We live in an historic community, and through the efforts of the Historic Preservation Commission, that history is becoming more readily available to both our residents and historians interested in researching our unique little town.
Washington Grove’s archivist, Patricia Patula, has spent several years entering our history into a museum quality database program called PastPerfect. Now we’ve added PastPerfect Online, which allows all of us to access that information from our own computers.
Considering that we have over 100 years of Minutes, Reports and Correspondence, this has indeed been a daunting task, and it is still a work in process, but we’re so excited about PastPerfect Online that we want to roll it out even as this work continues.
While the archived documents themselves are not accessible through the program, you can see a synopsis of each individual document and if it’s something of interest to you, a .pdf copy can be made available. Likewise, we have a surprisingly extensive library of books both about the Town and by authors who have been or are currently living here in Town. While these are not available for borrowing, you are welcomed to come sit in our office and read them.
We know that many of you have collected Town memorabilia, such as old Washington Grove post cards, pictures of your houses through the years, objects handed down through your families and so forth, and we’re hoping that you will allow us to photograph them and include them in our online collections, while you continue to maintain custody of them.
There will soon be a direct link to the program from within our Town’s website, or it can be accessed at any time through this link https://washingtongrovemd.pastperfectonline.com/. We hope you will take some time to explore this latest addition to our extensive resources.