Weekly Update

​Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening!  Please choose whichever salutation applies to you!  When I wrote last week the ground was covered with up to 5" of snow.  Today temps will exceed 70 degrees, as they have for the last two days and probably will for the next several days as well.  Brilliant sunshine and a perfectly still Shovel Shop Pond make for a lovely scene this morning!  I've attached an image below for you to enjoy.


For the next few weeks I'll be sending out notes about some of the artifacts at the Museum, lesser known ones that I think you might enjoy learning about.  Today I will be talking about a rare map of Easton, perhaps a one-of-a-kind map (I've never seen another, but there is always a possibility other copies exist somewhere.)

Back around 1796, a German writer and some-time actor by the name of Alois Senefelder, looking for a way to print plays he had written, attempted to use copper plates to engrave his writing on.  He had poor success at this.  One day, as the story goes, he was writing a list on stone with a grease pencil and noticed how well the porous Bavarian limestone took the grease.  He decided that by using a polished limestone surface and etching away uninked areas, he could make a suitable print from the remaining raised areas, and lithography was born!  He eventually perfected the technique and published his treatise on lithography in 1818.  This new type of flat surface printing became the standard for scientific printing, architectural drawings, and map printing.

We have in our collection an 1830 map of Easton printed in Boston, Ma. by the Senefelder Lithography Company, one of several lithographers in Boston who could provide high quality prints.  We do not know what prompted the printing of this particular map, but it is important for using the above mentioned technique, and for what the map shows (or does not show.)

This wonderful map clearly shows the entire town of Easton, names the bordering towns, and uses a nice legend to denote houses, mills, schools, and stores.  A scale using rods for distance measurement is also included.  The first thing one notices is that this map clearly shows woodlands, cleared land, and meadows in Easton.  Since the days of the first settlers around 1695, land was being cleared for farming, wood supplies for building, firewood, and charcoal making.  From this map you can see how much of Easton had been cleared by this time.  It is often said that there is no virgin timber standing in Easton, and when you see the amount of land being cleared, you might wonder how any trees are left in town at all.

The next feature is a nice look at the waterways and ponds that had developed, especially around the industrial sites in North Easton, South Easton, and Furnace Village.  Though none of these ponds are labeled, you can clearly see the major ones in existence in 1830: Old Pond, New Pond, Keith's Pond (Furnace Village), Leach's Pond (Borderland area), Long Pond, Picker Pond, Hoe Shop Pond, Shovel Shop Pond, Langwater Pond (North Easton), Morse Pond, Dean's Pond, and the Shoddy Mill Pond (South Easton), and Knapp's Pond is tucked away in Unionville.  All of the major roads are on this map, but the only ones that are labeled are the two major stagecoach roads: Bay Road, and the Taunton to Boston Turnpike (here labeled as the Taunton Turnpike, and the Branch Turnpike) which stage travelers would need to know.  Houses are denoted but no names are attached.  However, Inns, churches, schoolhouses, stores, and official places of business such as the Meeting House and Town House at Easton Center are clearly shown.  As I study this map, I think it is clearly intended as a travel guide, perhaps an early version of today's roadmaps, allowing one to use the main highways through an area, know where to stop overnight, and where to purchase supplies or conduct business.  I wonder if other maps from area towns might create a system of travel for those who utilized the stagecoaches?

Have a great week and stay well,
Frank

Shovel Shop Pond

1830 Map