‘Meticulous’ lawyer

For some reason, Kephart never parted with the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club records...

Yeah, well, DUH! SFFHC went dark after the flood. There literally was a meeting at the home of one of the founders in Pittsburgh. Some of the members, e.g., Louis Clarke, had gotten a little voluble and the club's Pittsburgh law firm, (Reed, Smith, Shaw and McClay?) i.e. Andrew Carnegie's law firm, Andrew Mellon's law firm, Henry Clay Frick's law firm, called the meeting and told everybody to ZIP IT! Which they did. BOY, did they zip it. Those cockroaches zipped it so tight their children and grandchildren didn't even know they had been members!

David McCullough wrote in his book that he couldn't find a single goddamned original document from SFFHC. Now we know why! Reed, Smith, or whoever the Pittsburgh lawyers were, gave the bidness to attorney Kephart in Ebensburg and all the original documents! And attorney Kephart...I did not cause the Johnstown Flood...zipped it, kept those docs the rest of his life! Took them...My Uncle Jack did not cause the Johnstown Flood...with him to his grave, to Ebensburg, Cambria County which is the same thing!...My grandfather did not cause the Johnstown Flood.

...

The original club-drafted papers and court documents in Kephart’s possession included the group’s original petition to incorporate.

It listed the club’s place of business as Pittsburgh.

The document was filed in Allegheny County Courthouse in November 1879 – and a handwritten, somewhat summarized copy filed there has been used by flood researchers in the decades since to identify the club’s charter members.

Those researchers included author David McCullough, who wrote “The Johnstown Flood” in 1968.

See? Toldja, I remember reading between the lines, McCullough was like, "Well, I'll be."