Historical Footnote

On Monday contractors will arrive at the registry of deeds to begin installing new plan storage cabinets. This morning another registry employee and I began assessing our inventory. The job brought back an interesting registry footnote to me.

Way back in the old days the registry allowed the public to use original plans for research. When you think about it, there really was no other way of making the plans available in these pre-computer times. But this practice, although unavoidable led to rapid wear and tear on the original plans. To rectify this problem the registry began hand copying original plans.

“Registry lore” says one employee was assigned this task and spent the entire day on the project. Of course, the work was time consuming and tedious. Only about 30 of 160 plan books were completed before better microfiche technology allowed for mass reproduction and distribution of plans.

These plans are distinguishable from the originals by a stamp that says…”Middlesex North Registry of Deeds, Copy of Plan Book (blank) Page (blank)”.

Today, all of our original plans have been scanned and the digital images are available to the public both here at the registry and on the Internet, so these “copies” are no longer needed. But they do mark an interesting historical note at the registry of deeds