BALTIMORE COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Plats), 1851-1988
Doco Grain Corporation to Lawrence Warehouse Company, Exhibit A. August 26, 1935, MSA CSU2136-2550, p012524b.gif
Since April, the Archives has been working with the Administrative Office of the Courts and the Baltimore County Circuit Court to complete a project to describe and make accessible nearly the entire collection of oversize materials at the Towson courthouse. Included among these materials are subdivision, condominium, survey, and county right-of way plats.
Using the model developed for the Allegany County project, the Archives completed appraisal and description of each item prior to capturing the image on microfilm. Conservation procedures were undertaken as needed to stabilize the condition of the original plats.
The Baltimore County Circuit Court has a plat collection that begins in 1851, when the city was separated from the county. The earlier records of the county were maintained at the Baltimore City courthouse. The development of these collections has occurred in several different ways. From 1851 until 1912, materials were acquired in a number of formats and were maintained as files. From 1912 until the present, the Court has maintained these instruments as both original documents and as reproductions placed in books. Since 1945, copies also have been deposited at the Archives. At the start of this project, it was estimated that there were nearly 32,000 original plats at the courthouse.
Plats from 1851-1945 consist primarily of survey plats and other plats associated with land transactions. The collection also includes diagrams of machinery or equipment filed with the court as a form of registration. The courthouse maintained these original plats folded, stored in envelopes, and arranged in drawers. Concern over the preservation and arrangement of these materials led to legislation, Chapter 672, Laws of 1912, empowering the Clerk to employ a surveyor to make true and accurate copies of the originals and place them into books. This method of recordation, the acceptance of an original and tracing the instrument on pages placed in plat books, continued until 1956.
By the early 1960's, the recordation process allowed for diazo copies of the original plats to be placed into the books. A retrospective project was then undertaken to provide similar diazo copies of the tracings begun in 1912. Transfers of record material to the Archives since 1977 have resulted in the deposit of both sets of plat books, the tracings and the diazo copies. The original plats continued to be stored in the vault at the courthouse, with copies of the books provided for reference use by the public. However, close review of these books by surveyors and other users at the Court has revealed discrepancies between the tracings filed in the books and the original plats. In order to ensure complete accuracy during the project, all the original plats from the vault were transferred to the Archives.
Chapter 1016, Laws of 1945 required the courts to file subdivision plats with the Land Office. Recognizing the value of plats in establishing property rights, this legislation established uniform standards of accuracy for plats and required their filing with the Land Office to prevent their loss. In 1965, the State Archives became responsible for the functions of the Land Office and its collections.
These plats filed with the Land Office and later with the Archives consist of both subdivision and early condominium plats. Condominiums were distinguished as a new form of real property by the Horizontal Property Act, Chapter 387, Laws of 1963. However, the Baltimore County Circuit Court did not create a separate series of condominium plats until 1974. In any case, the required work on this portion of the collection was able to be completed by fully processing this material located at the Archives.
As of March 1, 1996, the Archives had delivered a total of 20,250 aperture cards to the Baltimore County Circuit Court, representing two complete sets of 10,125 plats. Included in this total are 1,652 condominium plats and 5,907 subdivision plats from books 17-48. The remaining plats were from the first 16 books, or the transfer from the Baltimore County Circuit Court. It is estimated that an additional 3,600 plats need to be delivered to complete this project.
Costs for this project have been underwritten by the Administrative Office of the Courts with funding from the Circuit Court Real Property Records Improvement Fund. Through March, the actual filming and delivery of aperture cards cost $13,535.80 and the conservation work completed cost $13,102.68, for a total of $26,638.48. Conservation measures were necessary to stabilize the condition of the original plats transferred from the Circuit Court. Nearly all plats had to be flattened in order to relax the folds. Other treatment includes surface cleaning and mending with heat set tissue. Below is the breakdown of the conservation cost as completed to date.
Treatment Number (%) Total Cost Cleaning 821 (33%) $ 2,610.78 Flattening 2532 (100%) 5,064.00 Mending 890 (35%) 3,560.00 Encapsulation 1 6.06 Database Entry 2516 (99%) 1,861.84 Treatment of 2540 plats $13,102.68
Conservation work needs to be completed on 3,500 more plats from the collection transferred to the Archives. As with the Allegany project, the Archives completed conservation work on the most recent portions of the collection first. It is likely that greater conservation efforts will be required on the older portions of the collection. As of now, the Archives is estimating remaining conservation costs to total $23,500. Cost for the production of the additional aperture cards will run an additional $4,690.
In total, the Archives expects to deliver nearly 25,000 aperture cards, two sets of nearly 12,500 plats, to the Baltimore County Circuit Court for this plat project. Total cost of the project is anticipated to be slightly over $50,000, or an average of $4.00 per plat.
[Archives Home Page || Introduction to the Archives || Maryland & Its Government || Reference Services || Geographical Services || Education & Outreach || Maryland Electronic Capital Home Page || Governor's Home Page]
© Copyright March 13, 1996 Maryland State Archives