Below is a photo gallery with images of the Middletown Alsop records, first there is a description of them.
When we were in Middletown in 2017 conducting research, something I wanted to do was look through the Alsop Papers. Jessie Alsop (1875-1951) was an avid historian of Middletown. One of the things she did was to transcribe early land records and use the information contained in them to draw land ownership maps.
Her collection of papers is at the Russell Library, in the Middletown Room. It contains various documents from the work Jessie Alsop did. They were created by her and represent a substantial amount of work. I was particularly interested in the maps and land grant information, but there are other items of interest to researchers as well. There is a short paper titled “Middletown” that is a history of the town. Another paper is titled “Gleanings from Connecticut Records.” There are also documents about the history of Indians in the area, including Indian deeds, and about the history of the Connecticut River.
Many of the map documents have a letter on them – A through G. There is an image named “List of Middletown areas key to map” that describes what these are. This was Miss Alsop’s way of identifying the various areas around Middletown.
I ended up photographing the documents. The staff at the library was very helpful and I had a good place to set up a tripod with decent lighting. The documents are not in any order and there is not an index. Some are grouped together by topic, but not all. The directory folder hosted here contains images of the documents as they are in the folders at the library.
For each image, or picture, the file name starts with a number. This is just to keep them in order. Then the file name contains a brief description. For subsequent pages of an item the description is just “cont” (continued). There are 226 images.
There are several articles in “The Middler” that reference Jessie Alsop’s work, and there is a profile of her. Here is a list of those articles, all written by Reg Bacon. These can all be found at https://www.middletown1650.org/Middler.html. Reg redrew several of Miss Alsop’s maps to make them more legible and he added some additional context to them. I find them to be an excellent source of information for land ownership and for the overall land layout around the Middletown area.
- Fall 2007 – Profile of Middletown historian Jessie Alsop; feature graphic – The Jessie Alsop Map of Main Street, Middletown, in 1654.
- Spring 2008 – More redrawn land grant maps based on the research of Jessie Alsop.
- Spring 2012 – The feature graphic is the 1671 land grant map of Middlefield based on the research of Jessie Alsop.
- Spring 2018 – A redrawn land grant map of the 1721 “Three-Mile Division” east of the Connecticut River.
- Fall 2018 – An article about the Maromas section of Middletown, featuring a map of the 1671 land grants (this is an overview showing all the land grants), plus a time line, context map, 1859 map, and current map.
Jessie Alsop’s maps are also digitized and kept at the Connecticut Digital Archives. They can be accessed at https://collections.ctdigitalarchive.org/islandora/object/590002:142.
Another set of Middletown maps was produced by J. Paul Loether in 1981. I suspect that he used the Alsop papers as a source of information. Loether worked for the Greater Middletown Preservation Trust and was also Director of the historic preservation and museum division of the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. These maps are housed at the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History. They can be accessed at http://emuseum.chs.org/emuseum/people/9310/j-paul-loether/objects.
Clicking on a thumbnail will open up a photo viewer where you can zoom in and out, and scroll forward and backward to other images. The name of each image is at the bottom in white.
Below the image gallery is a list of the image file names.
IMG_001 1937 letter on Indians
IMG_002 Wongunks
IMG_003 1937 letter on Indians
IMG_004 letter cont
IMG_005 letter cont
IMG_006 1937 letter on Indians
IMG_007 letter cont
IMG_008 Indian info sources
IMG_009 Indian info cont
IMG_010 Indian info cont
IMG_011 Indian info cont
IMG_012 1937 letter on Indians
IMG_013 1937 letter on Indians
IMG_014 letter cont
IMG_015 Indian government
IMG_016 govt cont
IMG_017 govt cont
IMG_018 Middletown indian names of places
IMG_019 Wongunks
IMG_020 Indian Hill deed
IMG_021 1708 deed in Half Mile lots with several names
IMG_022 Daniel Newell land recs 1721-22
IMG_023 Newell cont
IMG_024 Widow Hawley 1728 Land rec 1819
IMG_025 cont
IMG_026 Land recs Stocking Tyron Gibbs Sage
IMG_027 Land rec Frary Sage
IMG_028 Land rec Wongunk White & others
IMG_029 Land rec 1717 Indians to Frary & Prout
IMG_030 cont
IMG_031 List of recorded Indian deeds
IMG_032 Inscription on boulder near the underpass
IMG_033 Land rec 1692 Wongunk
IMG_034 cont
