When the English shifted their colonization efforts north from Roanoke Island to the James River and Chesapeake Bay, they took the name “Virginia” with them. So what did they call North Carolina once they absconded with its original Virginia moniker? Ould Virginia, of course.
Theodor de Bry’s 1590 published engraving of John White’s map of Virginia was the first printed map focused specifically on what is now North Carolina. The second such map was published by John Smith in his 1624 book, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles... Continue reading
Westward Ho! Roanoke, the Map, and X Marks the Spot is a free symposium to be held 27-29 October 2017, on Roanoke Island, NC. The sympsium will focus on new information on Sir Walter Raleigh’s Roanoke Island colonies & the John White-Thomas Harriot Virginea Pars Map—with all its secret symbols. Continue reading
The old axiom, “good things come in small packages”, certainly holds true in maps. There are some miniature maps of Carolina that are adorable. Let’s take a look at a few maps of the Carolinas that measure no more than four inches. Continue reading
Nathaniel Batts: Buried at sea, but not originally
Nathaniel Batts may not have been the first permanent European settler in North Carolina (there is vague evidence that he was not), but he was undoubtedly one of the earliest and best documented. Where is his grave site? Continue reading
There are 3 issues of the 1672 first edition of A Description of the Island of Jamaica; with the other Isles and Territories in America…published by Richard Blome, varying in the seller listed on the title page, as follows: Continue reading
A Generall Mapp of Carolina Describeing its Sea Coast and Rivers, London Printed for Ric. Blome, was published in A Description of the Island of Jamaica: With the other Isles and Territories in America, by Richard Blome (Burden, Plate 420). The title page in the first edition of the book is dated 1672. Continue reading
The East Coast Greenway organization’s vision is …a green travel corridor [that] will provide cyclists, walkers, and other muscle-powered modes of transportation with a low-impact way to explore the eastern seaboard. Over 300 years ago, there was a trail in eastern North Carolina that undoubtedly required muscle power. It was literally a green way or, more specifically, the Green Path, as illustrated here:
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
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.
Welcome to the William P. Cumming Map Society’s new blog: the North Carolina Map Blog. We hope to be posting every few weeks or so, and hope to have it set up eventually to make use of all those newfangled things like Twitter and RSS feeds. Your comments are appreciated, as long as they are civil! Continue reading