Today spend a bit of time looking for the reference to the Gibbs- Starling map of 1851. I have a copy in digital form but its full of photocopy marks and this obscures some of the information. I found the reference and its at the Smithsonian, Cartography division at College Park. We have to go there anyway and were planning on a visit in October. But Mackey has several nice images in the Kalapuyans and OSU appears to have a clean copy in their map library. I will be going to OSU and WUU tomorrow.
But this speaks to problems in the research on Oregon history. If these resources are not readily available in Oregon, how do historians do their work? we can limp along with poor sources or get a good copy with all of the details we need.
Hi! I love old maps. Being a coastal girl, the best for me are the maps of Coos Bay and neighboring rivers made before jetties were built, and before dykes made in the sloughs (or at least before so many dykes were created). Landscape sure looks different, and makes the descriptions of some indigenous place names and villages sites much clearer. Also can find some interesting notes – Harvey Gordon did a survey from north Coos Bay to the Siuslaw in 1857 or 1858, he hired some Indians from Ft Umpqua to help him with equipment. He happened to write down some of their place names, some of which never recorded ever again elsewhere. Which is how names like Tahkenitch, Siltcoos, Cleawox and Woahink were preserved.
Whoops, just occurred to me I misspelled – I meant dikes!!! Dang I need more coffee……