Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. 7407 La Jolla Boulevard www.raremaps.com (858) 551-8500 La Jolla, CA 92037 [email protected] [Colonial Manuscript Survey Map of the Great Bend of the Susquehanna River] Stock#: 60514 Map Maker: Harris Date: 1774 circa Place: n.p. Color: Pen & Ink Condition: VG Size: 16.5 x 12.5 inches Price: SOLD Description: The Lands Surveyed by Samuel Harris, Robert Lettis Hooper and Samuel Wallis on the Great Bend of the Susquehanna River Fascinating early manuscript survey map, showing a roughly 15 mile section of the Susquehanna River, where the river crosses into Pennsylvania from New York, including a meticulous depiction of the New York Boundary Line. The map almost certainly reflects the surveying work of several important colonial frontier Pennyslvanian's, Samuel Harris, Robert Lettis Hooper and Samuel Wallis, drawn during the survey of a section of the Susquehanna River between October and December 1774. The map is also noteworthy for its inclusion of a number of early Indian settlements and Indian paths and for its treatment of the area around the future Harmony, Pennsylvania, an important early place in the Latter Day Saint History. The map provides a detailed survey of the region, but does not identify any landowners, strongly suggesting that it was drawn some time prior to subdivision and granting of the lands in the are to Revolutionary War veterans, made after the American Revolution. The map shows: Apple Tree Town (also called Peach Orchard). This settlement was apparently destroyed on August 3, 1779, during General John Sullivan's Expedition against the Six Nations. Path To Delaware. This is the Great Bend Portage -- the 19 mile portage between the Susquehanna River the Delaware River -- See Adlum Wallis map of 1791. Path to Ononquago. This is a continuation of the Lackawanna Path to the Onaquaga Settlement, approximately 7 miles north, near Windsor New York. Drawer Ref: New York Stock#: 60514 Page 1 of 6 Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. 7407 La Jolla Boulevard www.raremaps.com (858) 551-8500 La Jolla, CA 92037 [email protected] [Colonial Manuscript Survey Map of the Great Bend of the Susquehanna River] Old Tuschorora (Tuscarora) Town Old Indian Town (Lanesboro, PA) Indian House Old Indian House Accoreeco or Salt Lick Creek Seruhuck (Starucca) Creek Canawacta Creek The map shows the northeast corner of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, including Great Bend Township and Oakland Township. The lands in question were sub-divided by 1784 and given to veterans of the American Revolution, most of which were warranted and surveyed in 1784 and 1785. A modern map of warranty lands is shown here: http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/bah/dam/rg/di/r17-522WarranteeTwpMaps/r017Map3081Susqueha nnaGreatBendWeb.pdf Great Bend Portage The map shows the Great Bend Portage. The Portage is described by Paul Wallace in Indian Paths of Pennsylvania (p. 139), as follows: The Great Bend Portage ran from the Tuscarora Town at the mouth of Conawacta Creek (in the Great Bend of the Susquehanna at what is now Lanesboro) to Stockport on the Delaware River. On the Adlum-Wallis map entitled “A General View ... of Pennsylvania” (1793- 94), it is labeled “Portage 19ms.” and shown as running between “Harmony” (Lanesboro) and Stockport. Samuel Harris’s draft of the Great Bend country, made in 1774, shows the path as running up the north bank of Conawacta Creek. Leaving the creek, it ran over the mountains by way ot Starrucca and Shehawkin Lake, and came down to the Delaware River at the mouth of Stockport Creek. Probable Surveyor: Samuel Harris, October-December 1774 While the survey is unsigned, we think the most likely source of the map is the survey party led by Robert Lettis Hooper, which surveyed the Upper Susquehanna River in 1774, from which the above referenced "Samuel Harris draft" must have derived. We note existence of the following journal in the University of Drawer Ref: New York Stock#: 60514 Page 2 of 6 Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. 7407 La Jolla Boulevard www.raremaps.com (858) 551-8500 La Jolla, CA 92037 [email protected] [Colonial Manuscript Survey Map of the Great Bend of the Susquehanna River] Notre Dame collection: A manuscript journal kept by Pennsylvania native Samuel Harris from 14 October to 1 December 1774, recording the progress of a surveying party up the Susquehanna River. Samuel Harris was the son of John Harris, whose ferry across the Susquehanna River would come to be known in 1733 as Harris' Ferry, later Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The catalog entry for Samuel Harris's journal at Notre Dame states: The journal is a stitched pamphlet (19 cm.) of 12 leaves, with 21 pages of entries in Harris's hand. The entries record the progress of a surveying expedition up the North Branch of the Susquehanna River, in present-day