Abstract
Sometimes the most interesting items in an archive are those that point to what is missing. While perusing a box in the Pierre Eugène du Simitière Collection at the Library Company of Philadelphia, I came across a remarkable document that illustrates a number of losses—both archival and personal.In July 1782, Du Simitière received a human scalp from the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council, along with an explanation of its provenance. As Du Simitière noted in his records of "curiosities" and their donors, the scalp was "taken from an Indian killed . . . in Washington County near the Ohio in this State by Adam Poe . . . it has as an ornament a white wampum bead a finger long with a Silver Knob at the end the rest of the hair plaited and tyed with deer skin."In the archive, I had located the original account of the battle on the banks of the Ohio that had resulted in the death of the anonymous Indian man. What I could not locate, however, was the scalp itself, long gone