I finished going through the Matchett's 1829 directory for George Howard's ground renters. In passing, I ran into this, which was the highlight of my day:
And for shear amusement factor, this:
And when I did finally need a break from title searches, I went back to the editonline transcription exercise and did a few pages of Elizabeth's incomplete transcriptions for William Howard and Charles Howard.
In a meeting to determine what to do
about reaching capacity on our memory sticks, I was given a portable drive
as a temporary measure. I am not entirely clear if I need to change
any file designations to reflect it, though the drive designation has stayed
the same-- E:/, so perhaps not. Moreover I am reluctant to start
any such venture when I may not be continuing with the portable drive.
I did not, and perhaps should have, raise the issue of editing the Adobe pdf files to the size we need in order to conserve space. I will bring it up with Joyce on Monday.
I tried again to search GR 4, leased to George Lash, but the description includes two streets I am unfamiliar with, and I am at present unable to locate the address: Mill Street and Falls Street and Liberty Alley. Liberty Alley seems familiar but I failed to find it on the Bromley-- perhaps a sign of Fridayitis.
A prelimary search on GR 77 unearthed a problem-- the description in the original lease for 77 seems the same as the description for 76 but is distinctly treated as two ground rents with different rents applied to each:
76: From the intersection of Howard and Lexington, running E on Lex 4 perches (66') thence N pllel w/ How to Waggon Alley, thence W on Wag to How, thence S on How to start at £13 15s.
77: At the end of 4 perches (66') E at intersection of How and Lex, thence binding on Lex E 4 perches (66') thence N pllel w/ How to Waggon, thence W on Wag 4 perches (66'), thence S pllel w/ How to start at £11.
Though obviously not exactly the same, it seems to work out to the same address on the Bromley, 232 W Lexington. Further complicating matters, according to Google Maps, that property is at present a large office building with no single address, meaning SDAT will not turn up any information. All in all, not a very profitable day.
Edit: Joyce does not know of a way to edit
existing pdf files with EDocPro or otherwise; I would have to resave the
files. As that would by now be quite a chore, I wonder if I should
just proceed as normal or switch to an edited version and leave the unedited
untouched for a time?
I continued searching ground rents for
George Howard. Though the City Directory only occasionally can supply
any helpful information, I was able to get further in the grantor/grantee
indices by searching 'similar' names to what I thought I had transcribed.
I was able, for instance, to find George 'Fess' under George 'Foss'.
I am also starting to employ Google Maps in the search if I hit a wall
early on; seeing what is on the site at present can be extremely helpful,
as in the case of GR 55 leased to George Foss. That property is today
a large office building of apparently multiple addresses, and so SDAT is
unable to turn up the single address that I am looking for based off the
1906 Bromley, which shows a wood and coal yard of the same proportions.
The major flaw in Google Maps-- or perhaps I simply don't know how to find
the function-- is that Google Maps does not have a viewpage of street addresses,
only street names. Sometimes it is possible to narrow down with the
'search nearby' function, but I have a hunch that's a bit of a goose chase.
At any rate, I was only able to determine the address for GR 55.
Possibly a foward search would be helpful, though I'm not sure where to
go from simple lease information. I can hope the GR is mentioned
in the information on George Howard's estate that Dr Papenfuse has recovered.
Well, I may have believed it, but it
did not turn out to be true: I did not in fact find the ground rent leased
to Mary Baker, I found the lot next to it. I think it is more probable
that the original lot was somewhere between current addresses 415 and 417
on North Howard. Attempting to search 417 did not yield reliable
results, and I hit a dead end after only a half dozen titles. I think
I might work on another one to get some breathing room, but I am disappointed.
I did make a page with the search I did that lead to 415.
Edit: I went through each deed and compared
the descriptions; the first meaningful deviation occurs in 1853 where the
measurement comes from the opposite end of the block. Though I know
at the time I believed it led to the same lot, it does not mention the
attached three foot alley specifically as all other deeds had done, so
I must conclude that whoever conducted the title search in 1853 was not
as thorough as they ought to have been. Tomorrow I hope to go back
and search using the grantor indices for clarification.
Continued working on standardising
George Howard's ground rent page with what Elizabeth is doing for her heirs;
we are including on one page the jpg of the division taken from the division,
our transcript thereof, and a jpg, if any can be found, from the 1829 directory,
with links to all pages and a link to a separate page for the title search.
On the search page, a jpg of the city block to locate it relevant to the
search.
