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Child's 1872 Gazetteer may be the
single most
important history and genealogy book about Sullivan County ever published. It
appeared a few months before Quinlan's justly famous History. While
Quinlan's has all of the legends of Sullivan County lore, Child's Gazetteer has the facts and
the lists of names and occupations (as
well as a generous helping of the lore, too!).
In addition to the names liberally sprinkled through the history sections, the
Gazetteer offers page after page of names (and some details) of everyone in Sullivan County at that time
who could possibly have been considered to be "in business" --
including farmers, and for farmers it even lists the number of acres
owned or under lease. Here's a example of the name listings:
Child's Gazetteer is also
useful in developing an understanding of rural life at
the time, in the decade after the Civil War. What Child considered
important general information is interesting: "maxims of law", advice on
succeeding in business, formulas for mixing peculiar substances, specific information about the states and
territories and their attractiveness, and a discussion of how to claim the
public lands are just a few of the subjects.
The original Gazetteer lacked an index.
This lack, coupled with the multitude of lists, footnotes, and text
references, made the book difficult and awkward for genealogists and historians to use --
it required reading the entire book to ensure that all references to an
individual or a locality had been seen, and even then missing one or more
was to be expected.
We
have fixed that problem: we have indexed the whole thing!! It has
been a massive undertaking, but Child's Gazetteer and Business Directory
for Sullivan County, NY, for 1872-1873 on CD-ROM, includes this new 87
page index.
Child's Gazetteer on CD-ROM is now available. As
well as the full text of the Gazetteer (all 373 pages of it), plus a
reproduction of the foldout map, and the new index (87 pages), we've added finding
aids such as excerpts from older topographic maps of Sullivan County, and
the current version of our directory of old place names in Sullivan
county.
WHO NEEDS THE GAZETTEER?
If
you are working
on genealogy or history with a Sullivan County connection, we think that you
do. People who have worked in the area know that 19th century source material about Sullivan
County -- particularly material like this with large numbers of
names of "ordinary people" -- is extremely scarce. The new
index makes this information accessible in a way that it has never been
before. We think that libraries
will decide that the CD-ROM represents a good way to avoid further wear and
tear on that carefully guarded original or reprint of Child's Gazetteer.
Furthermore, it will save staff time now spent explaining how the Gazetteer
was organized. It's easy to navigate the CD-ROM, and most library
visitors will be able to use it without difficulty.
We
know that teachers, particularly in Social Studies and History, will find
it useful. Since this is a CD-ROM, the kind of AV facilities used to
display PowerPoint presentations in the classroom can easily display pages
of the Gazetteer -- it is in PDF format -- and the onscreen
navigational aids enable you to jump from section to section, page to page,
without wasting time (and class attention).
If
you're simply interested in Sullivan County, NY -- even as it is today --
the Gazetteer represents an inexpensive, easy to use way of learning
about the county's 19th century past.
Here's
an unsolicited comment we just received from a satisfied purchaser:
"I
just received the CD yesterday and I am very pleased with it. As a
matter of fact, I plan to order another one to donate to the [...]
Historical Society. Thank you so much for creating this CD - I
was able to confirm very valuable genealogical information for my (future)
book." |
