Category: Research Resources

Finding Old New Jersey Map

An old new jersey map from 1819 -- Harriet E. Baker's Book of Penmanship & Maps
Harriet E. Baker’s 1819 Map of New Jersey (Harriet E. Baker’s Book of Penmanship & Maps produced at Mr. Dunham Schools in Windsor, Vermont on March 31, 1819. David Rumsey Map Collection)

Thanks to the World Wide Web, public digitization initiatives, and the growth of social media, researchers and curious types have almost unlimited, convenient access to an enormous array of rare historical maps. As these old cartographic renderings, many seldom used or seen, come out of storage vaults and are made available virtually, they allow a vast audience to enjoy, learn, and become more engaged with the past.

The amount of excellent material we have on-demand continues to amaze me. This is thanks to forward-looking heritage organizations and individuals who leverage these 21st-century tools to share materials that wouldn’t be widely seen or used. 

There are many substantial, searchable collections online, the holding institutions providing free open access to the public. In line with this, I consulted the David Rumsey Map Collection for some New Jersey Maps, as I am doing fieldwork there. 

Old New Jersey Map in Book of Penmanship

While searching for detailed New Jersey county maps, I found several helpful items. But one attractive 1819 illustration of the Garden State caught my attention. It came from Harriet E. Baker’s Book of Penmanship & Maps, produced at Mr. Dunham’s School in Windsor, Vermont, on March 31, 1819. Harriet’s book contains some exquisite illustrations, including this old New Jersey Map.

After pausing to examine it, I located several more helpful old New Jersey Maps on the David Rumsey Map Collection site. The curator of rare materials started digitizing his 150,000 maps in 1996 — now, over 116,000 items are online. The curators add new material regularly.  

More Old New Jersey Maps

As for those New Jersey County maps, here is one example. It is the Smith & Wistar 1849 map of Salem and Gloucester counties, available on the Library of Congress website. Users may download high-quality scans of this detailed map.

An old New Jersey Map, the 1849 Salem & Gloucester counties map.
A Map of the counties of Salem and Gloucester, New Jersey, by Smith & Wistar, Philadelphia (1849) (Library of Congress)

For more high-quality maps, here’s a link to a section of my webpage that I use as a resource finder. This page provides links to digital repositories which have richly organized, mostly free information. 

Maryland Archives Adds Marriage Indexes for Cecil & Dorchester counties

The Maryland State Archives is gradually introducing new online records. And on 6/22/2002, the Archives announced that partial scans of the male and female marriage indexes for Cecil County are available online. The male index covers 1928-1977, while the female index is 1928-1935. Access is free.

For Dorchester, the Archives added the Dorchester County marriage records for 1865-1886

Here’s the link for the Dorchester County Marriage Records.

Dorchester County Marriage index
A page from the Dorchester County Marriage Record Book (Source: Maryland State Archives)

Havre de Grace Provides Historical Public Records Online

Local government records are essential for studying the past. These primary sources document governance, along with the history of communities, institutions, and people.  

With state and federal agencies the process of accessing the items usually works efficiently. But when municipalities retain files, there are often challenges in locating the aging volumes as they rarely have dedicated archivists to keep up with the flow of old documents. Plus, the local custodians have limited resources to preserve, organize, and store files of permanent value.

Municipalities have a patchwork of approaches. Sometimes the old records have been transferred to a state archives, but frequently the town clerk has retained guardianship. Over the years, I have climbed through attics of town halls, searched through dark, damp basements, and combed through boxes stashed in out-of-the-way closets or old vaults searching for primary sources. This disarray is compounded as valuable materials are often lost to the fog of the past as decades slip by.

City Clerks do the best they can as custodians of public records, struggling with limited time and resources as they juggle multiple responsibilities.  I have been helped by many of these keepers of public records.  Plus, sometimes I find that the local bodies have digitized its archives, making them available online.  This makes my work much more manageable, increases efficiencies for agency staff, and reduces custodial and preservation problems as paper ages and becomes fragile. 

While working with municipal records across the mid-Atlantic, I recently discovered that the City of Havre Grace had established an online repository for its public records, the city minutes starting in 1800 while the ordinance books begins in 1879.  The user-friendly web portal permits a curious type to easily access the records and view digital copies of the original, primary sources.

Thank you, City of Havre de Grace for ensuring that the public records of the City are retained, organized, preserved, and made available.  Anyone studying the past in this old Maryland City will find this to be a helpful resource.

Click here to access eCode360, the repository for the public records of the City.

The Bicycle Ordinance for the City of Havre de Grace
Minutes from 1862

Draper Collection of Civil War Letters Digitized at Delaware Archives

The Delaware Public Archives (DPA) has released the following announcement about the digitization of the Abram H. Draper Collection, a holding that contains Civil War letters, poetry, and correspondence.

DPA writes: “The Abram H. Draper Collection consists of 34 unique pieces of correspondence, including letters and poetry from Sergeant Abram H. Draper to his wife Anna M. Wiley Draper during the American Civil War. The content of this collection offers a detailed description of Draper’s time while on guard and picket duty, everyday details of the life of a Union soldier in the United States Army from 1861 – 1863. The collection also includes correspondence to and from members of Draper’s extended family, as well as letters and documents to Anna notifying her of his death on January 22, 1863, from typhoid fever at Camp Gilpins, Virginia.”

Draper was born in New York City, but made his way to Delaware where he enlisted in the 1st Delaware Regiment, a 90-day unit of volunteers. Later he enlisted in Company A, 4th Delaware Infantry Regiment as a sergeant. The majority of his time was on guard duty in Virginia, according to the DPA.

Click here to view the Draper collection of Civil War letters at the DPA

civil war letters at the Delaware Public Archives
A Civil War letter from the Abram H. Draper collection at the Delaware Public Archives. (Photo Credit: Delaware Public Archives)