Vintage Documents Saved from Town Halls

WEST CAPE MAY — Six volumes of historic minutes and documents from 15 municipalities in the county, dating as far back as 1843, are being cleaned, preserved, microfilmed and copied to computer discs.
Professional conservators will disbind the volumes by hand, surface clean and remove acid from the pages along with tape and adhesives. Stains and tears will be repaired and the books rebound using “old world” techniques and tools, according to County Clerk Rita Fulginiti.
And what a story the old handwritten minutes and ordinances tell. A list of fees for mercantile licenses for Cape May Point from July 7, 1915 includes:
• Peddlers of clams and oysters, each $5
• Meat wagons, one horse, each $5, two horses, each $7.50
• Cakewalk shows, each $1
• Lodging houses, 25 cents each room, $5 minimum
• Peddlers or itinerant vendors of clothes and dress goods, each $2.50
• Milk wagons, $5
• Moving picture shows, $10 each
Cape May Point’s budget for 1915 was $3,195 that included $300 in school tax, $700 for street lighting and $25 for the “poor fund.” Borough minutes from 1878-1938 are being preserved.
West Cape May’s minutes from 1884 indicated reimbursement for John Rue for purchasing 81 feet of ladders for $21.50, and a dozen cedar buckets for $7.50 to George Jale and Son apparently for fighting fires.
A Samuel Swain is mentioned in the minutes to be paid 80 cents for 16 pounds of nails. A Charles Eldredge was paid $9.25 for working on the streets.
West Cape May Borough Clerk Elaine Wallace choose book of commission meetings dating back to 1884. She said it encompassed 50 years of records plus vital statistics of births and deaths from the early 1900s.
The minutes were handwritten with beautiful cursive penmanship. Minutes beginning in the 1920s began to use the typewriter.
Wallace theorized quill pens were used for minutes from the 1800s. One book of minutes dates from 1888 to 1913, another dated 1913 to 1924. The minutes were bound in hardbound books with artwork on the covers.
Wallace noted the early borough clerks were all men. Long time family names associated with the borough such as Reeves, Douglass, Rey Hughes, Elwell, Stevens, Eldredge appear in the minutes.
A Feb. 13. 1919 entry shows an annual budget for West Cape May of $4,833, up from $4,536 in 1918. Salaries totaled $746.
Minutes from Cape May Point in April 1908 mention a meeting of Lower Township Council indicating the borough was part of that township at that time. An election had just been held with the results certified by a member of the McPherson family among others. May 25, 1909 minutes indicate a need for a water system for the borough and problems with the “water works.”
The Point operated on a yearly budget of $3,600 in 1909, according to minutes. A meeting March 7, 1910 was concerned with defining the boundaries of the borough.
It appeared by minutes that the borough’s current form of government was organized April 24, 1916 with E.W. Springer as mayor at a salary of $75 per year.
The annual budget rose to $4,200 in 1917 that included $25 for the fire company. By 1937, the borough’s yearly budget had reached a total of $19,200.
An ordinance that same year rules that mules, swine, geese and horses found running at large would be impounded at a fine of $1 each.
An 1886 ordinance shows an expenditure of $1,200 for beach improvements in Cape May Point.
Cape May will preserve six books including three books of minutes including 1869 to 1879, 1879 to 1883. It is also preserving Sanborn maps of the city beginning in 1890 that depict where all its buildings were located. The color maps were produced for fire insurance documentation.
Fulginiti said the preservation work is funded by a Public Archive and Records Grant administered by the Department of State Division of Archives and Records Management
The project involves a total of 90 volumes from every municipality in the county except Ocean City that previously restored it documents. If municipalities were paying the cost of restoration, the cost would be about $1,000 per book, said Fulginiti.
The project must be completed by Aug. 31.