What is Going On This Summer
In the event that some of thee have never seen what an old map looks like on a new monitor, here is a shot of a portion, a very, very small portion of the Mcrae-Brazier map (1833) as it appears on the TPA's new 30" monitor. The monitor was a gift to the TPA from
WAOlabs (
Shawn Smith). It seems the owner of the company was concerned that eye strain might side-line the map guy. If you've had trouble reaching the TPA for the past week or two it was because of this new gizmo. Oh, dear, it is nice.
Shawn and WAOLabs (AKA
Smith Computer Parts) did something similar a few years ago, when we first received our Geographic Information System (GIS) software. We found the software overwhelmed our conventional desktop machine, and while whining about this to Shawn and others,
Shawn said he'd send us a computer that would work, and he did. He sent a dual Pentium machine and a 21" monitor and then, it must be admitted, we had a lot more equipment than talent. With the new gear we were able to entice a GIS student from ECU to do an internship and he was well on his way to cleaning up our messes when enticed away by people who offered him real money. Oh, well, we at lest had a chance to see how GIS is really supposed to be done.
It would be a mere indulgence to get lost looking at big, pretty pictures if they did not relate to our purpose. What is eating our time is the wealth of old maps now within our range. The various university map collections are pretty nifty, but head and shoulders above them all and even better than the Library of Congress website (Thomas) is
David Rumsey's map collection. For ease of use and map resolution it is simply unequaled to my knowledge. If you know of something comparable or better, please, tell us about it. Meanwhile, if you have not been to the Rumsey website, give it a try. If you are a little bit tetched when it comes to maps, plan on spending a bunch of time in front of your screen. Not only can you zoom deep down into a map, you can copy the map on your screen to your computer for later, off-line manipulation. It is, in a word, incredible.
Speaking of incredible mapping developments: we have begun using
Light Detection and Ranging (
LiDAR) maps on almost all of our projects and, while engaged in some other work this week we stumbled across an affirmation of the utility of LiDAR for our purposes. Some of you will recall that a few years ago we helped students from the
North Carolina School of Science and Math in their search for the historic
Fish Dam to Hillsborough Road. Well the wee arrows on the map to the right show the remnant trace we mapped east of Hillsborough. If you click on the image it should appear full sized in a separate browser window and you will get a clear idea of just how remarkably useful LiDAR imagery is for us.
So, we're not terribly active in the summer heat. We are sequestered in front of a massive screen, goggle-eyed at the wonders of digital imagery. Thank you Shawn.
If any of you have a commercial or even a personal need for computer hardware bits and pieces, consider
Smith Computer Parts before going elsewhere.
This Year's Plan and How You Can Help
When not getting the vapors over pretty maps, we are writing grants. This year is a very important moment for this endeavor. We are seeking funding for several related projects, and we want you to feel free to help us in any way you can to see these projects completed. For example, if you think you know of a good funding source for what we intend to do, let us know. If you have a contact at one of the major granting organizations, let us
know. As you are aware, this is an all-volunteer operation and we need all the help we can get.
One of our goals is to move away from the all-volunteer model toward a paid staff. For that we need regular revenue streams beyond the occasional bake-sale. So, first, we are seeking major grant support to start our first Migration Trails project. The Great Wagon Road (GWR) Migration trail will be the first, the proof of product so to speak. We will identify a matrix of tourist magnets in the NC counties that claim a substantial in-migration off of the Great Wagon Road. That will engage forty counties in a common tourism effort involving packaging and selling not just the historic structures and landscapes of rural Carolina but also the genealogical and historical research assets of those counties. Our goal is to attract the descendants of all those folks who 'moved west' at some point to come back and look at the ancestral lands. We believe we have a tight, coherent market target, and a wonderful set of assets to show them. There are road mappers marking remnants of the Great Wagon Road in at least a half dozen counties even as you read these words. This promises to be a wonderful research project that will also bring much needed tourism to our region. The GWR is a prototype project. That it also fulfills our basic mission (find and protect artifacts of the early colonial period) is not accidental. There are at least another sixteen old trade routes that were also major migration trails through our land. Each will become a Migration Trail in its own right, and at some point every county in will be linked directly or indirectly with every other in a mesh of migration themed, heritage tourism networks. The billiously colored map to the left is the approximate area of the GWR Migration Trail. The red counties are the core through which the GWR passed in its various forms over the years. The purple (?) are the counties that received the most migrants off the GWR.
We're also seeking funding to defray travel costs and meeting arrangements so we can recruit and train county level Trading Path Association Chapters. We will show the chapters how to find, map and protect their county's remnant infrastructure. This project will also require development of an on-line reporting capability, so we will seek funds to enhance our website to receive site location reports and digital mapping information. By these means we will multiply reporters and reports and thereby speed the development of a comprehensive map of southeastern trade trails.
We would also like to find a funding source to help us pay for development of alternative modes of meeting. Given fuel costs and the range of our operations, we want to be able to hold virtual meetings whenever possible. We need to pay consultants to help us develop a design and implementation both useful and inexpensive or free to our clients and chapters. As the above maps indicate, much of our training can now be done remotely. Of course, there is no substitute for a romp in the woods, but before the romp there is always the obligatory map-spiel and other preparations we can train for on-line.
So, again, please let us know if you even think you may be able to help or if you know of a funding source we may want to approach for any of the above needs.
Upcoming Events
Wednesday, July 23rd, 10 AM, Davidson County Historical Museum, 2 South Main Street, Lexington, NC: Tom will speak at a book release event at which the executive summary of our Davidson County stream crossings report will be released to the public. Davidson Vision, the folks who contracted with the TPA for the report have printed and bound several hundred copies of the book.
Saturday, July 26th , 9 AM, Boones Cave Park, Davidson County, NC: Sort of continuing the book release, Tom will lead a hike along the Yadkin in the vicinity of the park at "Boone's Cave" . The hike will be about two miles, and with luck we'll make it down past Sower's Ferry to Boone's Ford. It will all depend on preceding weather and the weather of the day. One result of this study has been rethinking which fords over the Yadkin were important at different times and with different technologies.
Sunday August 10th, 3PM, Eastern Cabarrus County Historic Museum, Main Street, Mt. Pleasant, NC, Tom will talk about colonial era transportation, the Great Wagon Road in Cabarrus County, and whatever else tickles his fancy that day.
Saturday, September 20th, 7PM, Commissioners Room, Louisburg, NC, Tom will speak to the initial meeting of the
Benjamin Franklin Society of Franklin County about important artifacts and routes in that county.
Sunday, October 5th, 2PM until 4PM, First Sunday Hike, location TBA
Tuesday, October 7th, 9 AM, Blowing Rock Conference Center, Blowing Rock, NC, Tom will speak about NC history to Duke's Continuing Education Students from the OLLIE program.
*******************************************************************
Suggest A Hike
If you have an idea about a place to hike or an interesting spot you'd like us to visit, let us know. We are more or less on hiatus in July and August, and we may resume First Sunday Hikes in September. Meanwhile if you have a place we can hike without bugs and other varmints bothering us, please let us know about it.
*************************
