Delco archivist oversees trove of history

During a career of sifting through dusty deed files, wills, marriage records, and other yellowing scraps of American history at the National Archives, one day stands out for Robert Plowman.

"Do you know what happened on Feb. 8, 1976?" asked Plowman, 74, of Havertown, currently in charge of the Delaware County Archives. "It was the last episode of Roots. There it started."

When the television miniseries triggered an explosion of interest in genealogy research, Delaware County officials realized that in nearly forgotten file cabinets was a treasure trove of historical records dating to 1789.

In seven years under Plowman's leadership, the Delaware County Archives has expanded online to become ranked among the top 30 genealogy websites in the country. Many researchers also go to the archives, on the county's Fair Acre campus in Middletown, looking for a grandmother's marriage license, a great-uncle's will.

An index of documents is online at www.co.delaware.pa.us/depts/archives.html.

The list of available records continues to expand. The latest major project is a catalog of grave registrations for Delaware County veterans that so far has logged grave sites of 61,277 vets.

"It started when somebody over in the courthouse sent us seven volumes with the information," said Bill Muehsam, an archival assistant who is in charge of the project. "We don't know where they came from. No one knew what else to do with them, so they dumped them on us."

The volumes contained mostly Civil War veterans, but they go back to the American Revolution, Muehsam noted as he pointed out the typical record from that conflict: "William Anderson, Army, St. Paul's Cemetery in Chester, southside, 3rd lot from the street."

Overall, the county archives contain about 330,000 names on file - scattered across an array of birth, marriage, and death records and more obscure paperwork, such as liquor-license applications. Some of the work Plowman and his team of five volunteers carry out - such as indexing County Home admissions and discharges - may seem arcane, but any one could be priceless to an amateur genealogist.

"Outside of pets, it's the second most popular hobby in the U.S.," said Plowman, whose desk is cluttered with photographs of children and grandchildren, his own family tree. But the climate-controlled reference room also shows off broader historical artifacts, such as the General Certificate of Results from the 1897 election, showing a Republican landslide and suggesting some things don't change much in Delco.

Many of the records recall a vastly different era, the green, largely rural Delaware County that existed long before automobiles, let alone the Blue Route, Wawas, and the Springfield Mall. Reaching into a random box in the records room, Plowman plucked out the 1789 will of Joseph Bonsall.

"One brown cow, $5. One colt, $10. Twenty-eight sheep, $12. One pig, $1.26. Hay in barn, $6. Oats, $5," he read off. "He was obviously a farmer, so it was all part of the estate."

By now, American history has seeped into the DNA of the genial archivist, who earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at Villanova University and a Ph.D. in history at Catholic University before working for three years at the National Archives in Washington. He came home to run the National Archives branch in Philadelphia, where he retired in 2003. Or thought he had.

When a friend asked in 2006 whether he would become Delaware County's first archivist, Plowman agreed as long as he could work just three days a week. He has been able to build up the collection with the help of volunteers who share his passion for recovering history, even if the tasks are often laborious.

"One of the basic things that they do is unfold and flatten records," he said. "Most are trifolded, and that's the worst thing you can do. They put them in an acid-free file folder and put that in an acid-free box." There are also many quirks, such as the real estate assessments Plowman's team is logging that abruptly stop at 1903.

"Nobody cared about keeping records then," Muehsam bemoaned. "They took up space, so out they went."

That likely would not have happened if Plowman had been on the case. He said he was still excited about a deposition from April 1837 he recently uncovered.

Mordecai Thomas, testifying in a case whose purpose has been lost to time, was at dinner with two companions who were arguing about the state of the country.

"They argued the thing quite strongly," the document read, the handwriting neat and precise, "on both sides and enforced their opinion in strong terms, they argued in earnest, but yet kept their tempers, they then dropped it, as they could not come to any determination on either side."

"That," Plowman said with a smile, "makes my job worthwhile."