Plotting With a Plat Map

 

1860 Plat Map of Springfield, Mercer, Pennsylvania

I recently discovered this plat map dated 1860 of Mercer County, Pennsylvania showing where my 4th and 5th great grandfathers, both named Adam Grim, lived. (Bottom third and left of center next to the color changed notch.) This is significant because both go missing from between 1850 and 1880 leading to a great confusion between armchair genealogists that often combine them into one person. I wrote about this a year and a half ago here.

In 1860, my 5th great grandfather Adam Grim Sr. is likely dead but his son was most likely living at the site of his mill along the Indian Run river that is a tributary to the larger Nashannock Creek that you can see more clearly in the above map. Adam A. Grim Jr. though was very much alive as he is living with two different children in the 1880 Census taken a few week apart. Why he never shows up in the 1860 or 1870 Censuses, I can't say for sure. Perhaps because of his itinerant nature, possibly as a peddler, he was never home. This might be in part explained by the most likely early death of his wife and why I have found some of his kids nearby living with older, married siblings. Perhaps because his home is so close to the boundary between counties and four different townships, he was just missed by the census taker. So I was excited to see this plat map so I could compared it to the census taken during those years and perhaps discern a cause.

I searched the 1860 census record first for the highlighted Springfield Township in Mercer County and found the page (our of 36 pages) where the census taker was in the area and recording the information for his neighbors but left no clues as to the where abouts of Adam. The dwelling numbers assigned to each family are congruent meaning nobody was skipped because they weren't home. On the 1870 census, one person was skipped nearby though after paging through all 34 pages, it doesn't look like any attempt was ever made to go back and fill in the information missed. So in the end, finding the plat map page seems to have been for naught.

I suppose the one neat thing is that by overlaying the 1860 plat map with Google Maps, I can get an approximate location of where my 4th and 4th great grandfathers lived so if I'm ever in the area, perhaps I can get permission from whomever owns the land to do some exploring. I will definitely need to bring some bug and tick spray with me!

Google Maps