BAY MINETTE – In a clear handwriting, a land deed recorded more than 200 years ago details a property transfer.
The document from May 1812 predates the state in 1819, listing the location as “Baldwin County, Mississippi Territory.”
Baldwin County Probate Judge Harry D’Olive Jr. turned pages of documents showing the handwriting of people manually recording documents as far back as the creation of Baldwin County more than 212 years ago.
“This is the very first book, 1809, back before Alabama became a state,” D’Olive said. “It still refers to the Mississippi Territory. Originally people would get patents from the government for possession of the land. They would bring that document in and the clerk, or it may have just been the judge. I don’t know in 1809 if you even had a clerk, would handwrite all of the information from that document into the book to record it.”
On one page of the early 19th century deed records, he came across a name entered more than two centuries ago. “That’s Louis D’Olive,” he said. “He was an ancestor of mine.”
The records were among dozens of books of deeds and other documents recently restored and preserved by Kofile, a company in Dallas, Texas.
“They do it page by page,” D’Olive said. “It’s an amazing process. This batch took a couple of months and we’re going to send another batch soon.”
He said that before the process, many of the pages were so faded and stained that the writing was almost impossible to read. D’Olive pulled out a binder of documents that have not yet gone through the restoration process.
“This is they way these were prior to the process,” he said and pointed out the difference in the restored pages. “You can see how it’s even brought these out. They straightened all the pages. Where these were damaged and yellowed and taped, they remove all the tape, because that’s damaging over the year. There’s acid in this paper. Back in the day, they didn’t realize the damage that the acid would do. It would make the handwriting fade so bad that you could barely read it.”
The documents were treated and placed between plastic sheets to allow them to be examined without risk of damage.
“They’re still the original pages. They took them out of these old binders. They deacidified them. Brought the writing back out to where you can read it, put them in these sleeves to protect them from here on out and plus put them in these, versus one of these.”
The restored pages were also placed in re-enforced binders to protect the documents, he said.
“They patented these binders, which I’m told. It’s got the foam inside to help absorb moisture,” he said and clicked the binder shut. “It’s got a seal around it, so when you close it and clip it, it makes it fire and water resistant. It’s got a layer of Kevlar in these binders.”
The protective measures add to the size of the binders and documents. The first set was sent to Texas in 68 of the old binders and came back in 120, officials said.
D’Olive said the restored pages will be available for public inspection when the process is completed. He said the company also provided a digital version of the documents that will be posted on the county website in the near future.
