I have tried to list every individual named in this
atlas. If a business is a partnership
with two names attached to it, like 'Alderman & Barnes,' it will have two
entries, one for Alderman and one for Barnes.
Most maps are of towns, which are divided into numbered school
districts, a system which I have followed in this index, because there is no
grid system on these maps. If the map
is a detailed map of a town, giving street names, I will give the street name
as a finding aid. Often names will
occur twice, when an individual lives near a border between two towns or
lives within a mapped village in a town,and
then I have shown both town and village listings. If a person has two or more properties on
the same street or in the same school district, I indicate the number of
properties in parentheses.
If the same person (and I have
tried to check to make sure that it is the same person) owns properties at
two different locations, I will repeat his name by just using ditto marks. If
the same name appears written out twice in a row, it means that they are two
different persons, or that I could not confirm that they are the same
person.
If a business is clearly attached
to the property, I have added the type of business shown by the map. If the location is ambiguous, between two
properties, I have not tried to guess which property it belongs with.
Most people named are owners of
the property, but a few are listed as 'oc.' which I take to mean 'occupant,'
or renter. They are all listed too.
Many names have 'Est.' after
them, which I take to mean 'Estate,' and that the owner has died recently,
and his estate now owns the property.
Some exceptions show up. For
example, E.B. Chase in Lyndon is shown in the Atlas with 'Est.' but he is
listed in the Directory ten years later apparently alive. But it may be his son in the later listing. |
Other common
abbreviations are B.S.S. (blacksmith shop), G.M. (grist mill), and S.M. (saw
mill). One businessman owned so many
properties in so many towns that they are simply labeled 'A.E.J.' for Alden
E. Judevine, the man who later gave money for libraries in Hardwick and
Concord.
The Atlas usually gives only last
names and first initials. When
possible I have found first names in Hamilton Child's Gazetteer and Directory
of Caledonia and Essex Counties (Syracuse, N.Y.: 1886), and added them in
brackets after the initials of people.
When there is not an exact match, but a remarkable similarity, I have
suggested a link between names, but in general I have tried to list all the
information as I found it. Sometimes
the information-gatherers for both the Child's Gazetteer and the Beer's Atlas
seem to have taken names down phonetically (e.g., a 'T. Hutcherson' in
Stannard is in the Atlas). If I could
have found a 'T. Hutchinson' in the Gazetteer, I would have put in a link to
it in the index. I estimate there is
about a fifty percent overlap between the names in the Atlas and the names in
Child's Gazetteer, surprisingly little when one considers that there was only
an eleven-year gap between their publication dates. Sometimes not just
individuals but whole families seem to appear or disappear in this
eleven-year gap.
The Town of Lyndon has an
Incorporated School District that includes the villages of Lyndonville and
Lyndon Center. I assume this enlarged
district includes the old school districts numbers 1, 3, and 14, that no
longer appear on the map, and it shows up in the Index below as 'Incorp.
Dist.'
16' refers to the unnumbered St.
Johnsbury district colored pink between districts 11 and 14 on page 43. There is no St. Johnsbury district 16 on
the map, and this looks like a logical place for it. It is too far from the other pink-colored
districts, 4 and 15, for it to be part of either of them.
Some districts are designated
'fractional districts.' This means
that a school district is divided between two towns. It usually has the same number in each
town. Both towns shared the funding
for the district in proportion to the number of students attending from each
town.
Leslie Moore, Flemington, N.J.,
August 2013 |