I did not make much progress on finding
any ground rents. I spent time going back through SDAT and the grantor/grantee
indices trying to find names from the George Howard ground rents I had
previously marked as 'can't find' and did manage to pick up references
on a few, like GR 34 leased to Frederick Lehnhart or Linhart, not Lanhart,
as I thought previously; it seems this lot as leased has been by present
so broken into several addresses, including some on Diamond Street as well
as facing Paca, that it may be extremely difficult to trace back to the
original lot, but it certainly illustrates the problems and I wonder who,
if anyone, is paying the ground rent there now. Unfortunately, I
cannot read the records images for a deed from 1984, so I am stymied on
that until the image can be rescanned.
I believe that I have located the current
address for ground rent 21 leased to Mary Baker, placing it at 415 North
Howard, as that most closely matches the description and after eliminating
the surrounding addresses, though my title search on 415 is imperfect.
I am creating a page to link back to George's ground rent list, which Elizabeth
and I are, together, attempting to standardise.
Accomplished move to Appraisal Department.
Worked on more of George Howard's ground rents and on standardising his ground rent page as well. Searched, and was unable to complete, number 88, leased to Edmund Fair; I believe it is 230 North Eutaw, but I hit a dead end working backward, as it seems the property reverted to the City at some point and was sold in public auction with no mention of previous records. Likewise with ground rent 86, leased to George Werely, I hit a snag-- the range of street addresses in question appear to be some kind of apartment or office block and I am unable to perform a search for what would have been the original street numbers as of the 1906 map. For Ground Rent 89 I cannot find the original lease mentioned. I believe I have located Ground Rent 21's current address, but am conducting searches on all surrounding addresses to be sure.
At present, I have either been unable to find any information or have given up on all George Howard's ground rents through 90, excepting the one that seems to lead to William Howard.
Edit: At meeting Dr Papenfuse mentioned he had found George Howard's estate, which seems to have been managed by Wm Read after his death, strangely enough. I am eager to read the evidence and hope there is some trace of what happened to his ground rents.
We are also going to initiate the use of
two new freeware programmes, Abyss and NVu.
Unable to find any further information
on ground rent 79, I moved on to 87. Though I am relatively sure
of its location on Block 595, I am unable to locate a current address that
matches the description. I found the first lease reference but I
can't move forward from there easily; I may try simply to get some further
information on it.
Regarding 79, I checked some of William Howard's ground rents and it is certainly possible that he had a ground rent next to George's that either passed in congress with George's or perhaps was taken to be George's by some sloppy title work in decades previous. It seems the address shifted back and forth a bit. I am less certain that William had a property there, as it is the property I have a record of him transferring, but I am still unclear on how reliable it is to use the title records to trace the ground rent and how much the Howards were in possession of the physical property in which they had the rent interest.
On Saturday, Elizabeth, Joyce, and myself
are to attend a round-table discussion at the close of a conference on
Virginia history. The topic is set to include questions about public
history, so I have hopes it will be timely and relevant for us.
Completed the first branch of the George
Howard ground rent search-- and it led back to William Howard. I
consulted with Elizabeth and we don't think William actually did hold the
ground rent, nor did he hold the real property he is shown exchanging in
the records, so I'm wondering if it's an inaccurate record for some reason.
More likely I've made some horrible mistake, but for the life of me I can't
figure it out.
In the morning, continued work on the
ground rent title search for George. It continues to be extremely
complex; I've found nearly forty deeds or leases that seem to apply to
only a one-third interest in the property, and I know at least another
sixty exist. It does seem ironic that the first ground rent I succeeded
in finding would be so amazingly complex. It does lead back to the
difficulty of visual representation, however. So far I've only been
tracing one distinct line for this ground rent, but others do exist, and
I don't want to tangle them. Joyce indicated she had found a possible
alternative. I hope we will be able to seriously apply some time
to figuring its suitability soon.
In the afternoon I attended the conference call to SDAT regarding the ground rent registry to be in operation in October. The main technical issue needing resolution was the number of query fields for searching the titles. At present I believe they've settled on book and page (replacing the terms 'liber' and 'folio'), county, clerk's initials, and possibly year. It was very interesting to be included.
Elizabeth and I also spoke with Kim and
Joyce on the question of what population are most likely to be affected
by ground rents and thus the legislation restricting ground rents.
Garrett Powers indicated that he thought it might be more affluent homeowners,
but I had recalled an article in The Sun which described lower-income row
houses as primary locations for ground rents, which would seem to indicate
that the poor, possibly undereducated and underemployed, and quite possibly
predominantly black population would be most affected. Kim agrees
with the latter and was able to supply some research from the legislative
session for us to look over.
Diverted for the day to read materials
pertaining to tomorrow's conference call as forwarded by Kim. Quite
caught up now on the Senate proceedings that proceeded the adoption of
the ground rent legislation. Also submitted Bulldog article and evaluation.
