SW0141 Digging Deeper to Find, Share the Past Marks SemWar Researcher

Digging deeper. If there is one central element that binds this community of Seminole Wars historians, it is the passionate desire to dig deeper to find the truth. We examined this with recent guests. Jim Flaherty, Rick Obermeyer, and Jeff Snively are long-time practitioners of this historical craft as citizen scholars. And so is Chris Kimball.

In the early days of the public internet – the long-past 1990s -- Chris set up a site to share knowledge about these wars. He even assembled a county-by-county listing of Florida sites where the wars were fought. When blogs and video uploads became available, early technology adopter Chris dove in, presenting more knowledge and more history about these wars in one place than had existed anywhere else on the internet up to that time.

He wove his knowledge with the Florida park service into entertaining and education vignettes about the war, the people, and the environment. For example, Chris created a series of episodes for YouTube on the clothing of the Seminole, based on the work of Rick Obermeyer, his fellow living history reenactor.

This research material supplied fodder for his three books on Seminole War battles, related newspaper articles, and of letters and diary accounts from people who lived and died during those wars.

Today, Chris returns to the Seminole Wars Authority to tell us about those olden times when pickings about the Seminole Wars were few and far between…until he weighed in.  

 

  

Chris Kimball, son of a Florida ethnologist, spent great time growing up around Seminole. He later chose to portray a Seminole warrior at living history events. On Right, for Chris, his college football team passions are clear but took some challenges when he attended classes at the University of Oklahoma -- Seminole West, as he calls them. Seminole East -- Florida State University -- prevailed in a 2022 bowl game.

 

Chris Kimball dug into the paper archives to discover and document the dates for every Seminole War battle and skirmish. He then designed and created this poster board exhibit display. 

 

 

 

This travel guide, edited by John and Mary Lou Missall, founds its origin in Chris Kimball's old internet page that listed sites around the state with Seminole Wars links. The guide remains free to travelers and tourists.  Screen captures of that site are below, followed by Chris's YouTube channel on this subject.  

 

 
   

  

 

 

An original 1836 map of the Seat of War in Florida hangs in the visitor center at the Dade Battlefield Historic State Park in Bushnell, Fla. On right, Chris Kimball holds a framed reproduction map received for Christmas 2022. 

Below: Books Chris Kimball has published based on his research as a citizen scholar. 

   

  

 

  

Host Patrick Swan is a board member with the Seminole Wars Foundation. This podcast is recorded at the homestead of the Seminole Wars Foundation in Bushnell, Fla. 

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