IMG_035 List of Indian names from records
IMG_036 Indian land recs 1756 & 1765
IMG_037 Indian land recs 1691 & 1698
IMG_038 Indian land rec 1713
IMG_039 Indian land rec 1732
IMG_040 Indian land rec 1740
IMG_041 Money valuation
IMG_042 Higby in Westfield Indian deed 1664
IMG_043 Indian land rec 1747 & 1758
IMG_044 Indian land recs 1750 & 1755
IMG_045 Indian land rec 1717
IMG_046 Indian land rec 1670
IMG_047 Indian land info
IMG_048 Indian land recs 1720 & 1724
IMG_049 Indian land rec 1723
IMG_050 Town mtg P176 1704 Garrison
IMG_051 Indian info 1670
IMG_052 Indian info 1678 1704 1706 1707 1709
IMG_053 cont
IMG_054 Indian info 1672
IMG_055 Country pay & ships merchandise
IMG_056 Indian slave
IMG_057 Dividing lands
IMG_058 cont
IMG_059 talks about town records
IMG_060 1673 list of estates
IMG_061 List of Middletown areas key to map
IMG_062 map of Middletown areas for grants
IMG_063 map of Middletown areas for grants
IMG_064 map of Middletown areas for grants
IMG_065 land division info
IMG_066 Early Main street occupants
IMG_067 cont
IMG_068 cont
IMG_069 cont
IMG_070 cont
IMG_071 cont
IMG_072 cont
IMG_073 cont
IMG_074 cont
IMG_075 cont
IMG_076 cont
IMG_077 Middletown 1654 main street map
IMG_078 Middletown 1654 main street map
IMG_079 Middletown 1654 main street map
IMG_080 Middletown 1654 main street map
IMG_081 Middletown 1654 main street map
IMG_082 Main street cont
IMG_083 Land rec info
IMG_084 Central Hotel land history
IMG_085 Old Parsonage lot 1745
IMG_086 cont
IMG_087 Half Mile lots map 1756
IMG_088 Half Mile lots map 1756
IMG_089 1756 land info
IMG_090 Half Mile lots layout
IMG_091 South Main map 1664
IMG_092 South Main map 1664
IMG_093 South Main map 1664
IMG_094 William Harris land desc
IMG_095 Isaac Lane land desc
IMG_096 South Main land info
IMG_097 cont
IMG_098 cont
IMG_099 South Main map 1667
IMG_100 South Main map 1667
IMG_101 Thomas Miller info
IMG_102 Thomas Miller info
IMG_103 Cromwell map
IMG_104 Cromwell map
IMG_105 Cromwell map
IMG_106 Westfield division 1671
IMG_107 Westfield map
IMG_108 Newfield map
IMG_109 Newfield Street 1859 occupants
IMG_110 Newfield grants 1671
IMG_111 Newfield grants 1671
IMG_112 Middlefield map
IMG_113 South tier D map Markham NE corner
IMG_114 South quarter division 1671
IMG_115 John Stows land in South tier
IMG_116 George Durant info
IMG_117 William Ward info
IMG_118 Ward & Wilcox info
IMG_119 Johnson info
IMG_120 Samuel Ward & Thomas Harris ship agreement 1684
IMG_121 John Wilcox will
IMG_122 Portland info
IMG_123 Portland info
IMG_124 Long lots info
IMG_125 200 acre lots 1680
IMG_126 East side of river lots 1680
IMG_127 Great lots east side owners list
IMG_128 200 acre lots 1680
IMG_129 Chath;am info
IMG_130 west side division towards Haddam
IMG_131 Straits desc
IMG_132 Chatham info
IMG_133 Great Lots list 1671
IMG_134 Little Lots info 1660
IMG_135 Early grants 1650s
IMG_136 Early grants 1650-70
IMG_137 Little Lots desc 1660
IMG_138 Highway on East side 1659
IMG_139 Highway on East side 1660
IMG_140 Portland land info
IMG_141 Long lots & Half Mile lots info
IMG_142 Long Meadows
IMG_143 Land grants info
IMG_144 Incorporation of Portland
IMG_145 cont
IMG_146 Incorporation of Portland
IMG_147 List of Portland voters 1842
IMG_148 cont
IMG_149 cont
IMG_150 Weir House in Portland
IMG_151 Portland info
IMG_152 Portland info
IMG_153 Half Mile lots 1680
IMG_154 Portland map
IMG_155 East side land grants
IMG_156 Portland old houses info
IMG_157 Portland old houses map top has Wongunk
IMG_158 Portland old houses map bottom
IMG_159 Mill Hill info
IMG_160 cont
IMG_161 cont
IMG_162 cont
IMG_163 cont
IMG_164 cont
IMG_165 cont
IMG_166 cont
IMG_167 Thomas Allen & Nathaniel Collins info
IMG_168 3rd division grant list by Lake Pocotopaug
IMG_169 cont
IMG_170 cont
IMG_171 cont has Widow Markham (Patience Harris)
IMG_172 cont has Daniel Markham II
IMG_173 cont
IMG_174 cont
IMG_175 cont
IMG_176 East Hampton current old house owners
IMG_177 Doolittle land in East Hampton
IMG_178 East Hampton history by Elizabeth Marcy 1911
IMG_179 Middletown town votes 1725 list of highways
IMG_180 cont 1727
IMG_181 cont
IMG_182 Francis Whitmore info
IMG_183 Hannah Harris Whitmore land
IMG_184 Middletown history paper by Jessie Alsop
IMG_185 cont
IMG_186 cont
IMG_187 cont
IMG_188 cont
IMG_189 cont
IMG_190 cont
IMG_191 cont
IMG_192 cont
IMG_193 cont
IMG_194 cont
IMG_195 cont
IMG_196 cont
IMG_197 cont
IMG_198 cont
IMG_199 cont
IMG_200 cont
IMG_201 cont
IMG_202 cont
IMG_203 Gleaning from town records
IMG_204 Isack Lane land rec
IMG_205 Gleanings from Conn Records story by Alsop
IMG_206 cont
IMG_207 cont
IMG_208 cont
IMG_209 cont
IMG_210 cont
IMG_211 cont
IMG_212 cont
IMG_213 cont
IMG_214 cont
IMG_215 cont
IMG_216 cont
IMG_217 cont
IMG_218 cont
IMG_219 cont
IMG_220 Connecticut River info by Frank Hallock 1922
IMG_221 cont
IMG_222 cont
IMG_223 Main Street info by Frederick Bielefield
IMG_224 A Few Facts About Middletown by Ralph Christie
IMG_225 cont
IMG_226 cont