An Historical Map of Pennsylvania, showing the Indian names of streams and villages, and paths of travel (P. W. Sheafer and others, 1875)
P. W. Sheafer’s map for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania: the Indian names of streams and villages, the paths of travel, old forts and battlefields, and each purchase from the Indians, coloured by treaty.
Source
| Map | An historical map of Pennsylvania |
|---|---|
| Author | P. W. Sheafer and others, 1875 |
| Archive | Leventhal Map & Education Center |
| Rights | Public domain. Published 1875 — before 1931, so public domain in the United States. Evidence |
| Accuracy | About 13 km (RMS 3.4 km at 84 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 84 places read from the scan and matched to their positions today. See the methodology. |
| Version | 1.0.1, updated 2026-10-06 |
| Covers | Pennsylvania |
Downloads
- Google Earth overlay (KMZ) — free (4.1 MB)
- GeoTIFF, tinted trails, EPSG:4326 (8000 × 3771; QGIS, ArcGIS) — free (15.8 MB)
- Print sheet over today’s map (3600 × 2200 PNG) — free (4.2 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
- 1.0.1 (2026-10-06): Fix: place names re-placed where the map draws them (they had been set by an approximation of the warp: median 2.1 km, up to 6 km off).
- 1.0.0 (2026-09-30): First release: placed by hand at 84 places. From the Native Routes sources register; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s 1875 map, Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center, Boston Public Library.
Credits
- From the Native Routes sources register; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s 1875 map, Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center, Boston Public Library
- Georeferencing: Native Routes
- Scan: Leventhal Map & Education Center
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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