OldDashMapsDotCom

  Old Sturbridge Village was built on lands that once belonged to the Wight family.  This 1831 map shows "D. Wight's Saw Mill" being fed by a man-made mill pond that still exists today (actually part of the Quinnebaug River).  OSV now occupies most of the area shown in this excerpt.  There is a modern dam at the same location as in 1831. See the Google map below. The sawmill on the modern map is at (or close to) the same location as the 1831 sawmill. Old Sturbridge Village built the replica in the 1980s. Below is a 1795 map of this same area. There are two sawmills shown.  I think the one to the south is the old Wight sawmill site.  I am not sure who owned it then. Later maps are also interesting to look at The above map, 1858 shows Wight's  grist mill and saw mill (at the large "B" on the map).  The house D. Wight is on the premises of today's OSV (???).  Note several other Wight houses at the top of the map , including Wight's Store. The 18...

Brattleboro's Fort Dummer, built in 1724, was the first English settlement in Vermont, and was an important military fort and  trading post before there was a Vermont.  This was Massachusetts at the time. An accurate survey of the fort as it stood 25 years later was made by surveyor Matthew Patten from New Hanpshire*.  This surveyor's 1749 notebook sketch shown above is likely not proportional , a normal practice when a surveyor is making his raw measurements.  (see the Jones drawing following), There may not be a final drafted version of this survey, as this image was used as the basis for published drawings of the fort, such as this 1896 rendering (BELOW) by PVMA (Deerfield, MA) ****** Volunteers needed to transcribe  more old docs. ****** If you would like a nifty winter project to help flesh out this 300 year old bit of history. contact dave allen:    daven@sover.net .  I have original documents (copies) that need transcribing and analysis....

  This may be the oldest view of Shelburne Falls village. It is taken from the John Warner Barber "Historical Collections..." book published in 1839. The view is, i believe, taken from High Street looking down on the Shelburne side of the village.  The Buckland hills are in the background.  The houses are along either side of Main Street which is seen as a narrow band extending from left to right at a slight diagonal.  I have added numbers to the house as an aid to discussion.  House #13 is Franklin Academy, a brick building which still stands as # 77 Main Street.  #9 is the Baptist Church. We know #9 and #13 because the original manuscript map made by Barber exists.  You will note that there is no house #1.  It was omitted from the published view, see below. The Massachusetts Historical Society has the manuscript sketches made by John Warner Barber. This is what he drew, presumably on the day he visited Shelburne Falls, probably in 1838. I have n...

  Whoever heard of West Vermont State - extending all the way to Lake Erie?   A huge Vermont, divided into 3 sections, appears on an old manuscript map in the British Public Records Office. "Middle Verdmont" on the old map went from the Green Mountains to Lake Champlain. "West Verdmont" went fron Lake Champlain to Lake Erie.       Residents of Rochester and Syracuse may be surprised to learn that they might have been part of Vermont.  The heavy band "Verdmont State or everlasting Hills"  depicts the Green Mountains. "East Verdmont" is shown with lots of settlements along the Connecticut River.  The "270,000 souls" could be a population count for the entire area of Verdmont. (By the way "Verd" was archaic French for Green.)  The map needs more study to nail down the year it was drawn but it  may be ca 1780 as it refers to the United States of America. I have annotated my scan with bold type and the yellow shading to make it ...

 A key event in the American Revolution was the British abandonment of Boston in March 1776.  Months before the Declaration of Independence. They left because George Washington placed dozens of cannons on a hill overlooking the City.  When the Brits woke up to see the cannons they realized trouble was ahead and they loaded up their ships and went to Canada. Washington's cannons came from Fort Ticonderoga, 100s of miles away.  ================================================================== ========================================================     Over the years historians have attempted to find the actual road travelled.  We know the general route - the towns traveresed - but not the exact roads travelled. In 1927 a series of stone markers were placed at key points in NY and Mass.        Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Knox_Trail   

We were working on the 1854 map of Loudoun County , Virginia and noticed something very unusual: One of the five images included on the map was of a memorial monument to a woman. Who was Miss Mercer and why was this monument on the map? 1850s County wall maps showed all roads and homeowner names, and often had pictures decorating the margins. There are 5 pictures on this map, three of which are "public" properties - a Leesburg street view , a courthouse and old  house of former President Monroe . The other two relate to Margaret Mercer.   Margaret Mercer was an active  abolitionist and advocate for women's education. Her father was John Francis Mercer, governor of Maryland. He gave her a rigorous education equal to her brothers', and a solid Christian upbringing. After his death in 1821 Miss Mercer came to believe that the keeping of people as slaves did not square with her profound Christian faith. She freed the slaves she had inherited from her father.  ...