A Sampling from
Bill Hecht's Treasury
of Auburn Images
Page 3 of 5

A treasure trove of Auburn historical images accessible (for non-commercial use) at
http//freepages. genealogy.rootsweb. com/~springport/
pictures.html

( enter web address as one word )


The New York Correction History Society is honored to be permitted to present the following NYCHS sampling among Auburn-related entries from Bill Hecht's list of more than 5,000 Cayuga County images on the Cayuga County NYGenWeb Project site. To access the full versions of the images shown here as downsized samples, click on either the "thumbnail" images or the underlined URLs provided. Please use your back button to return to this page.

In mounting the original web presentation of his images, Hecht received significant assistance from Bernie Corcoran, coordinator of the Cayuga County NYGenWeb Project. Hecht's full-size scans -- of historical maps and texts, old photographs, vintage postcards and illustrations, newspaper clippings and special issues, gazetteers, and directories -- are accessible via:

http//freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~springport/pictures.html

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The 1859 City of Auburn map images

Bill Hecht scanned and saved a 1859 City of Auburn map in six large separate sections and one combined super-large-size image.

One of the six sectional scans takes in most of the central part of the city, including Auburn Prison. The original 1.7 Mb digital image Hecht created has a dpi of 96 and measures more than 35 inches wide and 25 inches high.

A detail from that sectional scan, showing the prison layout in 1859, appears in the downsized image (above right).

Click on it to access the much larger original. Its web address is:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~springport/pictures_23/00002324.jpg

The image above left is a greatly downsized version of the overall 1859 Auburn city map.

The original 3.4 Mb digital image Hecht created has a dpi of 96 and measures more than 41 inches wide and 59 inches high. To access it, click on the downsized version (above left). Its web address is:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~springport/pictures_23/00002334.jpg

Another of the sectional scans Hecht made of the 1859 Auburn city map includes the Fort Hill Cemetery area. The original 1.3 Mb digital image Hecht created has a dpi of 96 and measures more than 35 inches wide and 25 inches high.

A detail from that sectional scan, showing Fort Hill Cemetery in 1859, appears in the downsized image (right). Click on it to access the much larger original. Its web address is:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~springport/pictures_23/00002325.jpg

The other 1859 City of Auburn map sectional scans by Hecht can be accessed at:

The same map included an Auburn business directory that listed attorneys, county officers, editors and publishers, dentists, dealers in jewelry, hardware merchant, artists, insurance agent, dealers in books and stationery, hotels, among others.

From a correctional history perspective, the entries for two different prison boot and show stores next to each other on Genesse Street are particularly interesting:

  • G. W. Cray, Sing Sing Prison Boot and Shoe Store, 83 Genesse Street.
  • E. B. Cobb, Auburn Prison Boot and Shoe Store, 81 Genesse Street.

While there may be no relationship to these two prison shoe dealers, the names "Cray" and "Cobb" figured significantly in Auburn prison history.

John D. Cray is widely credited with making major contributions to what became known as the "Auburn penitentiary system." Ebenezer Cobb was a prison guard who flogged an unruly Auburn inmate Rachel Welch on July 27, 1825. Flogging was a lawful discipline at the time. She was about four months pregnant, quite possibly by a male inmate who brought her food during her stays in "isolation." Although she went to full term and delivery Dec. 5, she died more than a month later. The scandal resulted in Ebenezer Cobb's indictment. Convicted of assult, he was fined $25 but continued employed as a prison guard. (See Pages 94-95, W. David Lewis, From Newgate to Dannemora.)

Below is a detail from the 1859 Auburn city map business directory image. The original 1.3 Mb digital image Hecht created has a dpi of 96 and measures more than 19 inches wide and nearly 32 inches high. Its web address is:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~springport/pictures_23/00002394.jpg

For thumbnails on all six Auburn section scans and them combined, as well as other non-Auburn scans by Hecht, from the 1859 Cayuga NY land ownership wall map (original surveyor - O. W. Gray & G. D. Lothrop; original publishers - A.R.Z. Dawson, I.D. Peck, S. Willard Treat, A.Y. Peck, C.O. Titus, J.H.C. Dawson & L.G. Dawson, Phila. 1859), visit the Cayuga County NYGenWeb Project 1859 map thumbnail index web page by Bernie Corcoran.

These digital images are copyrighted to William S. Hecht 2001 © and may be viewed and copied freely for non-comerical personal genealogy and family history research only.

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