Does anyone know where I can take a look at the map of the "Fruitland Improvement Company" once at Atsion? There was a copy in the Burlington County Clerk’s Office at one time but no longer.
The ground they cleared just over the railroad line on Quaker Bridge Road was part of the town of Fruitland and there were several houses in this area at one time. I don’t know if they were part of fruitland or not. I walked the area last week, found a part of an old bottle and a couple of red bricks but that was all. I’m thinking the houses were just a little past the area they cleared.
Don:
Welcome to the forums!
I remember viewing the original Fruitland survey map years ago at the clerk’s office, but like other important public documents there, it has been missing for several years. Another map that had disappeared more then ten years ago is the 1795 map of Taunton Furnace. Two years ago, someone discovered the map in a collection donated to a local South Jersey historical society. Not knowing the identity of the map, the person showed it to me and I immediately recognized it and the large purple numbers stamped on the back confirmed it as the map missing from the clerk’s office. Working with the local society and the New Jersey State Archives, the map was returned to the current county clerk, Tim Tyler, who promised to protect the original and place a photocopy in the red expandable folders. I tell you this story to let you know that someday the Fruitland map may reappear under similar circumstances.
There are, however, many other important and historic original maps in those same folders, which should be digitized and the originals put away for safekeeping. It is unfortunate that past county clerks have been poor stewards of the records under their control. For one of the original counties in the colony of West New Jersey, so much of its historical material has disappeared, especially when compared to the robust collection of material generated in Gloucester County, which still retains documents dating to the seventeenth century.
During the last 40 years, the New Jersey State Archives has come down to the Burlington County Clerk’s office and Surrogate’s office on several occasions and gathered up boxes of records, but much of the missing material had disappeared decades before at the hands of the clerks and, to a much lesser extent, common thieves. Tyler is doing a good job with the funds he has available and the county did establish a records storage center a few years back to house historic materials. While we cannot now recover the records disposed off by past county clerks and surrogates, we can salvage and conserve what is left. The clerk’s and surrogate’s offices must, however, do something to increase security within their collections and prevent the continued pilferage by the thieves who visit there.
Best regards,
Jerseyman