Having thought this over during the
weekend, I wanted to raise with Kim at least and Dr Papenfuse possibly
when he returns, if we have not yet resolved this issue, some points about
the Adobe documenting of the grantor indices. How much do we need
this? Is a self-made index a red herring with no further application
beyond our initial search for the first ground rent transfer? I estimate
it would take three to five days if the problems I had on Thursday persist,
two to four if all goes smoothly. It seems like it might be a distraction
that will not only divert us for a significant amount of time, but would
also create huge files to be maintained on our memory sticks.
Attended Department meeting in the morning.
Morning seminar with Garrett Powers
on the ground rent; his handout should be a very helpful reminder.
All of us involved took very extensive notes, I noticed. We followed
the seminar with a private meeting discussing our project. I had
prepared some handouts for that purpose, and we looked at a few searches
on a real property that had a ground rent created on it before it had quite
left the Howard family by way of the Posts. We discussed some of
our ongoing issues and segued to a lunch together as well. In the
afternoon we had the out-going intern interviews, in which we saw presentations
on all the intern projects and had a brief Q&A with Dr Papenfuse.
With everyone leaving soon, we are all eager to show off our work.
At 87 pages, I suddenly developed a
problem with the Adobe document of the indices. Between Jen, Marius,
and myself, we were unable to unearth what precise problem rendered the
document corrupt, and we were also unable to solve it. Marius uploaded
Adobe 8 onto my computer, but it didn't seem to alleviate the difficulty.
At this point, the only way to find out what the problem is would be to
recreate the same circumstances, which is somewhat less than appealing,
considering the original circumstances lost all of my work.
We also completed our Bulldog article and
powerpoint this morning.
Completed about sixty pages of the
condensed grantor indices. Also got to view our Alexander Hamilton
and
Thomas Jefferson video. Wonderful! And Dr Papenfuse
indicated the attempt to transfer between media might be useful for further
archival purposes. Elizabeth and I worked on our bulldog article
in the morning, and I also constructed a four-slide powerpoint presentation
for any occasion calling on us to explain our hand in the project.
No accomplishments to report today.
Continued to use the city directory and MDLandRec to try and trace George
Howard's ground rents. I either arrived at a dead end-- a record
with no further information to proceed by-- or in the case of 210 West
Lexington, which I thought might George's eighth ground rent, arrived at
a different address than what I started with. I've eliminated ten
ground rents that cannot be traced at this point, or that I was, at least,
unsuccessful in searching.
Another discussion with Jean first
on the geneaology of the Howard heirs, and then a notice about the emails
going on between everyone else on the project. We are continuing
with the ground rent searches after all. I attempted seven searches
on Benjamin Howard properties today, going in order on his listing.
I was unable to find any information on any of them. His third ground
rent showed a lease to Abraham Naff; I found a record of it in the Grantee
index but the designation of the actual transaction proved to be a misprint,
and I couldn't find the record. Everything else is a wash, with the
City Directory listing the ground renters living somewhere not where they
were paying that rent, or not turning up any information on the lessee
in any of the indices. I have some idea of which block to search
for the third ground rent and a general radius of the fourth, fifth, and
sixth, but my first attempts at determining which block and then which
address did not yield anything. Before the meeting with Jean, I attempted
to finish the property search for George Howard lot 119 that I was working
on Thursday, but hit a wall with it and was unable to complete it.
One last try at some of Benjamin Howard's ground rent listings.
No success. All of them either hit a brick wall and go no further
back than the 1890s, or turn up a property that is connected as real property
to John Eager Howard or even an heir, but with no mention of the ground
rent. The City Directory is generally not helpful. Where it
does yield an address in the right area, I still have not been able to
trace the ground rent. We've been told to move on to the real property
searches again, so I worked on one of those after lunch, continuing with
George Howard, block 523, lot 119. I should be able to complete that
in the morning.
All in all it was a very dispiriting
day. Working from the list of ground rents from the Howard Estate
transcript yielded absolutely no results other than finding the first document
from John Eager Howard describing the ground rent. The City Directories
of the period often yield vastly different addresses for the persons said
to be paying the ground rent in the transcripts, as in many cases two or
even three decades have passed since that transaction, and many of the
people listed are merchants who may have rented the property for commercial
use. Attempts to locate the address and work backwards have been
resoundingly unsuccessful. We've spoken to Kim and Joyce about the
difficulties and are planning a meeting for the morning to be sure that
we are proceeding as best we can, using the best processes, and to be sure
the entire team is all 'on the same page'. I do continue to worry
about the lack of wills for George and Prudence Howard; it would seem a
severe handicap in finding out what happened to George's ground rents.
