If you believe the map, the Cape Fear & Yadkin Rail Road was the first railroad completed within the state of North Carolina.
From David Rumsey Collection.
The map was wrong. Continue reading
Cape Fear & Yadkin Rail Road: NC’s first….or not.
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Category Archives: 19th Century
An unrecorded map of North Carolina
Given the lack of a useful cartobibliography for post-Revolutionary War maps of North Carolina, one shouldn’t be too surprised to find a previously unrecorded map. Nonetheless, the recent discovery of a previously unknown first state of an 1814 map of North Carolina generated some excitement from this blogger. Continue reading
Price-Strother: a final letter
NOTE: The information provided here is supplementary to “Reflecting on the Price-Strother Map of North Carolina: An Uncommon Exercise for an Uncommon Map”, the history of this magnificent map published in the Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts.
There are four NC Map Blog supplements to the MESDA article:
Price-Strother map legal documents
Price-Strother map of NC: reviews and advertisements
Price-Strother map in contemporary letters
Price-Strother: a final letter (this page, scroll down)
Jonathan Price’s debt to the State transferred to the
University of North Carolina Board of Trustees and
Price’s stirring letter to the Trustees.
(If you don’t read anything else, at the very least, skip to the end and read Price’s letter.)
Price-Strother map in contemporary letters
NOTE: The information provided here is supplementary to “Reflecting on the Price-Strother Map of North Carolina: An Uncommon Exercise for an Uncommon Map”, a history of this magnificent map published in the Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts.
Contemporary letters referencing the Price-Strother map
Aaron Burr was most renowned for being Vice President during Jefferson’s first term, and while in that office, killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Continue reading
Price-Strother map of NC: Reviews and Ads
NOTE: The information provided here is supplementary to “Reflecting on the Price-Strother Map of North Carolina: An Uncommon Exercise for an Uncommon Map”, a history of this magnificent map published in the Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts. There are four NC Map Blog supplements to the MESDA article:
Price-Strother map legal documents
Price-Strother map of NC: reviews and ads (this page, scroll down)
Price-Strother map in contemporary letters
Price-Strother: a final letter
Contemporary reviews and advertisements for
the Price-Strother map of North Carolina
The earliest review located thus far was published in The Monthly Anthology, and Boston Review in April 1808.[1] Was it an original review, or was it a reprint of an earlier review? Continue reading
Price-Strother map legal documents
NOTE: The information provided here is supplementary to “Reflecting on the Price-Strother Map of North Carolina: An Uncommon Exercise for an Uncommon Map”, a history of this magnificent map published in the Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts. There are four NC Map Blog supplements to the MESDA article:
Price-Strother map legal documents (this page, scroll down)
Price-Strother map of NC: reviews and advertisements
Price-Strother map in contemporary letters
Price-Strother: a final letter
General Assembly Petitions, Committee Reports, and Resolutions Pertaining to the 1808 Price-Strother map of North Carolina: 1790-1799.
These records, listed chronologically, were obtained from manuscript documents in the North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC, and from published journals of the House and Senate. Continue reading
Map Wars IV: The Minister Strikes Back
In earlier blog posts, we’ve discussed the resurrection of the plates for the 1833 MacRae-Brazier map and their use by Wellington Williams to publish a “new” map of North Carolina in 1854. The following episode involved their use by an unknown publisher (J.H. French?) for a bizarre map that turned out to be a publisher’s mock up for the map that is the subject of today’s post. What does a minister have to do with all of this?
Map Wars III: A disturbance in the force…caused by a bizarre map of NC
In a previous post, we discussed Wellington Williams’s publication in 1854 of a (not so) new map of North Carolina, printed from the resurrected copper plates of the 1833 MacRae-Brazier map. Those plates had more lives than a cat. Their next reincarnation resulted in one of the strangest North Carolina maps ever published. That is the topic of this North Carolina Map Blog post. Continue reading
Cartographic winds of change
We’ll return to the Map Wars series in a few weeks. In the meantime, please enjoy this tidbit. Fielding Lucas, Jr., was one of the great American map publishers of the early 19th century. Not only did he compile and publish his own atlases, he also drew maps for other publishers. One example of the latter is a Geographical, Historical, And Statistical Map Of North Carolina, published in 1822-1827 atlases by Carey & Lea, shown here…
Continue reading
Map Wars: Episode II – A “new” NC wall map.
There are, of course, numerous examples of maps whose publication history far outlived their accuracy from either a physical or political geographic perspective. One of the best examples from North Carolina is the 1833 MacRae-Brazier map.
1833 MacRae-Brazier map of North Carolina
Note: Analogous to the Star Wars movies, we’re starting in the middle of the story. We’ll eventually circle around to Episode I, the story of the original MacRae-Brazier map. The fact that I’m starting in the middle of the story is what prompted the post title; this mid 19th century commercial cartographic competition did not involve light sabres or other weaponry. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post… Continue reading
Worthless land?
The early 1830s spawned a flurry of interest in building railroads in North Carolina. Many more companies were formed and railroads proposed than were actually constructed. That would be an outstanding topic to cover but, for now, this brief post is limited to an annotation on an 1832 manuscript map drawn to illustrate a potential route of what eventually became the North Carolina Railroad. Continue reading
How did Google find Lenoir, a moving target on these maps?
In 1847, the North Carolina legislature approved the incorporation of the Caldwell and Ashe Turnpike. The purpose of this thoroughfare was to facilitate trade between western Virginia, Tennessee, and even Kentucky with North Carolina via a route through what is now Watauga and Caldwell counties.This scenic toll road connected Johnson City, TN, with Lenoir, North Carolina, the latter now home to a Google data center. The Caldwell and Ashe Turnpike was completed within a few years and persists today on our State highway map as U.S. Highway 321. What did it look like on the great North Carolina wall maps of the 1850s? Continue reading