IMPORTANT MAP COLLECTION GIFTED TO VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Alan M. Voorhees, Northern Virginia businessman and long-time trustee of the Virginia Historical Society, recently donated an outstanding collection of maps of the commonwealth to the institution. Consisting of more than 25 items dating from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, this gift has greatly enriched a collection already filled with a diverse set of cartographic images of Virginia and visual depictions of its place in the history of the United States, the Western Hemisphere, and the Atlantic world generally.

Mr. Voorhees, whose own military and professional background included map-making, began collecting historical depictions of Virginia nearly five decades ago. In recent years, he has begun to place these materials in appropriate historical repositories where they will be preserved and made accessible to researchers and visitors alike.

Included among the maps presented to the Virginia Historical Society are:

* Henricus Hondius's Nova Virginiae Tabula, a map of the Old Dominion based on an early version of John Smith's map and published in Amsterdam around 1694;

* Hendrik Doncker's Paascaarte van Nieu Nederlandt, a map of the only Dutch holding in mainland North America [New York state], soon to be captured and renamed New York by the English, also issued in Amsterdam in the late seventeenth century and bearing an imaginative depiction of the Virginia coastline;

* A Map of the British and French Settlements in North America, which first appeared in London's Universal Magazine in 1755 at the opening of the French and Indian War; and

* The impressive and influential map by Georges Louis le Rouge, Amerique Septentrionale, a French version of John Mitchell's earlier British and French Dominions in North America that was issued in Paris in 1778 near the time that France allied with the American revolutionaries.

Also included in this fine set of charts is an intriguing, full-color map of the world, Nova Orbis Tabula in Vucem Edita, published in Amsterdam about 1688 by Frederick De Wit, which depicts California as an island. For more information, on the latest GPS News see hand held gps.

Author Notes:

Glenn Silverberg contributes and publishes news editorial to http://www.handheld-gps-reviews.com.  A wealth of information about Global Positioning Systems for commercial or personal use.