I do find it fascinating that a man who seems to have led the charge on
the Howard court battle did not attend to his own property division; it
seems like there'd be a good story there.
I did create an html page for the one title search I conducted from
the ground rents listing for George. It illustrates the problem I
had-- my search forward brought me to a different place than my search
backward. I did perform a search on all the current property addresses
that seemed to fit the description, and 409 was the only one that led me
back to George Howard, but only in terms of real property, never the ownership
of the ground rent. I'm no longer convinced I located the right property
for the ground rent. I am uploading it to the H drive and ECPCLIO.
Broken or not, it is still my only success so far working from the transcripts.
I managed one (almost) complete title
search on a property that traces back to John Eager Howard and is in the
near vicinity, at least, two where George Howard's second ground rent (GH_gr_021
on the Howard Estate transcripts, his listing of ground rents at the end
of his allotment) is situated. The procedure for determining this
seems to be by first searching forward from the ground rent listing as
far as is readily possible, and then searching every property near the
spot on that particular block. It was a clumsy thing and is made
more so by the difficulty with the scale issue, discussed on 30 July.
In this my first case, there fortunately seems to be a ground rent on only
one of the properties near where I was looking, and I turned up two land
records that mentioned it, including one that extinguished the ground rent.
I do worry that, given George Howard does not seem to have left a will,
and Prudence Howard's will is unaccounted for, that I may in fact find
it impossible to trace any of his ground rents, unless they stayed in the
Howard family through the grandchildren and appear in THEIR wills.
It may be more beneficial at this point to move on to Benjamin Howard or
James McHenry.
Jean visited today with the news that
we had been misinterpreting the spreadsheet called 'Ground Rents'-- assuming
it was a listing of ground rents and not an indication that ground rents
were mentioned in the description as adjoining the real property listed.
It led us to re-evaluate how to proceed in conducting searches on the ground
rent. I attempted one for George Howard and managed to track only
two steps: one before George Howard, and one after. The forward searching
is ridiculously laborious. However, we had difficulty in figuring
how to proceed on in creating a scale for the Bromley maps, which would
obviously give us greater ability to search backwards as we were doing
before. There is a scale on one of the pages, but there is some question
of whether it applies equally throughout the book. If we could be
sure it did, we would be able to proceed quite easily. As it is,
we've been rather set back by this revelation. It will mean reworking
our html indices. It will require some experimentation with the Bromley.
Morning walking tour of Annapolis State
House and Governor's mansion.
Afternoon, continued working on the completed
title searches of Lot 43 to add in details for the abstracts, and noted
a possible previous transaction for 15 Eager Street, which has always been
listed as a fee simple property, noted only in the mortgage following the
deed between George Presbury and Juliana Spencer. It will require
more thought than is possible at four on a Friday, however.
Intellectual victory. Jen provided
us with the Black's Law Dictionary, and over the course of an hour, Elizabeth
and I did manage to clarify a number of concepts and achieve a much clearer
understanding of The Ground Rent and the various legal terms attendant
thereon. It involved a lot of charts and careful thinking, but we
did feel that we reached a new level of facility with the project.
It also, perhaps unfortunately, clarified an important point which we had
not before appreciated, but which contextualised yesterday's meeting.
If the goal of the project is to discover the identity of the original
ground rent owner, we are not working the right direction, because our
title searches have essentially traced the transfer of property, not the
transfer of ownership of the ground rent. If the goal is to discover
whether the ground rent on the properties in question is still extant,
then we are working in the right direction, but will likely be unable to
uncover to whom the ground rent is being paid.
Tasks for tomorrow: print a list of definitions and our interpretations thereof for use in our shared workspace. For good or for ill, we did come up with a short-hand between legalese and our basic understanding of it which uses terms of very shaded meaning, and in an effort not to confuse the two, we ought to have the clarification at hand at all times.
Given the difficulty of today's process,
we really did not move on to Probate in any significant way. I did
begin to go back through my completed title searches and add in the missing
detail, and to note where possible where a search of the Register of Wills
may yield more information.
Spent two hours in the morning trying
one final time to fill in the cracks for Lot 43, without any success.
The trail seems to be cold.
Mid-morning meeting with the ground rents project group, clarifying any questions that had come up in the meanwhile. We discussed adding to our html abstracts the meets and bounds of all lots described in any transaction, as well as detailed notes on any wills or court cases mentioned in the land records, in an effort to trace how individuals are related.
In the afternoon, Jean gave us a demonstration of Heritage Quest Online, and Jen and Kim tutored us on the Registry of Wills.
