A compleat map of North-Carolina from an actual survey / by Capt’n Collet, Governor of Fort Johnston ; engraved by I. Bayly.
This beautiful late colonial (1770) map of North Carolina, by William Churton and John Collet, is one of our great cartographic treasures. I have been unable to find a description of the different states of this map, and have assumed that there was only one state. Continue reading
Perhaps varying in rate but seemingly unending is the migration of northerners to The Old North State, a process that led to the development of Pinehurst and Southern Pines in the late 19th century, and the population explosion in the late 20th century of the town of Cary (resulting in the acronym CARY = Containment Area for Relocated Yankees). Not all the land speculation schemes resulted in great success. An example of one that did not is Niagara, North Carolina. Continue reading
Have you ever noticed the peculiar step off in the boundary between North Carolina and Virginia at the northwest corner of Gates County?
Ever wonder why it is there? Continue reading
A post about North Carolina’s official State highway maps sounded interesting. Turns out, someone has already done it for us. Well, maybe not specifically for us, but it’s been done. For a wonderful synopsis of the history of North Carolina’s State highway maps, take a look at this pdf.
After you’ve read that, perhaps you’d like to see some of North Carolina’s early State highway maps. Many of them have been scanned as part of the North Carolina Maps digitization project. Nicholas Graham, Program Coordinator of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center, has provided a wonderful link to images of the North Carolina highway maps available for viewing.
So you live in North Carolina and want to go to the beach. Do you head east or west? It depends on if you want to go to the State’s coast on the Atlantic or Pacific. Of course, North Carolina does not have a Pacific Coast. That wasn’t always the case. Continue reading
Several remarkably rare maps were recently “discovered” in Winston-Salem, NC, at the Moravian Archives. Of course, the custodians of these maps have always known of their existence. However, the cartographic community has been largely unaware of these particular maps as evidenced by the absence of their documentation in the usual reference works. For example… Continue reading
The obvious answer is yes… and no. Continue reading
One of the most important maps in North Carolina’s cartographic history was published in 1808, titled: To David Stone and Peter Brown Esqrs. This First Actual Survey of the State of North Carolina Taken by the Subscribers is respectfully dedicated By their humble Servants Jona. Price. John Strother. It was the first map of the entire State, excluding lands owned by the Cherokee Nation, that had been created by actual survey. Continue reading
The earliest engraved North Carolina town plan is that of New Bern by Jonathan Price. The map was engraved by the local silversmith, Allen Fitch, who advertised it “ready for delivery” as early as the August 30, 1817, issue of the Carolina Federal Republican (New Bern, NC).
Image from microfilm in the North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh, NC.
In a previous post, we talked about one of the oldest place names still in use in North Carolina, Lockwood Folly. Today, we’ll talk about a place name which appeared and vanished in the 18th century. Freydeck made a sudden appearance west of the Blue Ridge (in current day Ashe County) on several English and French maps of North America published in 1755, including the monumental map by John Mitchell, A Map of the British and French Dominions in North America with the Roads, Distances…
Detail from John Mitchell’s map, showing Freydeck on the New River in NC.
What is a Freydeck?
For many collectors, the progressively mundane character of later 19th century maps is no match for the seductive combination of artistry and expansion of geographic knowledge associated with colonial era maps. It’s no wonder that cartobibliographers have focused on the earlier maps. In Part 1, we discussed the excellent references available for identifying pre-19th century maps of North Carolina, and the dearth of references for maps published after 1800. Let’s take a look at one very helpful on line guide for a subset of 19th century atlas maps. Continue reading
Few North Carolina place names are older than Lockwood Folly, and the origins of few place names are more mysterious. It appears to have made its debut as “Look Wood Folly” on the c1673 Ogilby-Moxon map, A New Discription of Carolina..., the so-called First Lords Proprietors’ map. “Lockwoods Folly” is seen on the c1673-75 A New Map of the English Plantations in America…, by Robert Morden and William Berry, and “Lockwood Folley” is found on the 1682 Gascoyne map of Carolina, the so-called Second Lords Proprietors’ map. Lockwood Folly remains a regular, if not constant, place name on North Carolina maps from that point forward to current times.
