I received this in an email newsletter, thought you folks might like to know.

George
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Stolen St. Tammany archives recovered Ex-clerk's office worker arrested
Thursday, March 31, 2005 By Meghan Gordon and Paul Rioux St. Tammany
bureau

Calling it a boon to genealogists and Civil War historians, St. Tammany
Parish Clerk of Court Malise Prieto announced Wednesday the recovery of
hundreds of stolen 19th century records that document many aspects of
life in the parish's early days.

The documents were found in a four-drawer file cabinet at the home of
Bethel Marie Bradley, a Covington woman who died last month. Her
ex-husband, Thomas Todd Valois, a former employee in the clerk's office,
was arrested Wednesday after he admitted stealing the records more than
10 years ago, authorities said.

Among the stacks of fragile papers were original maps of the parish,
census figures and election results and documents with the signature of
John
Wharton Collins, who founded Covington in 1813.

An attorney for the estate of Bradley, who died Feb. 28, notified Prieto
about the discovery of the documents last week, and the St. Tammany
Parish Sheriff's Office began an investigation.

Detectives focused on Valois, 39, after learning he is Bradley's
ex-husband and that he had worked as an archivist for the clerk's office
before Prieto was elected, St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office spokesman
James Hartman said.

When questioned by detectives, Valois confessed to taking the documents
while he was in charge of the archives from 1988 to 1993, Hartman said.
He was booked Wednesday on warrants for possession of stolen property and
injuring public records.

Valois, an amateur historian who wrote a column on parish history for The
Times-Picayune's St. Tammany edition in the early 1990s, told detectives
he stole the documents as references for his historical writings, Hartman
said.

In one of his "Backward Glance" columns, Valois wrote reverently about
the clerk's archives in 1991, calling them a "little-known treasure" that
should be "retained and constantly improved."

Valois, who lives at 432 N. Columbia St. in Covington, was being held in
the parish jail in Covington, where his bond had not been set late
Wednesday afternoon.

Because the documents are deemed to be worth more than $500, the
possession of stolen property charge is a felony punishable by up to 10
years in prison and a $3,000 fine, Hartman said. The statutes of
limitations for theft and malfeasance in office have expired, preventing
detectives from booking Valois on those charges, Hartman said.

Prieto said that once detectives turn the records back over to the
clerk's office, her archival staff will have the long task of determining
how the
haphazardly filed records fit into the existing collection. She said she
couldn't divine a reason why snippets of some records were stolen, as
opposed to entire files.

"That's the hard part, to figure out where it all came from," she said.
"Every aspect of our records has been touched or taken."

Prieto said she considered the most significant documents among the stack
-- for both historical and personal reasons -- to be the original will
and
succession of New Orleans lawyer Horace L. Hunley, who financed and
helped build the earliest submarines in the Civil War and died in one
that failed to surface during a test dive. After crews recovered it, the
CSS Hunley on Feb. 17, 1864, became the first submarine to sink another
vessel.

For years, a local researcher hounded Prieto about the missing records,
even accusing Prieto of stealing them because one of her ancestors owed
Hunley money. It was the first thing to come to Prieto's mind when the
file cabinet surfaced.

"I said, 'Wait a minute. I want to see one thing,' " she said.

Before giving the boxes to sheriff's investigators, she flipped to find
to the Hunley file, scanning it until she found a debt listed simply as
"Owed by
Prieto -- 5,000 Confederate dollars, valued at $500," she said,
explaining that it must refer to one of her family's first settlers in
the region.

Prieto said Valois could have reaped a hefty profit by selling the Hunley
records on the black market, which leads her to believe he didn't steal
them for monetary gain.

"I think he, in a twisted sort of way, was taking care of them," she
said.

Robin Leckbee, a conservator who now supervises the office's oldest
collection, used a magnifying glass Wednesday to read documents signed by
hand in elaborate script.

Though unaware of the file cabinet's full inventory, she pointed to
several papers that shed light on St. Tammany's past:

-- A document dated Dec. 10, 1822, records the $35 transfer of land by
"John Gibson and wife" to Covington for the purpose of establishing a
cemetery.

-- An 1833 list names 289 white, male landowners who encompassed the St.
Tammany's electorate. Familiar names pepper the list: Baham, Carrier,
Joyner, Pichon and Tate.

-- A record filed in 1874 shows District Judge Jesse Jones' handwritten
application for a pension from his service as a second lieutenant in the
Battle of New Orleans from 1814 to 1815.

Meghan Gordon can be reached at mgordon@timespicayune.com or
(985)898-4827.
Paul Rioux can be reached at prioux@timespicayune.com or (985)645-2852.