Heroic Deeds of Heroic Men: Charles Ellet, Jr., Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1866)

   I made a new acquisition last week--the first since this blog has been in existence!  Last week I found an interesting article on eBay called "Heroic Deeds of Heroic Men: Charles Ellet and His Naval Steam Rams."  It was published in 1866 in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Volume XXXII).  This acquisition is very exciting for me.  I've always wanted a piece from Harper's.  More importantly, it is about a civil engineer and badass who gained national fame in the 1850s and 60s, Charles Ellet, Jr.  Ellet was a pioneering civil engineer of the 1840s and 50s, designing early suspension bridges and other works of public importance.  As an example of his work, in 1849 he designed and built the longest spanning bridge in the world at the time, the Wheeling Suspension Bridge at Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia).

Note that all pictures in this post are taken from the article.

A Note on White Erasers

I am not an expert on restoration of old documents, but I do know that white erasers can be used carefully to remove atmospheric dirt and dust, and sometimes darker marks.  The trick to not damage the document is to do very light strokes.  You do not want to put stress on the surface of the paper.

Here is an example of a mark I was able to almost entirely remove by just using a white eraser.

You might notice the image on the right is generally more clean of imperfections.  I used the eraser to lightly clean the surface of the lithograph.

Action of the Gunboats at Memphis

Action of the Gunboats at Memphis (1865)

I obtained this lithograph at a place called the Book Garden in New Jersey for $10.  I had no idea what I had purchased, but was guessing that it was printed in the 1870s-80s based on the paper and printing style.  It turns out it is a steel lithograph based on a painting by Alonzo Chappel called "Action of the Gunboats at Memphis."

This lithograph appears to come out of a book called Battles of the United States by Sea and Land published in 1865.  The volume contains descriptions of the battles engaged by the United States with accompanying lithographs to illustrate.  All the illustrations/lithographs are based on paintings done by artist Alonzo Chappel.  My guess is that over the years these books were taken apart for the lithographs and sold piecemeal.  You often just see the lithographs for sale online.

I was able to find the second volume of this set online in a PDF form.  The second volume contains descriptions and illustrations of the French and Indian War, American Revoluation, War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War.  It was published in 1858, just before the outbreak of the American Civil War.  My guess is that after the Civil War they published a third volume just focused on the American Civil War, and this is the book that this lithograph comes from.

Screen shot taken of the title page of the

second volume of the series.

I've seen prices for Action of the Gunboats at Memphis lithograph range from $50 to $100 online, so I think I did pretty well with this $10 purchase.  Also, if you look carefully at the left side of the image you might notice that it looks a little cleaner (the corners, especially).  This is because I took a white eraser to it, and did some very light restoration.  I will probably do the right side now, but I wanted to leave it half done to show what can be done simply with a white eraser (and a very careful hand).

Coming Soon!

Hey everyone.  Just a quick update.

This week I'll be putting up a scan of an 1865 lithograph of a Civil War sea battle.  And keep checking back because there will be continuous updates on the Wilkes Barre map as time goes on.

I also plan on scanning the entirety of the Legendary Islands of the Atlantic book into PDF... so keep your eyes peeled for that down the road!

Relics on the 1873 Wilkes Barre Map

   The more I look at the map, the more I come to appreciate it.  I like the colors and the various cryptic denotations.  I was able to learn a neat little history about how the town came to look how it does.

In the center you will notice a very uniform grid of small lots.  These lots are numbers from 1-50 and were the original 50 lots established when the town was settled in 1770.  These original lots were plotted in 1770 by one "Major Durkee" at direction of the Susquehanna Company.  This is where the history gets interesting (always my favorite part).

The Susquehanna Company was a company formed in the great state (then a British colony) of Connecticut.  The Company was formed, probably at the behest of the Connecticut colonial government, in order to establish settlements in the Wyoming Valley, which is in the northeastern part of  what is now-Pennsylvania.  In 1770 however, Connecticut laid claim to 'lands west of New York,' including parts of Pennsylvania, where Wilkes Barre now is.  The original 50 plots of Wilkes Barre, as depicted in the center of this map, are a relic of the land dispute between the colonies of Pennsylvania and Connecticut in 1770. 

The dispute between Pennsylvania and Connecticut led to what's called the "Pennamite Wars."  These were a series of wars fought by militia units of Pennsylvania and Connecticut.  After Connecticut settlers founded Wilkes Barre in 1769, Pennsylvanians sought to expel the Connecticans(?) by force.  The battles were not particularly bloody, resulting in only two Connecticutans and one Pennsylvanian killed.  There were three 'conflicts' in this war, one in 1769-70, 1775 and even as late as 1782, which was basically the end of the American Revolution.  Eventually the Continental Congress resolved the dispute by upholding Pennsylvania's claim to the land, which is now why the Wyoming Valley is part of Pennsylvania and not Connecticut.

