Roots and Records

Interview with James Lewis, Director of the Caroline Rose Foster North Jersey History and Genealogy Center

How did you get started in historical research?

My great-aunt compiled a sizable family history before the internet, so I have always been interested in listening to people talk about their families. I decided when I was in undergrad that I wanted to work in an archive or special collections library focusing on history-related matters. I’ve worked at the New Jersey Historical Society and the Charles F. Cummings New Jersey Information Center before coming to the Caroline Rose Foster North Jersey History & Genealogy Center in 2013. 

How did the Caroline Rose Foster North Jersey History and Genealogy Center get started?

One of my predecessors, Barbara Hoskins, lived in the Washington Valley section of town and was friendly with Caroline Foster, also from Fosterfields Living Historical Farm. She left the library money in her will, which has allowed us to do so much, including having a humidity- and temperature-controlled environment, electronically moving shelves, and a staff of six.

What are some of the most interesting objects in the collection?

One of the most unusual things we have, although it’s not necessarily my favorite, is the Antoine Le Blanc death mask. Le Blanc was hanged on the Morristown Green in 1833 after being convicted of killing three people. After he was hanged, his body was delivered to a local doctor, who made a plaster death mask. We also have digitized two journalists’ accounts of the trial and execution. 

What are some of the older items in the collection?

We have more than 2,000 maps, blueprints, and plans. Our oldest original map is circa 1790, and it’s of Morris County. It’s a wall map that’s hand-drawn, although we don’t know who drew it, but on it are towns, mills, forges, and mines in Morris County. We also have blueprints of the surveys Colonel Robert Erskine made for Washington. 

Any intriguing Morristown items?

We have over 7,000 photographs by an insurance photographer, Frederick Fenton Curtis, who lived in Morristown and photographed the area from sometime in the 1880s to roughly 1940. 

We also have lots of atlases, including digitized Morris County atlases from 1868, 1887, and 1910. We have Sanborn Fire Insurance atlases of Morristown and parts of Morris County from 1918 and 1940. Whenever a new building was erected, the company would paste over the original building on the map, and the footprint of the new building would cover up what was there. There were lists of the updates being made, and the date the updates were named. 

You also work to preserve records of life in Morristown today, correct?

Yes, we work on a lot of different oral histories of people in Morristown. The library published a book about Irish Americans in Morristown called “Ordinary Days, Extraordinary Times,” and another about African Americans called “Setting Up Our Own City.” A lot of the interviews done by the author, Cheryl C. Turkington, are available as videos on our YouTube channel. We’re also working on oral histories about Morristown’s Latino, LGBTQ+, and Italian American communities. We’d love to speak to octogenarians who have lived in our town (or the township) for most of their life. 

The library also has lots of resources for people researching their family trees. Could you talk about some of them?

We have many books on how different races and ethnic groups can research their genealogy. We also have resources like ship passenger lists and microfilm directories of cities across the state and Manhattan. We also provide access to Ancestry, HeritageQuest Online, Fold3, and other databases, and are a FamilySearch affiliate.

Any tips for people having trouble researching their family history?

If you hit a roadblock, my advice is to take a break and try again. The databases are updated often, so if you step away from your research for a few weeks, you might find something new when you return.  

The Caroline Rose Foster North Jersey History & Genealogy Center is a department within the Morristown & Morris Township Public Library.  Find out more at mmtlibrary.org.