We also passed on our debate of Hamilton vs Jefferson. For those counting, the Hamiltonians rank at three, Jeffersonians one, with a vote for Aaron Burr and a dark horse vote for James Madison.
Amendment: We also discussed the difficulty
of working within Microsoft Word to create a streamlined visual of the
title searches. The difficult seems to lie in Word creating a 'canvas'
whenever I insert a text box, and the canvas is not adjustable. We
thought it might be possible to use powerpoint and convert the pages to
PDF.
Morning meeting of Appraisal Dept;
morning session on Maryland history of cooking (very interesting if not
well organised). In the afternoon, concentrated on tracking down
the
holes in the Lot 43 title searches. Not particularly successful.
Finished the title searches for the
odd-numbered addresses on East Eager that comprise Lot 43 for George Howard.
The difficulty of extensive computer work is making itself known particularly
in terms of eye-strain and inadequate lighting; more natural sunlight would
be a great aid to visibilty and comfort. On Monday I will try to
track down the dangling bits from the addresses-- attempting to match property
descriptions to be sure as I can be that Presbury and Roche really do trail
back to George Howard regarding 13, 19, adn 21 East Eager.
Finished the search for 19 East Eager
and moved on to 13 East Eager and 23 East Eager. Quite busy property
business on this lot. I'm finding the trail runs dry for all the
properties when it gets back to George Presbury and Michael Roche, where
the property descriptions seem to encompass larger areas later split.
Given time I will attempt to fit all the disparate lots back to the George
Presbury period.
Continued the title search for 19 Eager
Street, which seems to have passed through many hands in a short period
of time. I traced it back to 1848, so I must be close to finding
the original transaction with George Howard, but the trail is momentarily
cold and will require a little extra searching.
Completed as much as possible on 7,
9, and 21 Eager Street. The title chain for 15 Eager Street was short
and to the point, but appears to have been held in fee simple from at least
1866, which is the earliest information I was able to find. I think
it at least possible that the deed holder in 1866, George Presbury and
Michael Roche, may have got that property along with the rights to 7, 9,
and 21 Eager Street; the property descriptions did not seem to match exactly
and so it could be that 15 was included in that sale. At present
I've only made a note of that rather than attempting to thoroughly plot
out the dimensions and their changes through time. I am also conducting
a title search for 19 Eager Street.
The morning was occupied with the Appraisal
Department meeting, followed by a seminar on George Calvert's Catholic
leanings running til nearly noon. After lunch I continued working
on the title search for 7, 9, and 21 Eager Streets, attempting to fill
out details by closely reading the deeds and leases. I seem to be
missing a transfer at some point, and the dimensions of the property seem
to have changed over time, perhaps with the building of a wall, but I'm
not sure they've changed as much as they might refer to another spot.
7 and 9 may also have transferred several times as linked lots, later separating
in leases while the three spots together were sold as one unit. It
very quickly becomes a confusing tangle! I'm wondering if we should
also be attempting to write the title searches in PDF rather than Netscape
Composer, where design abilities are limited and there's no way to visually
link transfers. I have emailed Joyce and Kim with the question.
Continued the title search on 7, 9,
and 21 East Eager for the length of the day. Despite the apparent
slowness of progress it is a very intensely engaging process requiring
great concentration. I did manage to complete the title search for
these properties, all on Lot 43 distributed to George Howard, and will
only need a few minutes to clarify a few of my notes in the morning before
moving on to a new set of addresses. The greatest difficulty with
this aspect of the project is in comparing the description of the addresses
before the date they were awarded their current numerals. The stories
continue to take somewhat misty shape; George Howard's wife Prudence appeared
to leave all her properties to Charles Howard in unknown circumstances,
and Charles held them in trust for a child called Eugene Howard Post.
There certainly seem to be frequent interconnections between all parties
involved. The Howards are becoming quite familiar company.
Began backward searches for the George
Howard titles. Joyce sat with us through a practise run on Block
524 and succeeded in tracking addresses 8 - 10 Mt Vernon Place. I
then began a new search on Block 512, finding about nineteen hands through
with addresses 7, 9, and 21 East Eager had passed through. We did
note that we are unable to form much in terms of a coherent chart in Netscape
Composer, but careful notetaking should make it readily apparent when or
if we choose to do so in PDF. Interesting stories begin to emerge
through the deeds.
Briefly continued to search forward
in the George Howard titles. Afternoon meeting with all involved
in the project clarified a good many points, including some technical problems,
and covered the use of SDAT to facilitate backward searches, which should
move more rapidly. We all seem to feel a renewed sense of purpose
with a clear eye toward the objectives of the project and are all much
more confidant in the progress we have made. The greatest difficulty
is in finding legible address numerals on the Bromley. There are
also a number of repeated numerals between blocks, adding to the confusion.
