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Map of Connecticut, circa 1625, Indian trails, villages, sachemdoms
A 1930 pictorial map compiling Indian Villages, Trails, and Sachemdoms of 1625. Published by the
Connecticut Society of Colonial Dames of America which is a section of the National Society of Colonial
Dames or NSDCA which is currently about 15,000 strong. This wonderful organization founded in 1891 provides historical preservations, educational projects and scholarships including but not limited to American Indian Medical Scholarships.
The brainchild behind this rare map was Mary Pierson Cheney, the president of the Connecticut Dames at the time. Mary was a philanthropist, a civic activist and married to Horace Bushnell Cheney,
a member of the Cheney Silk conglomerate. By 1920 the Cheney Brothers produced the most silk in the world and employed 25 percent of the town of Manchester. Mary's father, Stephen C. Pierson was a renown civil engineer in Meriden Connecticut.
The map was drawn by Hayden Leavenworth Griswold, a civil engineer that had worked for five different towns as well as Manchester. The map was compiled by Mathias Spiess, a tobacco broker with extensive knowledge of the tribes living in and about Connecticut.
Ther were an estimated 2000 of these maps produced which were distributed to educational
establishments within Connecticut during the early years of the Great Depression
Page 5 Parts of Babylon and Islip
A impossibly scarce 1929 map of Long Island is by Dolph and Stewart. The map is pre Robert Moses and one could surmise that the rarity correlates to the sparse population or interest of the area as well as the beginning of the Great Depression. Moses is well noted for creating highways rather than public transportation which helped create the current suburbs throughout Long Island. A huge undertaking on his watch as Secretary of State indeed. Some of the place names and people on this map certainly lay claim to the area's history. For example: John Vanderveer. His family donated the land where Good Samaritan Hospital now sits overlooking The Great South Bay. The history of the organization that procured the idea for this only hospital in Islip was actually born by Sisters Marie Louise Trichet and
Louise de Montfort of France in 1701 dedicating their lives to the unfortunate and creating the Daughters of Wisdom organization which grew to the point of intolerable to French secular groups.
The Daughters of Wisdom fled to the United States in 1907. American Venice. This area on the map
pertains to an area on the Great South Bay, Lindenhurst New York, that in the 20s brought architectural Venice to some of its canals and bridges. Truly inspirational and during its time must have been beautiful. I understand salvage and revitalization is still ongoing. Not only is this map big on history but also alluring for those of us who were born there.
On a side note, the geological aspects of Long Island are interesting, in fact an anomaly. This peninsula was formed by two terminal moraines, the Ronkonkoma and the Harbor Hill, with Ronkonkoma being the older. They were part of the Wisconsinian Glacier which reached its southern most point about 18,000 years ago. The terminal or end moraine Harbor Hill is apparent in North Fork, Plum Island, Great Gulf Island and Fischer's Island with its highest point in Nassau County. The two moraines intersect at Lake Success.
informational sources: The Patch West Islip, NY : N.Y. courts.gov. ; Wikipedia geography of Long Island
Williams.EDU ; Britannica
The seashore of New England
She shells sea shells at the seashore, rather, She sells sea sells at the seashore.....never mind. Her name was Sally. This map is part of a first publication called "The Book Of Summer Resorts" compiled and released by Charles H. Sweetser in 1868. The book contains 528 pages with five folding maps including this one which is the largest at 13" x 16.8" by G.W. & G.B. Colton and Co. of New York. The other maps covered Rensselaer, Saratoga, Rutland, Burlington, Lake Champlain, Long Island Sound, Canada, Battlefields of Virginia and excursion routes and sites respectively. Now that's a travel book.
I bought this map because it brought me back to my childhood. For the better part of my first 18 years I spent two weeks a year at LBI...Jersey. My mother and her twin sister had ten kids between them. Twelve people in a two bedroom bungalow for two weeks, some of the best memories only to be backed up by my vacations with my own family at the Cape the last number of years.
This map is ideally suited for a beach house, provided there aren't five boys wrestling and throwing baseballs and footballs around in it while the cats are away.