[Signed] Map of the Oregon Territory by the U.S. Ex. Ex. 1841 / 1871 Wilkes Map of the Oregon Territory / Vancouver, British Columbia [ ]

Description

1871 Reissue of a seminal 1841 map. Very good. Overall toning. Some wear on original fold lines. Size 22.5 x 35 Inches. This is the 1871 U.S.H.O. reissue of Commodore Wilkes' 1841 U.S. exploring expedition map of Oregon Territory, the finest and most important map of Oregon of the 19th century. The reissue was prepared from the original copper plate and is on higher quality paper than the original 1841 report issue. A Closer Look The map covers roughly from the 50th parallel to Mount Shasta, the upper Sacramento River, and Great Salt Lake (Youta Lake) and from the Pacific to the Black Hills. It includes, either in part or full, modern-day Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, Vancouver, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, and California. A large inset occupying the left quadrants focuses on the Columbia River where the United States exploring expedition lost one of its ships, the Peacock , on the infamous Columbia Bar. Topography is rendered by hachure and the engravers even made some attempt to illustrate the vast pine forests of the Pacific Northwest. Finest Map of Oregon Yet Published Wilkes' map was the finest and most detailed map of this largely unknown region yet published and is considered by map historian Carl I. Wheat to be 'really quite extraordinary'. Although dated 1841, this map, like the others from the U.S. Exploring Expedition, was actually published in 1845 with Wilkes' official report. As such, the cartography represented here draws not only on the discoveries of the U.S. Ex. Ex. but also later explorations such as those of Lieutenant Fremont in 1843, the oral records of the Hudson Bay Company, and the remarkable explorations of independent trappers like Jedediah Smith. While of course, much of this map is based on earlier cartographic work by Vancouver, Lewis and Clark, and others, the new information presented here can be divided into four areas: The Pacific Coast and the regions to the west of the Great Basin, especially the Columbia River Valley as far as Walla Walla, and the Sacramento River Valley, that were actually explored by the U.S. Ex. Ex. Those regions to the east of the Rocky Mountains benefited from the explorations of Lieutenant Fremont. These also include Fremont's South Pass located just northeast of Great Salt Lake (Youta). Fremont is credited in a textual annotation just to the east of the Rocky Mountains. Those regions between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific explored in detail by the trapper Jedediah Smith. Smith is not specifically credited but the note 'This Country is extremely Rocky and rough, the Rivers running through Clift Rocks' is taken directly from Jedediah's map. Those regions to the north of the Columbia River extending well into modern-day British Columbia. In order to offer a detailed presentation of these areas Wilkes relied on oral testimony by Hudson Bay Company trappers he met while exploring the Columbia River. These sources are tenuously credited along with Fremont in the upper...