Continued title searching for George
Howard. Proceeding so far by comparing the spreadsheet compared by
Jean for the ground rents with my charts from the MDLandRec books from
1829-1838. Some I have not yet been able to find; others I was able
to take quite far, and I feel I am beginning to get a better perspective
on the land and property trade at this time period. I've completed
roughly three fourths of George Howard's ground rent title searches through
at least the first transaction after the division. I have been able
to piece together some details of the Chancery Court case between George
Howard and Thomas Edmonson Jr, and am beginning to notice repeated personalities,
like Gustav Lurman. It is very interesting, but time consuming.
I imagine it will be slow progress forward. I am looking forward
to our group meet tomorrow to discuss progress reports and hopefully arrive
at a consensus for goals, now that we are at our half-way point in the
internship.
Completed chart of all transactions
for all three heirs. Began title searching for George Howard; had
some good success tracking within MDLandRec site. I am structuring
the search by first using only the LandRec indices for the years 1829-1838;
after exhausting those, I will move on to the next three indices.
I hope in this way to first get a thorough knowledge of the records, and
also to be absolutely thorough in my use of each index. I completed
seven searches for George Howard through 1838 today; I'm tracking my progress
with another chart in Microsoft Word until I've completed a full search
and will then be able to construct an html in final form. I am finding
this a very interesting process, and feel like I'm beginning to see some
of the underbelly of the land and property trade in Baltimore in what was
obviously a very busy period of time.
Began title searching for Benjamin
Howard by first creating a chart of all transactions in the three MDLandRec
grantor indices from which I completed the image captures. The chart
notes the following:
Index HTML / Grantee / Description / Instrument / Clerk Bk Pg
Also took the time to find the corrections for the problem pages noted 3 July.
In working on the chart, I was able to study the transactions with an eye toward the title search proper, and began to notice a pattern of familiar names involved in both receiving deeds and granting. The Gilmor family in particular seem connected to Benjamin Howard; he appears as an executor for Wm Gilmor, dec., and grants deeds frequently to Robert Gilmor, who appears as a grantor himself. My interest is certainly piqued and I am looking forward to starting the title search again on Monday.
Work Log and the three completed Benjamin
Howard charts from today have been uploaded to ECPCLIO.
Completed image capture on the MDLandRec
Baltimore County grantor indices through 1838 for all three heirs and studied
the Sophia Reed sample title search. Waiting for word from Joyce
on how to proceed with constructing such, or how to move on with the indices
and other databases. Had no problems today with either the server
or with mistaken book and page numbers.
Finished transcribing and image capture
of the Howard and McHenry heirs' ground rents listing and created a new
html page for each pending a decision on how to integrate that information
onto the main indices for the heirs. Began the title search PDF captures,
completing the first round of 1829-1831 for George and Benjamin Howard
from the Maryland LandRec site, and saved to the individual's folder on
the E drive, again pending further integration.
Some of the clerk's book and page references were not immediately decipherable, as follows:
Html pg / heir / street description / clerk's initials, book and page #
251 / GHo / Forrest Str, Lexington, Lexington
& Liberty, Eutaw, Lexington, Park / WG 201 145
251 / GHo / Saratoga & North, Camden,
York, Hill, Pratt, Hanover, Sharp / WG 201 145
252 / BHo / Hanover / WG 201 693
253 / BHo / Lee Str, Guilford Alley &
Goodman, York & Goodman, Barre, Conway, Cowper Alley, Brandy Alley,
Lee Str, Wm Hughes / WG 202 145
254 / BHo / Branton 261 acres, Belfast
10 1/8 acres / WG 204 82
255 / BHo / Chatsworth 2al, Newington
2al / WG 205 325
255 / BHo / Calvert / WG 206 15
255 / BHo / Baltimore / WG 206 100
256 / BHo / Commerce / WG 206 305
259 / BHo, WmHo, ChHo / Washington Sq,
Washington Place, Monument Str / WG 211 73
262 / BHo / 4' alley / WG 214 435
263 / BHo / St Paul's Lane / WG 215 498
Continued work on the Howard Distribution
Transcripts, completing James McHenry's transcripts and commentaries for
html pages _220-30, _252, _293 and _497. Heard a seminar by the collector/donor
of the Maryland Rye Whiskey Bottle Collection; charming man and informative
lecture. Will begin the title search phase Tuesday morning, and if
the net traffic becomes too insurmountable, I will concentrate on transferring
the ground rent transcripts to the heir's htmls.
