Thursday, August 27, 2009

Lucy Worth Jackson

Steve Rankin sent me an interesting article about female map makers of the 19th century. It reminded me of an additional local example: Lucy Worth Jackson. Ms. Jackson's husband was a miner, or maybe more like mineral speculator, who owned a coal mine near Carbonton in Chatham County and also a "gold mine" on Cane creek in what is now Alamance County, then considered Chatham.

Ms. Jackson made at least two beautiful color maps of areas in Chatham County:
Map of the Coalfields of Chatham and a Portion of the Mineral Region of N. C., circa 1874
Map of Cane Creek Gold Mines, Chatham County, North Carolina, circa 1878

Copies of the first map above can be purchased inexpensively from http://chathamhistory.org/publications.html
The second map is posted on the NC Maps site: http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/ncmaps&CISOPTR=2384&CISOBOX=1&REC=6

Lucy Worth Jackson was the daughter of Gov. Jonathan Worth.

1 comment:

  1. I have been studying the Map of Cane Creek Gold Mines a little further and a couple of things become clear. First, this map is listed in the card catalog as being circa 1875, but I think we can pin the time down a bit more. The deeds and leases that are the basis for this map were executed on a variety of dates, but the latest of them appears to be 1877 and the map correctly shows the status of land ownership as of 1877. So I think we can date it to 1877.

    Second, the map calls this 'Cane Creek' but the deeds call it Little Cane Creek, which was an old name for the Cane Creek that flows across southern Alamance into the Haw (as opposed to the Cane Creek that flows across SW Orange County into the Haw, which was known as Big Cane Creek?).

    Third, the mill shown is referred to as 'Gold Mill.' The map has no clear points of reference, but there is a deed conveying this property from C C Mann to J J Jackson (Lucy's husband). The deed refers to the property as being on the public road from J Henley's to Pittsboro and also mentions that C C Mann had bought the mill from J Henley. The G P Stout Map of Alamance County shows the Stafford-Henley Mill on Cane Creek just above what is now called McBane Mill Road; McBane Mill is another name for the Stafford Henley Mill, so it appears that the this map is generally showing the area around the intersection of Greenhill Road and NC Hwy 87.

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