Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1897 — An 80 Year Old Map. [ARTICLE]

An 80 Year Old Map.

The Republican has received from W. E. Henry, state librarian at Indianapolis, a copy of a map of Indiana, drawn in 1817, by John Melish, it being intended to publish the map in W. H. Smith’s history of Indiana. It is just 80 years since this old map was made, and it presents in a striking way, a picture of the wonderful developement of this western country during that period. When the map was made only about one third of the state had been divided into counties. These being along the Ohio and Wabash rivers. All the rest of the state must have been practically an unexplored wilderness, as the map itself gives evidence. Lake Michigan is located more than half way across the state too far east. The Fox and "Plein” meaning Des Plaines, rivers and a portion of the Illinois, are located in northwest Indiana, when they belonged in Illinois. The Kankakee river, which was also placed way east of where it belonged, figured as the ‘‘Theakike.” The region where the fine lands of Tippecanoe, Carroll and Clinton counties lie, was set down as “Sand plains and Wet Prairies.” The now swampy regions along the “Theakike” are described as “Rich level lands.” Verily, it- is a queer old map.