For those of you who read the Hunterdon County Democrat, you will be familiar with a long-time feature of the newspaper. Titled “Old Ink,” it gives short excerpts from stories 125, 100, 75 and 50 years ago. For a little while, they were publishing items from 175 years ago, which I much appreciated, but the editors changed their minds and went back to the old formula.
February 2012
Reading Howell’s Map of 1785
Some time ago, I made reference to the map of the Delaware River prepared by Reading Howell. Some people pointed out to me that Howell had made such a map in 1792, but were surprised by the date 1785. I had seen a copy of that map but had been unable to find it in my papers—that is, until today, when I found a very nice copy among the news clippings and other items saved by Edna Laszlo of Raven Rock. I am sorry to say, there was no notation explaining where the original map is kept.
Schafer, Shaffer or Shepherd
This is a reply to Kevin Shepherd who wrote this comment on my “Basic Resources” page:
Keith Shepherd <kshepherd@yahoo.com> 1/3/2012: Do you happen to have any information on the German or Dutch Shafer/Shepherd families of Amwell Township, Hunterdon County, NJ starting from about the mid 1750’s? I’ve been to the Hunterdon County Historical Society several times and found a few files on them but there are a lot of missing pieces. I’m trying to track down the first Shafer/Shepherd to arrive in 1754. The tradition is that he died on shipboard on his way over from Germany but his wife Margaret and their 4 children named John, Henry, Peter & possibly Richard (he may have been in his Mother’s womb) carried on to Amwell. She later married Andrew Bearder, who was on the ship with them when he traveled to America.