26 July 2008
One of the most fantastic resources for researching our local history on line can be found here:
http://geography.uwo.ca/maplibrary/fips.htm
My Apologies if I did not do the link correctly, i am still trying to figure this blog thing out. You may have to do a edit-copy, edit-paste into your web browser.
This is the Serge A. Sauer Map Library Fire Insurance plans for the city of London, years of 1907 and 1915. There are many more maps for many more you can view yourself at the archives at UWO, but to have even these two on-line is an incredible resource to have.
Insurance maps, once you learn what the legend and colours mean, can show you a lot. For example the house i live in was built in 1871, but is has soft, terrible brick. Usually London white brick (or what we all call yellow brick) is very hard and sturdy, unless damaged by sandblasting (and there is a lot of that in this city).
Since all the other houses in this area have or had good brick, this was something of a mystery to me. Looking at the old fire insurance maps, I saw that my house when first built was all wood frame construction, and sometime around 1890 it was covered in brick.
The fire maps from various period, when read in sequential order, show this progression,a nd eventually my house was listed as all brick, instead of wood with brick siding. However, my guess is that the person who sided the house used cheaper "slush" brick, a second grade brick not fired as hard or long (requires less fuel that way, and ergo, less money to make). Usually "slush" brick was used on interior walls, but my guess is somebody got a deal on the stuff, and thus, the soft brick on my house as compared to others in the area.
This is just one small example of the kind of thing you can investigate through these maps
joe
One of the most fantastic resources for researching our local history on line can be found here:
http://geography.uwo.ca/maplibrary/fips.htm
My Apologies if I did not do the link correctly, i am still trying to figure this blog thing out. You may have to do a edit-copy, edit-paste into your web browser.
This is the Serge A. Sauer Map Library Fire Insurance plans for the city of London, years of 1907 and 1915. There are many more maps for many more you can view yourself at the archives at UWO, but to have even these two on-line is an incredible resource to have.
Insurance maps, once you learn what the legend and colours mean, can show you a lot. For example the house i live in was built in 1871, but is has soft, terrible brick. Usually London white brick (or what we all call yellow brick) is very hard and sturdy, unless damaged by sandblasting (and there is a lot of that in this city).
Since all the other houses in this area have or had good brick, this was something of a mystery to me. Looking at the old fire insurance maps, I saw that my house when first built was all wood frame construction, and sometime around 1890 it was covered in brick.
The fire maps from various period, when read in sequential order, show this progression,a nd eventually my house was listed as all brick, instead of wood with brick siding. However, my guess is that the person who sided the house used cheaper "slush" brick, a second grade brick not fired as hard or long (requires less fuel that way, and ergo, less money to make). Usually "slush" brick was used on interior walls, but my guess is somebody got a deal on the stuff, and thus, the soft brick on my house as compared to others in the area.
This is just one small example of the kind of thing you can investigate through these maps
joe
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