Meticulous work goes into preserving documents that tell story of Washington County

Most people in Hagerstown would likely assume that the city grew outward from an original group of lots that were first plotted by founder Jonathan Hager in the 1760s.

But thanks to the preservation of an early 19th-century plat, Hagerstonians can soon see for themselves how the town began

to blossom in the years after the American Revolution.

After nearly two years in the hands of an expert document conservator, the plat and other documents — including a rare copy of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s proclamation to Marylanders in the days preceding the Battle of Antietam — are finally home with the Washington County Historical Society.

Plans are to keep the delicate originals stored and preserved, but display copies for everyone to see.

“My best guess is the plat plan was generated in the early 1800s,” said society President Bill Maharay. “It descended through the Hager family; it’s on vellum, and it shows the development

of Hagerstown through various growth patterns.

“The original layout of the town was basically the first east and west blocks of Washington Street, Potomac Street and Franklin, that was it,” he said.

This plat shows where the town was expanding as it developed.

“And it’s not done in an orderly fashion,” Maharay said. “What I find most interesting is the water source for the town was the stream that starts up over by where the post office is. It’s now all underground, but it shows that stream pattern. And then the area on North Potomac where it rises up past Franklin was called the ‘healthy’ part of town because of sanitation.”

Various notations on the plat show where early churches and businesses were, and one details the coming railroad.

But the plat clearly predates Hagerstown’s “Hub City” status.

Society officials aren’t sure how it became part of its collection, but knew this piece of Hagerstown history had to be preserved.

And there were some other documents that needed to be restored and preserved as well — including correspondence with former Gov. William Paca, who also was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and one of a handful of known copies of the document Lee used to ingratiate Confederate troops with Marylanders during his northern campaign in 1862.

It came from what Maharay calls the “Seibert collection,” saved over the years by the Seibert family of Clear Spring.

When a family member who had inherited the collection asked whether the society was interested in the materials, “needless to say, I said, ‘Absolutely!’ ” Maharay recalled. “And among the items that the family had saved was the Lee proclamation.

“As best as I can determine, the Museum of the Confederacy [in Richmond] has a copy; the Maryland Historical Society has a copy,” Maharay said.

He believes there probably is at least one more.

A former curator at the society recommended Janice Ellis, who had worked with her husband at the Smithsonian, to do the preservation work.

Ellis has had a long career in conserving historical books and documents, including for the New York Public Library, and a lengthy association with the Smithsonian after she completed graduate work at Columbia University. She works independently now from a lab in her Silver Spring home.

It’s filled with work tables, computers, some pretty serious high-tech magnifiers and a huge antique paper trimmer that she uses to cut materials for protective coverings. Shelves along the walls are filled with materials to preserve various kinds of papers without harming them.

It’s meticulous work. She’s had the Hagerstown plat, for example, for nearly two years.

When Maharay and Sumner arrived recently to pick up the documents, Ellis explained how to handle and store them — and why. It can be a bit technical, but the bottom line is clean hands, a gentle touch and protective folders.

Different adhesives are used for repairs and preservation, depending on the type of paper and ink of the document.

Along with the documents, Ellis returned a little packet of debris she had removed from the surface of the plat.

“Everything that you take off has potential for DNA analysis,” she said. “It’s a new technology that they’re just starting to use now.”

So all that … stuff … could tell who in Hagerstown’s early history had handled the plat?

“All of this surface dirt that just looks like dirt not only is really valuable to people who are doing research on animal husbandry [the vellum is likely made from sheepskin], … but also, it’s gotten so sophisticated now that they can pick up the DNA of the users,” Ellis said.

So, yes.

And when Ellis is working on one of these documents, does she ever want to just go research the story behind it?

“YES! Oh yes, oh yes. Yeah. I mean, that’s part of the joy of it,” Ellis said. “And sometimes we find things that the curators didn’t even know, which is really lovely.”