Subseries I: Maps, 1737-1966

Sub-Series

Staff Only

Dates

1737-1966

Access:

All series and subseries within this collection are open for research, with the exception of a few files within the Academia series that are restricted. The Academia series contains financial and sensitive institutional records from Wilkes College, and financial report records from Princeton University that will remain restricted for 80 years upon creation.

Extent

From the Collection: 17 Cubic Feet

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Additional Description

General

Subseries I: Maps, 1737-1966, is categorized by county, and arranged by townships alphabetically. If there are more than one item per township, those items are arranged chronologically. The items include a collection of printed and hand-drawn depictions of different regions, including various states within the United States, as well as numerous townships and counties in Pennsylvania. The maps indicate nearby waterways, roads, land tracts, railroad and coal contracts, and other physical features. Some of the maps include notes about the owning family’s inheritances and estates, such as the Chapman and Blanchard families, two names prominently in Subseries III: Land Deeds, and Subseries VI: Genealogy Manuscripts.

Some of the themes present in this subseries are the type of maps present, such as topographical, the context of their creation, such as the reproduction of The Walking Purchase of 1737 was a land scheme by which Pennsylvania officials defrauded the Delaware Indigenous peoples out of a vast acreage—nearly a million—in the Delaware and Lehigh valleys.

A topographic map details a two-dimensional landscape, featuring both the natural features alongside the man-made, i.e. rivers and roads. As noted, the contour lines are a prominent feature of these maps, each one connecting points of a height above sea-level. The spacing tells the viewer the slope of the terrain, with closer lines meaning steeper slopes, and gentler slopes defined by father apart lines.

The Pennsylvania counties included are Bucks, Greene, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Philadelphia, Westmoreland, and York, with townships named including Pittston, Wilkes Barre, Scranton, Jenkins, Marcy, Covington, Yorktown, Ransom, and more.