The July updates to the History Project included several major topics – the Discovering Local History Online presentation, the demolition of the Hopewell Inn building – plus multiple new maps, and the release of digital edition of Pennington Profile. (See Site Updates for more.)
By the numbers, we finished the month with 279 files in the Archives, including 134 documents and 145 maps and aerials. The Image Gallery now has 2926 files, and the Aerial Panoramas Collection has 23 images. The Pamphlet Collection has 169 documents, and the Property Reports Collection has 84 documents, with 58 Site Survey reports and 26 Property Briefs. The interactive History Map includes 775 addresses with 102 historic places in Hopewell Borough. The History Project YouTube Channel is hosting 21 videos, plus 10 external local history videos, plus 4 videos of presentations. Please keep the materials coming!
Discovering Local History Online: Seminary Ave.
The Discovering Local History Online: Exploring Seminary Ave. presentation used Seminary Avenue in Hopewell as the example for demonstrating how researching in a variety of online resources (many free) can weave together interesting stories of our local history.
See the link for the presentation video, plus the talk slides and references.
Hopewell Inn Demolition
The Hopewell Inn Demolition Updates page includes a chronology of the demolition of the Hopewell Valley Bistro & Inn building – at 15 East Broad Street on the corner of Seminary Avenue – beginning on July 26, 2022.
It also includes additional demolition videos and photos, plus the building history, and mementos.
Pennington Profile: Digital Edition
A new Digital Edition of Pennington Profile by Margaret J. O’Connell is now available as a free digital download, with searchable text and over 190 annotated photos.
This new edition includes the full text and photographs from the original book published by Margaret O’Connell in 1966, plus additional photos from the second edition published by the Pennington Public Library in 1986 – now reformatted as a digital PDF file so it can be shared online and conveniently searched.
This important book of local history was out of print, but is now freely available for families, students, and researchers as a download,
The Digital Edition is available in PDF format in three versions: The Full Book (436 pages, 42 MB), Text Only for reading and searching (328 pages, 2 MB), and Photos Only with annotations (112 pages, 193 photos, 40 MB).
The original book and photos were digitized and processed by Douglas Dixon, with additional layout and proofing thanks to Carol A. Errickson.
Historic Maps – Topographical and Geological
The site now includes additional maps of the region, including United States Geological Survey (USGS) topographic maps of back to 1890, and New Jersey Geological Survey (NJGS) survey maps back to 1876.
The topographic maps show typology, and roads and railroads and waterways, plus towns. By 1906, they also add symbols for buildings in the towns and the outlying farms.
The colorful geological maps show surface geology and geological strata across the state.
Other Materials
Other material added to the site this month included:
- Sanborn 1925 Fire Map to Pennington Historic Maps
Please contact us if you have – or know of – images and materials that we can share to help illuminate the history of our Hopewell Valley.