Continued work on the Howard Distribution
Transcripts, transferring all of Benjamin Howard's transcripts and most
of James McHenry's to their respective htmls and transcribing Benjamin
Howard's and James McHenry's lists of ground rents. Also adding to
the commentary of the heir's lot descriptions the Bromley Atlas Block No.,
and continuing to standarise the format of each transcripted page.
Work completed today: Howard html pages 152-162 and 214-219.
Problem: James McHenry seems to have two
Lot #8s; and in the Benjamin Howard sequence, a file designated solely
by the lot number, 408, and with no listed Bromley Atlas block number,
seems to be on the Bromley block 496. Is it no longer extant?
I have temporarily included an image capture and link to the block on the
Bromley in that file, shown in my Benjamin Howard folder as -_-_-408.
Continued work on the Howard Distribution
Transcripts, transferring the rest of George Howard's transcripts to his
html, and transcribing his list of ground rents on pages 149-151.
Will begin the other heirs tomorrow.
Continued on the Howard Distribution
Transcripts, and began transferring transcripts to the Howard heir htmls.
Am also trying to restructure the transcripts I wrote earlier that were
different in form from later ones.
Met with Kim and Joyce on the title searches
and covered how to conduct them, as well as the Land Recs. Once I
have finished with the transcripts, I will start on the title searches.
Spent most of the day on the Howard
Distribution Transcripts, completing as follows:
MSA_S512_8863_0155-160, _215-223
Also spoke briefly with Jean regarding the title searches and will meet with Kim for a more extensive introduction tomorrow.
We identified a problem with one of the
Sanborn designations-- lots not properly on Plate 8 but named as such will
be re-named Sanborn: Key with an appropriate image capture.
Met with Jean at nine regarding the
Sanborn maps and answered the questions from the week before, as well as
coordinating on the Howard Distribution transcripts. With the htmls
temporarily completed barring further instruction, moved back to the transcripts.
Those completed today as follows:
MSA_S512_8863_0072-3, _0074, _0076-78, _0080, _0083, _0086, _0088, _0090-92, _0102, _0111-12, _0130, _0139-48, _0153-4
Some of the above strictly regard George
and Benjamin Howard or James McHenry, while others were general court papers.
I attempted more complex html encoding for some pages, such as _0148,
to better maintain the look of the original paper. Though time-consuming,
I am pleased with the result, and in the case of achieving a smaller superscript,
will return to completed transcripts and replace the ungainly and large
superscripts with the smaller one.
Completed the Sanborn image captures
with the exception of lots that could not be easily identified (listed
below). On Monday will check through the completed html files to
ensure that everything is in order.
Troubleshooting: In addition the problem with the image captures noted on 21 June, some images are showing up saved to the wrong files. A thorough check on Monday is in order for that as well.
Sanborn questionables:
James McHenry:
508_all
512_all
894_all
1922_all
Benjamin Howard:
498_8_31, 32
507_all
508_all
513_all
526_all
665_all
1179_all
George Howard:
508_all
512_all
593_all
699_all (could be rail)
894_all
1179_all
Also, 534_383_7_61-- the Howard html is
not correct.
We realised today we were using the
wrong Bromley scans for the htmls, and switched to the PDF files on editonline
from the ECPCLIO scans, which did not link to individual html pages but
rather the entire document. Completed changing the images and the
target links to the editonline versions, and moved on with the Sanborn
maps. The Sanborns are by far the most difficult to work with, given
the changes in street names and the different orientation points, but they
are crisp images and look very well on the htmls. Completed roughly
two thirds of James McHenry's Sanborn images today.
Troubleshooting: some of the image captures
do not seem to be saving, or they reduce or enlarge or stretch when the
files are opened again. The reason for this is not readily apparent,
nor does it occur consistently.
Completed the image selections for
the Howard Distribution for all three heirs in both real property and ground
rent. Waiting on the answers for a few questions regarding the Sanborn
maps before using those.
Upcoming questions: are we going to be
including a typed transcription of the Howard Distribution images on the
individual htmls?
Excepting a two-hour period during
which the EC1 was used for a meeting and I was unable to use a computer
with Netscape Composer, I spent the day working with the Bromley map, and
completed all image transfers for both real property and ground rents for
George and Benjamin Howard and James McHenry. I then moved on to
the Howard Distribution image transfers, and completed half of James McHenry's
files, working on both ground rents and real property simultaneously.
During the two hours out of the classroom, I worked on the Howard Distribution
transcriptions and completed several, both lots and lengthier letters or
official court documents, and some pages of the will left by John Howard.
