In Church Attics, Clues to the Private Life of Early America - NYTimes.com in a regionwide scavenger hunt, a pair of historians is rummaging
through New England church basements and attics, file cabinets, safes
and even coat closets, searching for these records of early American
life. The historians are racing against inexorable church closings,
occasional fires, and a more mundane but not uncommon peril: the actual
loss of documents, which most often occurs when a church elder dies and
no one can remember the whereabouts of historical papers.
