Fun with maps!

With three dachshunds in residence this weekend, I was happy to be able to get a break from the noise and spend some time in the Grosvenor Room at the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library http://www.buffalolib.org/content/special-collections).  This room houses all of the rare books, documents, and maps that the library has to offer.  I went there on Saturday in search of maps.  Although some are accessible on line, I was hoping to see first hand their selection of early nineteenth century maps of Buffalo.  I was not disappointed.

Buffalo and Erie County Public Library

My second book in the Orphans and Inmates series takes place between 1840 and 1841.  I have used the City of Buffalo Directory for 1840 to establish authentic locations for various residences and businesses as the story unfolds around the city.  I wanted to understand how long it would take for my characters to get from one place to another.  For example, the poorhouse was located in Black Rock where York, Eleventh and North Streets come together, a few miles away from Buffalo.  While the original Buffalo Orphan Asylum was actually located on Niagara St., I have changed its location in my novel to the same property as the poorhouse because it is necessary to the story.  My main character lives on North Street, and her husband, the orphan asylum's physician, has a medical clinic on Niagara Street.  There is also a benevolent widow who lives on Pearl Street, a boarding house on Beak Street and a school on Franklin St. As it turns out, most of my locations are about a thirty to fifty minute walk from each other, although during the winter months the characters travel by carriage, which speeds things up a bit.

Interestingly, I found a rabbit hole to go down while I was looking at the maps.  On the 1836 map of Buffalo, the poorhouse was marked by the letter Q in the location I just described.  In this picture the letter Q is somewhat obscured by my red dot (still trying to get used to all this great technology!).  However the poorhouse was not indicated at all on the 1848 map, but there was a notation of a workhouse about a mile and a half away.  It was marked by the number 10 on Fifth Street, between Pennsylvania and Husdon Streets (now entirely obscured by my yellow dot!).  So, my next stop after the Grosvenor Room was the Research Library at the Buffalo History Museum (www.buffalohistory.org/), where I spent some time trying to find out if the workhouse and the poorhouse were the same institution. 

City of Buffalo, 1836

City of Buffalo, 1848

                                                   
As I have mentioned before, the Directories for the period contain a wealth of information, like the city charter (in the earliest editions), a list of the city officials, and in some cases, a brief history of some of the city institutions, like the Buffalo Orphan Asylum. After going through several City of Buffalo Directories, I learned that in 1840 there was a Superintendent of the Poor and a Superintendent of the Workhouse (and a coroner, which was unrelated to my current quest, but a valuable piece of information none the less), suggesting that the workhouse and the poorhouse were two separate institutions.  However, that didn't tell me why the poorhouse was not located on the 1848 map or why the workhouse was not located on the 1836 map.  I discovered that the Research Library at the Buffalo History Museum had a recent donation that will be of great use to me in my research.  They are now in possession of the Proceedings of the Board of Supervisors of Erie County for the years that the poorhouse was located in Black Rock (1829-1850).  This is a wonderful addition to an already fine collection, because they include the annual reports of the Keeper of the Poorhouse and other municipal institutions.  No other research facility in Buffalo that I am aware of has municipal reports for the poorhouse going back that far.  So, plans for next weekend include a trip back to the Research Library to spend several hours going through the microfilmed records to learn more about the workhouse and how it figured into the early social welfare system in Buffalo and a discussion with a local historian so that I can add more colored dots to my maps!.