name beginning with “A” and possibly some beginning with “B” are missing.
Some pages near the end are also missing, beginning part of the way through the “W” entries.
This book contains entries for new hires through about 1927 and carries over from a previous book some individuals that were hired decades earlier.
Entries are for a variety of positions including Operators, Brakemen, Clerk etc.
Approximately 374 pages total, including blanks.
Although the time frame and some of the positions appear to overlap with Ledger 2, this does not appear to be a duplicate ledger and both appear to be for the P&E Division.
The paper in all ledgers is brittle and there are many tears and damaged areas.
Included is a handful of “orphan” pages that may or may not belong to these ledgers.
The ledgers are not in great condition for handling but could be displayed under the right circumstances.
They were converted to digital format in 2018 to preserve as much of the remaining information as possible and allow for transcription without further handling the pages.  Photos 6 & 7 show the digital images created from the first two pages of Ledger 1 and photo 8 shows some of the transcribed information from Photo 6 in Excel format.  Photo 10 shows a particularly busy right-side page from Ledger 3 containing lots of information.