Posts from — June 2007

Canada Post issued a stamp this past Friday that pays homage to Captain George Vancouver on his 250th birthday. During his years as a mapmaker, Vancouver bestowed almost 400 place names that are still used today in the Pacific Northwest. The stamp includes a reproduction of Capt. Vancouver’s authenticated signature.

Vancouver developed his skills as a cartographer while serving as a midshipman under Captain James Cook, one of England’s most honoured explorers and also a cartographer. George Vancouver’s maps were incredibly accurate. Vancouver was a midshipman aboard HMS Discovery during Cook’s third voyage (1776-79), when Cook explored the Pacific Coast from California to Alaska.

Read more about Vancouver here and here.

In today’s Washington Post, “Answer Man” John Kelly answers one reader’s enquiry:

Signs have appeared around 23rd and D streets NW reading “To Maury Circle.” They point toward Navy Hill, home of the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. My question is: Who was Maury?

The article assures us that this is not a reference to tacky talk show host Maury Povich, but to a renowned Navy cartographer dubbed  the “Pathfinder of the Sea”.

[tags]Famous Cartographers, Antique Maps[/tags]

The BBC reports that a map of Hailes Abbey in the Cotswolds that dates back to about 1587, has been unearthed at the National Archives at Kew in London, UK.

It was drawn by Ralph Treswell, a renowned surveyor and cartographer, who was among the first in England to produce scaled plans of estates.

The BBC article doesn’t offer many details of the map, but it does note that the map shows that the abbey was home to a 12th century church, a water mill and visitor or pilgrims’ accommodations.

[tags]Hailes Abbey, Antique Map, National Archives, Ralph Treswell[/tags]