The Scharf Collection was digitized and made publically available with the support of the National Historical Publications & Records Commission.

Scharf Collection Online, newsletter article

2.6 Name of Creator

Maryland government

Compiler/ Collector

J. Thomas Scharf

3.1 Scope and Content

The Scharf Collection is a component of a larger system of related records titled Maryland State Papers and documents over 250 years of Maryland’s history, culture, and people, covering a wide range of content, functions, and activities relating to executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government. The bulk of the material consists of alienated or stolen government records from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but the collection as a whole spans the years 1650-1909. Some records fragments lack context as a result of their alienation from the creating agency. Major records categories include court, Executive correspondence, land, marriage, military, State expenditures/ financial accounting, tax, slavery, and trade among other miscellaneous records, including some personal papers of J. Thomas Scharf (1840-1897) who originally compiled the collection. The unit and sub-unit inventories provide additional information for each with links to related documents and creating agencies. Ultimately, researchers will find value in these records as they relate to the broader Maryland State Papers and related agency records cross linked in the catalog. Many of which can only be found in the collection, including the marriage lists, tax assessments/ lists, and various muster rolls among others. It is hoped that online access will promote discovery of the collection and associated records, providing researchers the opportunity to determine for themselves the import of these records to their research and supplement gaps in other related record materials.

3.2 System of Arrangement

Records are more or less arranged by subject or type, but can sometimes vary widely by date. Overlapping subject matter may be found under more than one unit category. For example, correspondence of the Governor and Council found in executive papers may have related or other correspondence found under different subject headings such as military, or financial papers. There are also many miscellaneous records interspersed throughout the collection that often have no relation to the subject matter identified for a given unit. This somewhat haphazard arrangement of the collection is partly due to its complexity and turbulent custodial history and retains more or less the same arrangement it had when acquired by the State Archives.

4.1 Conditions Governing Access

No restrictions publicly accessible

4.2 Physical Access

Paper records do not circulate access is through online digital images MSA S1005

4.6 Finding Aids

Active: MARYLAND STATE PAPERS (Scharf Collection, finding aid) SE168 is an improved dynamic version of the older static HTML. The itemized descriptions are searchable although with limitations. Most entries have links to the images found in the Scharf Collection (MSA S1005).

Retired: Older HTML finding aid

2.7 Administrative/Biographical History

MARYLAND STATE PAPERS.

5.2 Immediate Source of Acquisition

The Maryland State Archives (formerly the Hall of Records) acquired most of the government records portion of the collection in 1975 from the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore.

5.1 Custodial History

Land Office, potential other agencies, 3rd parties, Thomas Scharf, Johns Hopkins University, Maryland Historical Society

5.2 Immediate Source of Acquisition

Maryland Historical Society in 1975

6.3 Related Archival Materials

The following agencies/ collections are represented in the Scharf Collection: MARYLAND STATE PAPERS, LAND OFFICE, CHANCERY COURT, COMMISSIONERS OF THE TAX, PREROGATIVE COURT, TREASURER (EASTERN and WESTERN SHORE), GENERAL COURT (EASTERN AND WESTERN SHORE), INTENDANT OF THE REVENUE, COUNTY COURT, NAVAL OFFICER, COUNCIL OF SAFETY, GOVERNOR AND COUNCIL, AUDITOR GENERAL (militia), GENERAL ASSEMBLY, REGISTER OF WILLS, ADJUTANT GENERAL, miscellaneous.

10.3 Variant Forms of Names

Scharf Papers 

Fugitive State Papers

Series Z

10.1 Authorized Form of the Name

Scharf Collection

7.1.8 Processing Information

The Scharf Collection was never fully processed. In the late 1970s itemized descriptions were handwritten for each item in the collection on paper 4X6 index cards (T922) and assigned a MdHR/ accession number which was written on both the card and the corresponding item. Sometime in the 1980s these descriptions were typed into a word processor. Later they were entered into an HTML finding aid page. In the late 1990s/ early 2000s, these descriptions were migrated into a computer database, and are what make up most of the itemized descriptions found in the catalog today save those that were corrected, updated or embellished as part of the 2021 grant funded digitization project.

In 2021, the Maryland State Archives received a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to digitize the collection and make it freely accessible via the archives catalog. Lacking resources to reprocess the collection, and wanting to maintain the integrity of the existing HTML finding aid, it was decided to maintain the collection “as is” excepting those items selected for rearrangement. This was not ideal given the way in which records are described and cataloged and has contributed to some of the illogical arrangements. The original descriptions separated documents into individual subunits when they should have been retained as one subunit or record within the subunit inventory. For example, various filings of a court case file (complaint, depositions, etc.) are often separately described as individual subunits and initially without reference to other corresponding units. To compensate for this, many documents are cross referenced, and in some instances consolidated and digitized as one digital record and linked to each of the corresponding subunits in the inventory. Similarly, multiple subunits may appear on the same page(s) of a document and so the same image(s) are linked for each in many instances. In preparing the records for digitization each of the 18,000+ records was checked against the catalog inventory to ensure original order was maintained and then labeled with the MSA S1005 citation. Also, nearly 2,000 items received conservation treatment before being sent for digitization whereby 54,000+ images have been scanned and uploaded to the MSA catalog and placed online. Nearly 100 uncataloged items or documents were discovered and added to the catalog. Overall, hundreds of enhanced, corrected, cross referenced, and updated catalog entries have been applied to the catalog.