Sesquicentennial Historical Address — Sussex County, NJ

Sesquicentennial Historical Address — Sussex County, NJ sounds like a solemn and impressive bit of history.

This address, By Francis J. Swaze,  part of the sesquicentennial observance of Sussex County, was delivered at Newton, NJ on September 2, 1903.  While it claims only to be accurate through the Civil War, it’s interesting that the extractive industries (iron and various other minerals) get short shrift here despite their role in American history beginning with the Revolution – or even before; “The Old Mine Road” is one of the oldest thoroughfares mentioned in colonial-era literature.  As we look at the history of this county today, we see these industries as perhaps the most important part of the county’s history.

That said, we understand and appreciate the traditional emphasis on farming and related aspects of country life, and exploits with regard to the native Americans and in the Revolution as being of greatest interest to the audience for these remarks back over a century ago.  In addition to the history captured in this address, one can read it to get a better sense of priorities in American thought over a century ago.   Further, considering this was an address to people who lived in the county a long time, and whose ancestors were likely among those mentioned, this would have been a crown-pleaser.

All in all, it’s a useful document!  And it’s now available for download.

Read more about it on our New Jersey page!

Sesquicentennial Historical Address -- Sussex County, NJ

Replacing our CDs

Minisink and Port Jervis replacing our CDs

Replacing our CDs has shown up a benefit we hadn’t really anticipated.

Here’s what happens.  As our customers know, our CDs usually contained more than one item.  However, we tended to title the CD with the name of the most important (our call) item on the CD.

However, when we replace our CDs with downloads, each publication on the CD becomes a product unto itself.  In that way, it gets its own listing in our catalog and on the various geographic and special interest pages of our website.

Here’s an example.  Recently we retired our CD-ROM about the History of the Minisink Region of New York State (and Pennsylvania, and New Jersey).  The featured component of that CD was Stickney’s 1867 History of the Minisink Region.   However, there were two other publications on that CD:  Twin River Valley, the 1834 yearbook of Port Jervis High school, and a particularly scarce 1922 Directory of Port Jervis  (which included neighboring locations).

The CD never sold as well as we thought it would; we suspect the reason was that if people already had access to the Stickney book, they went no further and never discovered the Port Jervis Directory or the Port Jervis High School yearbook on the same CD.

Well, now that we’re reissued the three as individual downloads, we think more people will be seeing these additional publications — that were actually there all along.

Do you want to take a look at any of these?

Here’s how to find them:

Stickney’s History of the Minisink — click HERE

Twin River Valley, the Port Jervis High School yearbook — click HERE

That elusive 1922 Port Jervis Directory — click HERE

Of course, our main catalog is HERE, so why not have a look at it, too?

Bottom line:  we think that replacing our CDs will help you find things you never suspected we had just as much as it helps us streamline our processes and deliver quality content to you faster and more economically.

High School Yearbooks…..#1

Virtually all local history material is of value to genealogists and historians.  Only in the past year or two, however, have the large genealogy companies (ancestry.com, for example) hit on the quantity and quality of genealogical and historical material contained in high school and college yearbooks and annuals.  And, they have begun to offer copies of some of these on their websites.

We’re happy to say that we were more than a decade ahead of the giants in recognizing the importance of yearbooks and in beginning their re-publication here at Between the Lakes Group.

Because of all the recent attention directed to yearbooks, we decided to list all of the yearbooks available from us, in the order of the year the yearbook was originally published, all on a single page.  There you’ll also find links to the location on our site you can find more information about them.  You can see that list on our Yearbooks page — just CLICK HERE to review it.

We’ll have a few posts on the subject of yearbooks — particularly high school yearbooks — and how you can use them.  For what?  Well, for starters, to fill out the lives of people you may be researching, to learn more about the communities you’re interested in, and even to establish an elusive connection to a family member.  Those posts will come as we write them in the next few days and weeks, so check back here for them.

The occasion that really prompted this page was our republication of the Port Jervis, NY High School yearbook for 1938, “Senior Memoirs”.  A pretty hefty yearbook (as they go) at 138 pages, with a few rarities in it (such as senior horoscopes to supplement the more standard Last Will and Testament section, and, hearkening back to yearbooks of two or three decades earlier, prize stories and poems), it is one of several Port Jervis High School yearbooks that we have republished.  It can be found on our Orange County, NY page.

(You’ll also see there the very first appearance of our snappy new “buy now” button!)