Sign In

- Or use -
Forgot Password Create Account
This item has been sold, but you can enter your email address to be notified if another example becomes available.
Description

With The Extremely Scarce Map of the Cherokee Country.

8vo, early 19th-century straight grain blue morocco, covers bordered with gilt curl device. Rebacked to style.

Engraved folding map; engraved folding plate. viii (including half-title and title), 160 pages (i.e., complete).

Timberlake's book was not a great success at the time and hence is scarce on the market. However, modern historians have held Timberlake's map in high regard and his descriptions of the manners and customs of the Cherokee and other observations have become an essential reference tool for scholars and archaeologists.

Henry Timberlake

Henry Timberlake (1730-1765) was born in Hanover County, Virginia. He joined the Virginia Militia at the outset of the French & Indian War in 1756. He was later commissioned as an Ensign. After an undistinguished participation in the action around Fort Duquesne and Pittsburg, he participated in the campaign against the Cherokee in 1761, where he gained a knowledge of the Overhill Country of Tennessee at Fort Robinson and accompanied two other soldiers on a trip to the Cherokee Country, down the Holston River to the French Broad River and the Little Tennessee River. The trip was intended as a show of good faith in connection with a peace treaty and resulted in his traveling extensively among the Cherokee, before returning to Virginia with several Indian Chiefs.

A Draught of the Cherokee Country...

This volume includes the important engraved map of the Cherokee Country.

The map is oriented with north at the left and shows a roughly twenty mile stretch of the Tennessee River. The map details numerous Indian villages along the river, including Toskegee, Toqua, Tennessee, Chote "the Metropolis", Half Way Town, Chilhowey, and Tellassee. It also shows overland routes, including "Path from Virginia" and the path "To Charles Town". Fort Loudon is shown, as is a fort "Built by the Virginians 1756 and soon after destroyed by the Indians."

In the lower left corner is a key, which notes the towns, "what Number of Fighting Men they send to War" and the "Names of the Principal or Headmen".

Reference
See, in particular: Duane King, The Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake (2007).

Allen, Some Tennesee Rarities 1; Field 1553; Horn, Twenty Tennessee Books 1; Howes T271, "b"; Sabin, 95836; Siebert Sale 277; Streeter Sale 1619.