Research

Scope and Content Note

These volumes contain waterpaint drawings of individual boundary monuments and the surrounding landscape marking New York's borders with Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut. They were produced in conjunction with the State Engineer and Surveyor's triennial examination of previously established boundary markers in 1900. The State Engineer was directed by law to restore or replace damaged or missing markers and to set new ones, if lacking, where the state boundary was intersected by highways or town or county boundaries.

Each illustration provides: drawing of a monument and its markings (most monuments are stone blocks with simple markings such as "N.Y. 3M" the three-mile marker, but a few are upright monuments with a more specific location marking); roads, waterways, fields, trees, fences, or other physical features of the land surrounding the monument; caption, which may provide monument's location on a road between towns or in relationship to one or two border towns, or description of the land on which the monument is located; for monuments on the Pennsylvania border, a notation indicating "Parallel Boundary" (that running east to west from the Delaware River) or "Meridan Boundary" (that running south to north at the border's west end and ending at Lake Erie); and notation if a monument is missing.