The Stanley Smith Deed Collection comprises deeds for land, property, wharves, salt works, church pews, etc. The deeds were collected by Stanley Smith over the course of his life’s research into Cape Cod genealogy and history. This online database—a work in progress—has been created to allow researchers to examine the data from the deeds without having to handle the fragile documents or decipher the 17th-19th century handwriting.
The database consists of information extracted from the deeds and put into a series of searchable fields. These fields include the town in which the property lies, the date of the sale, the buyer’s name, the seller’s name, witnesses’ names, the Justice of the Peace, the acreage, the price and pertinent transaction keywords (e.g., “right of dower” and “cedar swamp”). There is also a note field that records anything interesting, unusual or inconsistent about the deed. Eventually there will be a link to a high resolution digital scan of each deed, courtesy of the Digital Commonwealth and Boston Public Library.
Please note that though all deeds in the Smith Collection have a record in the database, full deed information for many deeds has not been yet been entered. You may encounter records with only a unique ID, a date, or notes. If you have questions about a specific deed, or would like an image of one, please contact us 508-362-6636 or via email at director@sturgislibrary.org.