Sarah Donaldson, collections manager at the Butler County Historical Society, holds canned peaches dating back to the Civil War.

A two-quart jar of 159-year-old peaches recently uncovered in the collection of the Butler County Historical Society is a memento of the story of a promise kept to a Civil War soldier who marched off to war in 1861.

Local historian Bill May traced the story of Private Henry Kuhlthau of Milltown, N.J., and how the peaches saved for his return made their way to Chicora and then to the historical society.

This is an excerpt of a story that appeared in Sunday's Butler Eagle.