1857 Fairfax Map Available On CD ROM

Hi all,

Several weeks ago, the St. Albans Messenger carried an article on this and this morning's Burlington Free Press also carried an article on it.

If you walk into the Fairfax Town Clerk's Office, you will see in the office a large 1857 Map of Franklin/Grand Isle County. This map is available on a CD ROM for $30. You can go to the web site at http://Old-Maps.com and download the free one, but it is of a lower quality than the CD ROM and does not contain the village. Next time you are in the Town Clerk's Office, check it out -- If your house was standing in 1857, you most likely will be able to see who was living there at that time.

1850s Vermont maps now available on CD-ROM

By Rick Burnham
Burlington Free Press Correspondent

January 4, 2006
A New Hampshire man is using modern-day technology to offer Vermonters a detailed look into the past.

David Allen of West Chesterfield is selling CD-ROM versions of 1850s Vermont maps, complete with detailed illustrations of the road systems, homes and businesses of that era. The maps also include many of the homeowners' names.

Allen has completed scanning 11 Vermont maps, in addition to most of the New Hampshire maps and about half of those from Massachusetts. The CD-ROMs, each one featuring a different Vermont county, are available for $30. Allen said he is giving a complete set to Vermont Historical Society.

Allen, who owns a land-surveying business but calls himself a "mapmaker," said he came upon the idea of scanning the maps by chance.

"I was out hiking in a nearby state park and came upon a foundation where a home once stood," he said. "Someone I knew had a photograph of an old map of the area, and I was able to see who lived in the home. I thought at the time that it would be cool to be able to print several copies of the map and make them available."

Years later, the advent of computer technology made that dream come true, and Allen embarked on a mission to document portions of 19th century New England, a task that he said has not been easy. The wall-sized maps, each one about 5-feet-square, take considerable time to properly transfer.

"With computers you can make really nice color copies, and the CD-ROM format makes it easy to make multiple copies," he said; "but there is also a lot of work to it. The 11 maps of Vermont consist of about 500 separate scans."

Those scans, which Allen said took about a year to complete, were well worth the effort, he said.

"They are very beautiful maps," Allen said. "Back then, they only had black and white printing, so each town on each map is hand-colored in a different shade. So what you have is a patchwork of different colors, each one varnished."

Although many of Vermont's 14 counties have their own disc, a few are combined, Allen said. Franklin and Grand Isle counties are on one map and Essex, Lamoille and Orleans counties are included on another.

Some of the discs for the larger counties, those with as many as 25-30 municipalities, had to be divided into as many as 50 scans, each one with a detailed look at an individual village or town. The scans are saved as PDFs, which Allen said are compatible with virtually any computer system.

Finding the maps also proved to be quite a task, he said. He found five original maps at an antique dealer in Rye, N.Y., and four more at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Allen gained access to the final two at the Vermont Historical Society.

Paul Carnahan, Vermont Historical Society librarian, said putting the maps on disc is a great idea.

"It will give so many more people access to them," he said. "The originals are big and easily damaged. This way people can see them right on their computer screens. People like them because they can get an idea of who may have lived in their home, or who a particular street or hill is named after."

Allen said the maps are a gold mine of information about 1800s Vermont, adding that he came across a few interesting details while producing the discs.

"I was struck by all the odd businesses labeled on the old maps," he said. "There were all kinds of mills, and one town had a starch factory."

The maps have generated considerable interest from historians, Allen said, along with amateur genealogists.

"I get e-mails from people all over saying what a wonderful thing this is," he said. "Many comment that they had a distant relative who lived in Vermont and are excited about seeing if they can find information about them on the maps."
Old Vermont maps MAPS: CD-ROMs of the Vermont maps are available for $30 at several Vermont bookstores, including North Country Books and Borders Books & Music in Burlington, Bear Pond Books in Montpelier and Book King in Rutland.
ON THE WEB: http://Old-Maps.com
VOLUNTEERS: David Allen is looking for volunteers to help index the family names on the maps. For more information, contact him at Old Maps, P.O. Box 54, West Chesterfield, N.H., 03466, or call (413) 772-2801.