The forced settlement of the Wyoming Valley was an effort by Connecticut to establish a foothold, a claim, in the area.  The relic of this conflict is seen today in the layout of Wilkes Barre.  The fifty original lots are a memorial to this now-forgotten conflict.  They persist to this day, and are reflected on this awesome map from 1873 (one hundred years after their being plotted) given to me by my awesome girl.

1873 Map of Wilkes Barre, PA

This is a beautiful map given to me by my lovely girlfriend, Abbyrae.  It is one of the best gifts I've ever received.  It was too large for my scanner, so I had to scan it in four separate sections and piece it together.  You will notice it is not perfect, but I think it came out good enough.  

More details to come when I learn more about this map.

Missing Pages from Legendary Islands of the Atlantic Now Available!

Hey All,

Today I sat down and scanned in the 51 missing pages from the reprint of Legendary Islands of the Atlantic.  In recent years a company called Nabu Public Domain Reprints republished Legendary Islands of the Atlantic by William H. Babcock.  However, they did a poor job with their scanning, leaving over fifty pages out of the final published product.  They nevertheless sold this product to numerous people at Amazon.com.

Half-missing "Sargasso Sea" Map, page 28

I thought I'd do people who purchased the Nabu edition the service of publishing the missing pages online so they can finish reading this great book, which is a piece of history in itself.

You can purchase the incomplete Nabu version here.  I then recommend supplementing it with the scanned pages that I have stored online here.  Click the blue "Download Now" button on the bottom-left.  At this point you will have to create a user account, which is free and will only take a second (well worth the few seconds).  Then click the gray "Free Download" button on the bottom right, and it should begin downloading.

Hereford Map c. 1275 (St. Brendan Legend)

from Missing Pages 40-41

Unfortunately I was not able to make it a searchable PDF.  My scanning software is very rudimentary.  All I was able to do was scan each page into a pdf as an image.  Oh well, at least you can have access to the material for free now.  Enjoy!

P.S. For more information on this book please see my other post.

-Dan

Update

   Hello all!

   This is just a quick update about what you will see coming soon to the blog.  I have just started this experiment so I will have some lag time up front getting things scanned into JPEG and/or PDF format and posting it on here for all to have access to.  I have to figure out the best way to do the scanning because I don't have a good scanner, or good scanning software.  Looks like I'll be MacGyvering some stuff, so my apologies if the quality isn't 100%.

   Moving on.  The first few things you will see on here are the scans of the missing pages and quality scans of the maps from Legendary Islands of the Atlantic.  Then you will see an 1873 map of the town of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where I recently conducted some research in the manuscript collections of the Luzerne County Historical Society.  I will then probably post an 1865 lithograph pertaining to a Civil War naval battle, a few lithographs from a history book from the turn of the century, and possibly get into some books from the World War I era.

   You will have to keep checking for updates because I will not be updating on a regular schedule.  I hope to have all of the scanning for Legendary Islands of the Atlantic done and posted before the end of the week.

Until then, cheers.
-Dan

Legendary Islands of the Atlantic: A Study in Medieval Geography

I recently purchased on Amazon a reprint of an old book entitled Legendary Islands of the Atlantic: A Study in Medieval Geography.  Originally published in 1922 by the American Geographical Society the book discussed the various legendary islands of the Atlantic which were charted on medieval European maps going back centuries.

   The author, William H. Babcock, endeavored to discuss the origin of each legend, and any possible link the legend might have to the real world.  The legends he studied are as follows:

1. Atlantis
2. St. Brendan's Island (and Exploration)
3. The Island of Brazil
4. The Island of the Seven Cities
5. Mayda
6. Greenland or "Green Island"
7. Markland, Otherwise Newfoundland
8. Estotiland and the Other Islands of Zeno
9. Antillia and the Antilles
10. Corvo
11. The Sunken Land of Buss and other Phantom Islands

   To my disappointment the reprint I purchased was really low quality.  The reprint was basically just a scan of the original, including all of the old maps.  However, the pdf scan was really low quality, rendering most of the maps unreadable.  The worst part about this reprint was that it was missing nearly fifty whole pages of the original work, some of the best chapters.
   So, months later, after studying for and taking the dreaded Bar Exam, I found myself online again looking for legendary islands of the Atlantic.  I found an original 1922 edition on eBay for a bargain price and made the purchase.  It arrived at my place a few days later in very good condition.  I think, from what I've seen online, they only printed one run of the original edition in 1922.
   Because this work is now out of copyright and in the public domain, I will be sharing the missing contents with the public, and probably re-scanning the maps in high quality.