Octagonal towns. A previous post discussed the abundance of circle towns in North Carolina (and throughout the South) and the various reasons behind this geometric town limit. The impracticality of a circular boundary, from a surveyor’s perspective, was also mentioned. What’s the solution to keeping the circular benefits in a way that would be practical to the surveyorr? The octagonal town, of course! Continue reading
This conference has been rescheduled for September 17-18, 2021.
Cartography & Culture: Mapping the Early American South, a MESDA Map Seminar, will be held at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, NC, on September 17-18, 2021. The organizers have created an outstanding program. Further details on the program and registration are available here: https://mesda.org/program/mesda-fall-seminar/ . This program has been generously sponsored by Mr. & Mrs. Frank H. Holcomb of Houston, TX. I hope to see you there!
On a recent trip to the corn field formerly known as Sneedsboro, I saw a large map of Anson County, published anonymously in 1904. An internet search that evening quickly revealed the surveyors and cartographer. Continue reading
This was previously published on the NC Map Blog on May 15, 2019. It somehow has completely vanished. Not only is it no longer on the published blog, it isn’t anywhere in my list of posts on my admin page. Unfortunately, Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) captured only the blog home page in August 2019, at which time the Kocherthal post introduction was still there. However, the entire Kocherthal post page was not captured. I previously did save the post as a pdf, but this pdf did not capture footnotes, references, or hyperlinks. Here is a link to the pdf if the viewer below does not work in your browser.
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On 30 October 1629, King Charles I issued a grant to Sir Robert Heath, his attorney general, for all the land in North America between 31° and 36° north latitude. This land was designated Carolana, i.e. “land of Charles.” During the next 150 years, Carolana made sporadic and wandering appearances on maps. Continue reading
C.M. Miller authored at least eleven North Carolina county maps (nine separate counties) during the early 20th Century. Who was this forgotten cartographer, and which counties did he map? Continue reading
Cartographic historians and collectors of 18th Century maps of what is now Virginia and the Carolinas love “wow” maps, such as the Churton-Collet map of North Carolina and the Fry-Jefferson map of Virginia. A few maps, such as Carte de la Caroline Meridionale et Septentrionale et de la Virginie, receive no love at all and are essentially ignored. Why is that? Continue reading
Renowned British map dealer, scholar, and author Philip Burden made an exciting discovery at the Admiralty Library in Portsmouth, UK. Burden discovered four previously unrecorded small charts of locations on the east coast of North America, bound within an extremely rare small atlas by Philip Lea. Continue reading
A few months ago, I attended a lecture at the Moravian Archives in Winston-Salem. While there, I had the opportunity to see several manuscript and printed maps of Forsyth County displayed on the walls of the Archives. Continue reading
On Thursday, September 6 through Saturday, September 8, 2018, fourteen leading scholars will share their knowledge and current research on the life and impact of Sir Walter Raleigh (1554?-1618). Raleigh 400: A Conference on Sir Walter Raleigh Four Hundred Years After His Death will be held at the Wilson Special Collections Library, part of the University Libraries on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The conference is open to the public but will be geared toward a scholarly audience. Advance registration is required. Admission is free, with the exception of the dinner and talk on Friday evening, September 7.
The conference is sponsored by the Wilson Special Collections Library’s North Carolina Collection and Rare Book Collection and the Program in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Questions: Please call the North Carolina Collection at 919-962-1172.
Eighteenth Century South Carolina surveyor James Cook has been dead for over 200 years. Let’s make believe he’s still living and still surveying. What else would he be doing? He’d be suing several late 20th and early 21st century writers and publishers for libel. His case would be a slam dunk. Let’s examine the evidence of libel and then the facts. Continue reading
One noticeable feature on a select few Carolina coastal charts published during the last half of the 18th century is a row of trees along the Grand Strand, a section of coast now dominated by high rise hotels and condos. Who “planted” these trees? Daniel Dunbibin or Nicholas Pocock?
Image credits: 1770 Pocock image courtesy of Boston Rare Maps. 1777 Le Rouge image courtesy of North Carolina Collection at UNC-CH. 1794 Norman image courtesy of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library.
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