Many thanks to all those who contacted me for tech help;especially John and
Jim and those that contacted me privately ...especially Mary Krugman who has
helped with the whole discovery and donation
.The following is a story soon to be in print  regarding the find....More
later as I have been working in Mobile and just got home ..best Michael all
rts/2000

Hidden Closet reveals lost archival Treasure.

After the death of JAT Davidson of upper Montclair his newphew Michael
Davidson  was helping his Aunt  move some furniture from a basement storage
room where they hapened upon a large locked book case that they were unable
to move.
Help was called for and with the assistance of several family members they
were able to move the book case.
There  behind the book case was discovered  a hidden closet door of
considerable size.The door was  constructed with very fine joints  locked and
painted over.
The men were able to pry the lock and open the door to reveal  the dark musty
smell of past decades ...
 .There in the dim  basement light the men could  vaugely see a large cache
of bound books all dated. However to remove the books there was a confused
assortment of  bric-a-brac jammed to the closet ceiling which had to be
removed.

Reaching into an old  darkened  basement cobwebbed closet is not for the weak
willed  .Circumstance made the only light very poor to see by.
Anything living or dead may be in there.
The men had to reach in grab hold of something and pull it out to see what it
was that was holding the books so tight..

The first items were several old large ledgers indicating that the closet had
been sealed for reasons unknown sometime around 1952.
 The next items that were removed  were a Jappanese officers sword and
several field grade hari kari knives all in excellent condition.The hurbis of
all this Milataria was followed by the discovery of a  a 6.5 Jappanese sniper
rifle complete with sniper  scope and a heavy 11mm German officers Eurfurt
pistol from before the first war.
Next were antiquated cigar boxes; full of  several small stacks of old paper
and photos.The photos revealed ancestor  family members from Newark and New
Orleans and some late 20's photos of Charles Lindberg and the spirit of st.
Louis  with the Davidson children at the opening days of Newark Airport
The tighly bound  stacks of paper  turned out to be $100,000 dollars in
negotionable bonds.
Now the family members  became  excited and giddy with their  new found
wealth untill it  was discovered ; in better light, that the bonds they had
found  were Confederate War bonds issued  to ancestors  back in 1861.
With sobering reality the family searchers returned to the closet and  began
to unearth  the  bound archivals . ..
 One by one they came out; covers soot blackened in time and although dirty
the collection appers to be complete bound books of the Montclair Times year
by year from about 1898-1950  all in good to excellent condition.
IThe discovery of an  archival  in this  complete form is invaluable and rare
to the public.
The newspapers reveal not only  the town history through its people but they
capture and  catolouge the dates and historys of  the buildings and much of
the towns growth and infastructure through  its social and scolastic
instituitions..

Front and back page stories of familys and personalities  long associated
with the towns growth appear. There are cronicled accounts of the building of
many of the towns historic homes and churches including well known names like
kings; Aand P Louis Haris Bonds; Haines and the first train stations.
In the commerical pages the  hand drawn advertisemnts show familiar car
dealerships selling    Stutz Bearcats  with drivers in fasionable dress; and
woman grocery shopping in Victorian dress styles.
Also are the newspapers photos of  intrest for  early 20th cent Montlcair
depicting horse drawn carts and  distinguished visiting  lecturers of the day
including Admiral Perry and  the widow of George Armstrong Custer to name a
few
There are of course the usual deaths marriages and scandals  of  note making
for rich story telling.
The find is important as it  is a fairly complete  archival of the first half
of the 20 th cent for the town of Montclair and should be of keen interest to
researchers for years to come
The family research shows the archival appears to be the collection of Mr.
Palmer Davidson a newspapper man in the roaring 20's who covered such papers
as The New York sun; The Telegraph The Wall street Journal and the Newark
News whre he wrote aviation stories. .
The milatary items found within the closet were taken on the invasion of
Okinawa by his son Paul Davidson a young marine who was severly wounded there
.
Also found within the closet are the News paper headlines from the entire
second war as the Davidsons had 3 sons serving in the Milatary.
.These papers are in fragil condition.
James Davidson most certainly knew of the collection of his father   and
cared for it by knowing it was  intact and safe. However at his passing no
other family members knew of its existence.
The archival is to be donated to the Montclair public library for research by
Mrs James A.T Davidson , B.P Davidson jr. and Mrs. Charlotte Davidson Albrect
. It will be known as the Palmer Davidson collection.It is the family hope
that the books can be preserved so the public can share in them.

This article was sumbmitted by Michael Drummond Davidson a historic masonry
preservation  mason  and former resident of Upper Montclair now living in Miss