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.
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.