1856 Virginia Map: Early Railroads

[NW Mailing List]

Maps are a Godsend for the historian. Today, while searching the Library of Congress for an 1856 issue of Scientific American, I ran across Charles W. Morse's General Atlas of the World (New York: Appletons, 1856.) That publication date almost coincides with the construction of the Virginia & Tennessee RR. Comparing the book's map of Virginia with what we know of the area today makes for some interesting comparisons. (Such as a projected railroad running from Christiansburg to Charleston [now West,] Virginia.)

So I grabbed the Virginia page out of the book and corrected it for color, contrast, brightness and sharpness, cropped it to 20" width, and put it into a PDF. It is attached.

The legend, such as it is, appears at the upper left of the map.

Charles W. Morse was the son of Samuel F.B. Morse, who is generally credited with being the "inventor" of the magnetic telegraph. It appears that other relatives in the family may have assembled the mapwork, and Charles water-colored their work and had it published. But I do not know the complete history of the book.

Me...? I just want to go check out that curious-sounding town named "Competition" in Pittsylvania County !

-- abram burnett
.
Write Today for Our Prospectus:
    Giga-Max Global Capital Turnip Investment Fund, LLC
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: MORSE, Charles W__Morses General Atlas of the World_1856_pub Appleton NY_Rumsey Map Col__VIRGINIA page_cropped 20 in wide 300 ppi.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 6408360 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20240116/729acd9f/attachment-0001.pdf>