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Content: Survey notes are from throughout the county but include plats and/or notes on E.G. Ayer’s property and Ayer’s addition to Harvard, the mill pond in T 43 N, R 9 E, relocation of the road that runs from Woodstock to Big Foot, re-survey of a road in Dunham Township, survey of a road in the village of Dearborn running from L. Walkup’s hardware store, and J. W. Sanborn’s in English Prairie.

Conservation Treatment: The front cover is loose, back cover is missing, and pages are loose. Treatment includes fully disbind, mend/guard for stabilization only, surface clean, full resew, and deacidification.

Horatio B. Coe came west from Connecticut in 1849 and taught in Geneva Lake a year. In 1864 he enlisted in the Civil War. After the war, he came to Harvard and was a principal of the Harvard public schools for 4 years. He left several times but came back to Harvard time and again. His father established Derby Academy in Connecticut and made several important surveys, among them a survey of Housatonic River for a proposed canal, presumably fostering Horatio’s interest in surveying.

Content: On the front cover is “H.B. Coe, Harvard, Ill. Jan. 1/[18]92, Minutes & platting of old surveys.” This is like a lesson book on surveying and contains survey “problems” and instructions, like the use of tangents to find unknown angles, and a glossary. But it also contains a plat of Coon Island and notes on surveying a meander on Coon Island, minutes of a meander line around a hill in Sec. 17 T 45 N, R 9 E (very eastern McHenry Township), and notes on a survey of an island hill near the mouth of the Nippersink.

Conservation Treatment: Front cover is loose. Treatment includes mending for stabilization purposes only, reattaching loose pages, lifting the adhered page and re-attaching it with wheat paste, surface cleaning, repairing the cover and re-attaching it to the text block, and non-aqueous deacidification. Infill the areas of loss to the boards with Japanese tissue.

The McHenry County Historical Society also holds a collection of surveyor notebooks from the noted Tryon family of McHenry County. They consist of survey work done by three members of the Tryon family, Charles H., and his great-nephews, Charles L. and George L. Tryon.

Charles H. Tryon was the McHenry County surveyor for 20 years in the late 19th century. Charles H. Tryon was born in South Deerfield, Mass. on June 2, 1826 and came with his parents to the Hebron area of McHenry County. They established a farm at the northeast corner of what is now Tryon Grove Road. He married Elizabeth Downs of Lake Geneva, Wis.. In 1888, he served as the official McHenry County surveyor. Charles H. Tryon died at his home on April 13, 1916.

Charles L. Tryon, a great-nephew of Charles H. Tryon, was born November 30, 1885 and was raised on the family farm. He was elected county surveyor in 1913 and passed an examination for the newly formed McHenry County Highway Department where he served as the first county engineer until his retirement in 1958. He died in Woodstock on October 5, 1980. George L. Tryon, a brother of Charles L., was born March 1, 1891 in Woodstock. He was taught surveying by his brother and was a surveyor in private practice until his death on June 3, 1957. All three are buried in Woodstock’s Oakland Cemetery. The Office of County Surveyor was abolished in Illinois in 1957.

Content: This plat book is folio sized, 14 x 17 inches and contains 131 numbered pages of maps. A few of the maps are with color and some are double paged. The plat book is hand labeled “Part II.” MCHS does not have Part I, but the John Brink index details some of the survey plats in Part I. Only a few of the plats in Part II are dated. Among the plats are: Crystal Lake’s Prospect Point, Mead’s Second Addition to Hebron, Douglas Addition to Crystal Lake, Syndicate Addition to Marengo, and Smith’s, and Mansfield’s Addition to Woodstock, Coon Island, Pistakee Bay and Orchard Beach.

Conservation Treatment: Most of the first half of the book’s pages are loose and therefore tearing. Each page would be de-acidified and encapsulated and a new post binding would be created.