To the Honourable Thomas Penn and Richard Penn … this map of the improved part of the Province of Pennsylvania (Nicholas Scull, 1759)
Nicholas Scull’s map of the settled part of Pennsylvania, engraved by James Turner and printed by John Davis, sold by the author in Philadelphia in 1759: the counties of Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Lancaster, York, Cumberland, Berks and Northampton and the north end of New Castle County, laid out in their townships with roads, ferries, mills, iron works, churches and meeting houses and the forts of the late war, from the Delaware and West Jersey to the Allegheny Mountains, and beyond the Kittatinny Mountains the frontier up the Juniata and the West and North-East Branches of the Susquehanna — the two branches from Fort Augusta (Shamokin) up to Wioming laid down, its notes say, from Major Shippen’s draughts. That frontier was still the country of the Lenape (Delaware), Shawnee and Haudenosaunee and of the Susquehannock before them, and the map marks their towns: Wioming, Nescopeck, Lanpaughpeton’s town and Old King Neutimus’s on the North-East Branch, Chillisquaquy, French Margaret’s, Quinishahaquy and Tiquamingy Town on the West Branch, Chingleclamouche, Bald-Eagle’s Nest, Frank’s Town and the Shawane Cabbins. Its key reads “The prick’d Lines are Indian Paths”, and it draws them: the “Warriors Path from the great Island” by the West Branch and across the hills to the North-East Branch below Wyoming; the “Path to Wyoming” up the North-East Branch from Fort Augusta; the “Path from Chingleclamouche to Shamokin” over the plateau to the Great Island, and on down the West Branch to Shamokin; a “Warriors Path” by Licking Creek over the North-East Branch toward the Catawissa; the “Ohio Path” west from Frank’s Town over the Allegheny Mountain; the paths up Bald Eagle Creek, from Bald-Eagle’s Nest and Frank’s Town to the Standing Stone, and on to Fort Shirley; and a “Warriors Path” south from Allequippy’s Gap toward Maryland. Not shown: the title cartouche, the key, the notes and the scale, and the cloth seams between the six sheets.
Source
| Map | To the Honourable Thomas Penn and Richard Penn, Esqrs., true & absolute proprietaries & Governours of the Province of Pennsylvania & counties of New-Castle, Kent & Sussex on Delaware this map of the improved part of the Province of Pennsylvania |
|---|---|
| Author | Nicholas Scull, 1759 |
| Archive | Library of Congress |
| Rights | Public domain. Published 1759 — before 1931, so public domain in the United States. Evidence |
| Accuracy | About 15 km (RMS 2.6 km at 53 control points). Placed by hand in a map-queue session and approved by a person. If something sits in the wrong place, members can fix it with Fix placement on the map. |
| Method | Placed by hand: a smoothing thin-plate spline through 53 places read from the scan — towns, ferries and forts of the settled counties and West Jersey, river mouths and confluences on the Susquehanna, its two branches and the Juniata, the gaps of the Delaware and the Lehigh through the Kittatinny, and Indian towns where towns stand today (Wioming at Wilkes-Barre, Nescopeck, Chingleclamouche at Clearfield, Bald-Eagle’s Nest at Milesburg, Frank’s Town at Frankstown) — and matched to their positions today. The settled country, from the Delaware to the Susquehanna and up the Cumberland Valley, holds closely: left out of the fit in turn, its 33 places fall a median 2.4 km from where the rest put them (RMS 3.0 km, none beyond 7 km). Beyond the Kittatinny the map is drawn from draughts and report — the two branches of the Susquehanna from Major Shippen’s draughts, the Juniata and the Allegheny country more loosely — and its 20 places there fall a median 8 km out, up to 15 km (Frank’s Town, Bald-Eagle’s Nest, Fort Shirley); the paths drawn there carry that error. The sheet is mounted on cloth in six panels; rivers, roads and county lines run on across the joins without a step, so the panels are placed together, and the cloth seams between them are masked, with the title cartouche, the key, the notes, the scale and the compass rose. See the methodology. |
| Version | 1.0.0, updated 2026-10-17 |
| Covers | Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland |
Downloads
- Google Earth overlay (KMZ) — free (3.2 MB)
- GeoTIFF, tinted trails, EPSG:4326 (8000 × 3361; QGIS, ArcGIS) — free (12.2 MB)
- Print sheet over today’s map (3600 × 2200 PNG) — free (5.3 MB)
Project Homeland
This map is open for tracing into Project Homeland, one map of the trail network melded from every traced source. Members trace a trail by clicking along it: Trace a trail on the map.
Changelog
- 1.0.0 (2026-10-17): First release: placed by hand at 53 places. From the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division (74692506); added for Project Homeland.
Credits
- From the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division (74692506); added for Project Homeland
- Georeferencing: Native Routes
- Scan: Library of Congress
Control points
The full list of control points with residuals is in control-points.geojson. Historic names indexed for search: names.geojson.
Something on this map sits in the wrong place? Members can show where with Fix placement on the map — confirmed fixes are tested against the map’s other control points each night and credited here. For anything else, report a problem.
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