Bradford County, Pennsylvania. The journal commences on 14 October 1774, when Harris was below the confluence of Wyalusing Creek and the Susquehanna, and runs through 1 December, and the conclusion of the party's work. Entries appear for most days during that span; the typical entry is between 150 and 200 words. Much of the content consists of Harris's surveyor's field notes, but entries also include descriptions of the party's movements, observations on the land and weather, and one extended account (on 8 November) of a council with an unidentified Indian "King or Chief" concerned with the party's possible encroachment on Native land. The surveys recorded in the journal were made on lands lying along, and to the east of, the Susquehanna, immediately south of the "42 degree" (i.e., the New York line). The Iroquois had sold a sizeable portion of the area to Pennsylvania in 1768, but viewed the region north of the Chemung-Susquehanna confluence as the gateway to the lands of the Iroquois confederation. The broader context of the expedition is not much alluded to in the manuscript. At the volume's conclusion Harris notes that "[T]he aforgoing Jornel and field notes are the work and Proceedings don for Robt Lettis Hoopper and Comp. by him". Hooper (c1730-1797) was probably the chief surveyor in the party; he had contracted to perform many surveys for Pennsylvania proprietors. Also involved with the expedition was Samuel Wallis (1730-1798), who had arrived in Lycoming County around the same time as Harris, and became known as the "Land King" for his tireless acquisition and speculation. Accompanying the journal is an undated, unsigned record docketed "List of Proprietary Property of Sundry favourite grants." The relationship between this document and the journal is unclear. A typical entry notes the owner and location of a particular property in very general Drawer Ref: New York Stock#: 60514 Page 3 of 6 Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. 7407 La Jolla Boulevard www.raremaps.com (858) 551-8500 La Jolla, CA 92037 [email protected] [Colonial Manuscript Survey Map of the Great Bend of the Susquehanna River] terms. The locations of the properties run across Pennsylvania from east ("Dr. ... 3000 included on old Indian Town on Delaware [River]) to west ("Alex'r McKee 500 at the mouth of Chartiers Creek 5 mile below Ft. Pitt"). Some areas listed in the document are also mentioned in Harris's journal, such as Lycoming Creek and Loyalsock. https://rbsc.library.nd.edu/finding_aids/und:ks65h990x3h Robert Lettis Hooper is known to have surveyed this region in 1774-75. As noted in the 1886 Report of the Regents' Boundary Commission Upon the New York and Pennsylvania (page 75); The early surveys of the lands south of the Susquehanna River, in Broome and Tioga counties, were also based upon a temporary line partly run in 1774 or 1775, by Robert Lettis Hooper, upon which, at the west end adjoining the river, he laid out a British Military Land Warrant, which, with several tracts east of it laid out (upon paper) in 1786, were found in 1810, to encroach upon Pennsylvania lands. It is hardly probable that this line was identical with that shown upon George Palmer's map. It terminated on the left bank of the Susquehanna, at its western extremity, at "a Birch tree marked on two sides with three Notches a blaze above them," nearly a mile below the present boundary. At its eastern extremity at the middle intersection of the Susquehanna river, it was probably north of the present line. Harmony / Joseph Smith Of note, the map pre-dates the establishment of Harmony, Pennsylvania, which would become Harmony Township. The area which would become Harmony was first settled in 1789 when a road was built to connect Stockport on the Delaware River to the Susquehanna River at Cascade Creek. The town of Harmony appears on the Adlum-Wallis map of 1791 on the east side of the Susquehanna River, just south of the New York-Pennsylvania border. https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/26788 Harmony, Pennsylvania, is an important historical site in Latter Day Saint history. Harmony is the place where Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were visited by the angel of John the Baptist in 1829, where he bestowed on Smith and Cowdery the Aaronic priesthood. Smith and Cowdery subsequently baptized one another in the Susquehanna River. Other significant events occurred there during the periodic residence of Smith from 1825 to 1830. Harmony was the home of Isaac Hale, father of Smith's wife, Emma Hale. Smith and his father boarded Drawer Ref: New York Stock#: 60514 Page 4 of 6 Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. 7407 La Jolla Boulevard www.raremaps.com (858) 551-8500 La Jolla, CA 92037 [email protected] [Colonial Manuscript Survey Map of the Great Bend of the Susquehanna River] with Isaac Hale in 1825, while working on Josiah Stowell's mining project.