7. There’s an Online Archive of Castle Clinton Documents
While many of Castle Garden’s immigrant documents were lost in the aforementioned fire, we can still sift through materials related to the creation, history and preservation of the structure thanks to the Manhattan Historic Sites Archive. Funded by the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy, the archive is the result of a three year endeavor to catalog and digitize collections related to six National Park Service sites in Manhattan (Castle Clinton, General Grant National Memorial, Theodore Roosevelt’s birthplace, Federal Hall, Saint Paul’s Church and Hamilton Grange National Memorial).
The archives contain a rich catalogue of materials ranging from photographs to letters, as well as maps and prints. Explore it here, and discover period illustrations of Castle Garden, with 19th century lithographs and photographs documenting the aquarium, nationalization files, and even administrative records spanning the early 1700s to the late 1900s. Additionally, you can find Battery’s store of digital copies at castlegarden.org and at the National Archives; Atlas Obscura also offers up genealogical websites stevemorse.org and immigrantships.net, where searchable manifests from Castle Garden’s immigrant vessels are held.