Town of Chesterfield, NH
Detailed land maps of the entire town in the 1930s.
 

To see a sample set of maps - all maps from one "block"  Click here  

The forested landscape of Chesterfield was mapped in great detail in the mid 1930s for the “Blister Rust” program.  These maps show walls and fences of individual land parcels and describe the tree cover on each tract.  Blister rust is an ailment of white pine trees, and the maps were made as an aid to lessening the enormous damage which that fungus was doing to New Hampshire’s pine forests.

Chesterfield’s maps are currently stored in 58 file folders at the NH Archives.  The folders correspond with the multiple “blocks” into which the town was divided for mapping. A typical block map fits on one or more maps on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet. Each map shows all the roads, brooks, stonewalls, fences, buildings, and cellarholes in the block.  The lettering is very small, and the key feature is the ground cover, whether pasture, field, or woods. For wooded areas the map describes the predominant tree type. 

80 separate maps cover the town.  There are later editions of most maps, so there are 360 maps in total

 In many folders there are four versions of the map(s). 
Original map, which is 1937 for many blocks. This map is drawn in color on heavy grid paper.
Second 1937 copy, on slightly larger paper. This often has markups from later years such as 1948 or 1952. The markups include notes related to trees on the map area, and often a note “scouted in 1948”. Sometimes the markups indicate land use changes such as a highway alteration or land development. 
A third map(s), also drawn in 1937, shows timber types in color shades, but no stonewalls or other cultural features.
A fourth set of maps in many folders (but not all) are 1960s / 1970s re-drawn maps with simple notes on them (often on the back) indicating that the lands were reviewed and how much time was spent on the work. These re-drawn maps seem to be made as tracings of the old ones, without all the detail. It does not appear that any new features were added. Most are photocopies.