Monday, December 29, 2008

North Carolina Maps

UNC has added a great new feature to its website. UNC and the State Archives are in the process of posting hundreds of antique maps of North Carolina.

http://www.lib.unc.edu/dc/ncmaps/

I highly recommend this website. I have been spending plenty of time there, especially checking out the local maps. For example the 1873 map of Randolph County that was hand draw by Bean. It has some wonderful detail, shwoing old mills, churches, schools etc. Likewise the site has the 1870 Ramsey map of Chatham County.

However, curiously there are a couple of notable piedmont county maps that are not on the site. Let's hope they are forthcoming soon:

the 1890 Tate Map of Orange County, [Correction: They do have this, but a 1940 reprint.]
the 1895 Johnson Map of Guilford County,
the 1908 Miller Map of Guilford County,
and the 1912 Miller Map of Randolph County.

Some of these are readily available for purchase online through:
the Rockingham Hist. Soc. http://www.rockinghamcountyhistory.com/id24.htm
the Guilford Gean. Soc. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ncgcgs/pubs.html
and the Chatham Hist. Assoc. http://chathamhistory.org/publications.html

But even so, it would also be nice to make them accessible online. Notably, the Tate Map of Orange County does not appear to be available anywhere (so far as I know). Let me know if you are aware of a place to buy a copy.

The Chatham County Historical Association also sells a beautiful 1874 map by Lucy Worth Jackson entitled: Map of the Coal Fields of Chatham and a Portion of the Mineral Regions of N.C.

2 comments:

  1. Mark, interesting hypotheses. If the river were shallow enough to ford on the hike day it might get interesting. I'm going to ask Mac Whatley to look over the blog too. Just stomping around Coleridge might be of value as I see a number of likely fords around the town (mainly upstream. I have a Deep River Crossings map and my marks on it, my surmises for Buffalo ford were in the same area as you're looking plus on just upstream from Coleridge.

    See if there ia a site on any of the creeks that will sustain a two hour hike and have something juicy to see. Not much more than a mile and a half walking. My guess is that there was a dam about 5K feet up Millstone Ck. There was likely a dam near the current bridge on Mill ck and a ford downstream between bridge and river. And there is something interesting just upstream from Hinshaw Town Road, up the drive.

    See what you can learn from the local property owners and I'll ask Mac Whatley. Do you know Calvin Hinshaw?

    tom

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  2. A number of years ago I bought a very good copy of the 1891 Tate Map of Orange County at the County Museum in Hillsborough. Ernie Dollar would certainly know if they are still available.

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