It was enlightening to see the process and the legal language, and also
to learn that James McHenry was underage, an 'infant', at the time of the
suit. It was also interesting to see how long the legal process seems
to have taken. At one point, a group of signatures which included
the underage grandchildren's guardians and all the Howard sons also seemed
to include a signature by a 'Ms' or possibly 'Miss' Howard-- Sophia?
Without knowing when her marriage took place, it seemed a curious thing.
Elizabeth and I had some discussion regarding the aesthetics of the htmls-- headers, font characters, etc. Regarding the link to the Bromley map document-- it does not link to html pages, as the Howard Distribution does. We have not at this time included the html page numbers, but can easily do so. We hope to bring up these questions at the next meeting.
Excepting an hour and a half for a
preservation and collections seminar on photography, spent the day working
on transferring Bromley images to the ground rent hmtls for George and
Benjamin Howard; James McHenry's remains incomplete.
Three questions arose during the day and are awaiting adjudication from someone with the proper authority to answer:
1) when creating the 'Block #' link in both the real property and ground rents lots, are we to link to the ECPCLIO Bromley or to the one in editonline?
and two specific to the ground rents pages:
2) Ground rent lot '548 7 144 Howard, Benj
155 [Little Ross] James Bull lot Franklin Andrew Patterson lot' appears
with an asterisk, of which reference is unknown.
3) Ground rent lots '1921+ 17 394 Howard,
George 147 David's Fancy Cross The Harbour #393 ditto; 1921,1922,1916,1917'
list several lots. Should each be given a separate hmtl page?
In all other respects the work goes smoothly.
I forward the Bromley key to all others working on the project in hopes
that it proves helpful. It has already simplified my own searching.
Devoted the day to creating a key to
the 1906 Bromley map under the following rubric:
PDF Page #
Plate #
Identifying Mark in Top Left Corner
All Block or Lot Numbers on Plate
Identifying Mark in Bottom Right Corner
Completed key through PDF page 92/Plate
28. Was able to use as early as page 30 when Joyce had trouble locating
lot 1176. Uploaded to ECPCLIO for unrestricted access.
Second day importing images from the
Bromley map for George and Benjamin Howard and James McHenry. Have
completed all individual lot pages for the three men and have started on
the ground rent pages. Also began a key for the blocks on each page
of the Bromley map, having noticed that some pages were repeat scans, to
facilitate faster searching. Had one particular triumph when finding
Federal Hill necessitated extensive searching (being unfamiliar with the
Baltimore area and map) and comparison to the Sanford. The incident
highlighted the importance a compilation of sources with easy access.
Made contact with Jean and cleared up some problems with interpreting the spreadsheet and ensured we were all consulting the same sources in the same way.
The only real difficulty is in capturing
the PDF images at sufficient resolution and size. A test print ensured
the images are dark enough to read, but the smallest numbers of the lots
especially are hard to read, or blur when the image is enlarged.
Second day of html. Completed
transferring the 1828 and the Ground Rents spreadsheets to the George and
Benjamin Howard and James McHenry individual html indices. Ground
Rent pages as yet contain only the single lateral lines of information
from the spreadsheets; we are awaiting details from Jean regarding individuated
categories to be sure we correctly title each category. Have also
begun capturing images from the Bromley Atlas PDF for the George Howard
lots. There appear to be some inconsistencies between our data when
compared to the maps, particularly as regards street names. Again,
we are awaiting word from Jean, but in general at least two streets can
be matched and the image captured and saved to the lot's individual page.
First day of html; transferring spreadsheet
information on lots for George and Benjamin Howard and James McHenry.
Completed all lots for all three men in the resurvey of Mt Vernon Square
spreadsheet, and completed through the 311th entry in the 1828 allocation,
excepting lots deleted for the Mt Vernon resurvey. Working with fellow
intern to establish a consistent format, as follows:
Block:
Atlases html:
Sanborne:
Howard Distribution Lot Number:
Name of Heir (last, first):
Howard Estate html:
Four binding streets
Title Search (to be filled later)
Google Earth (to be filled later)
Have also established consistent pathways
and folder options in the E hardrives. We have tentatively uploaded
the day's progress to the H drive as 'ground rents' folder, containing
all pathways begun today. We have linked all sub-folders to an html
outline (index.html) particular to each intern, including the allocation
of heirs by Jean to each of us.
First day of transcription work on
Ground Rents in Baltimore City: John Eager Howard's Estate project (http://mdhistory.net/msaref08/msa_s512_8863/html/index.html).
Transcriptions completed as follows:
(Our page number / book number)
(the following pages
have no archival page number and are listed by book number; they refer
to George Howard's Division Allotments)