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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45
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M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01783 1360
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https://archive.org/details/historyofdiscove01kohl 0
Collections of historical society 189
DOCUMENTARY
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF MAINE.
EDITED BY WILLIAM WILLIS. 1 2.000
VOL. I. Vol. 1 CONTAINING A
HISTORY OF THEDISCOVERY OF MAINE.
BY
J. G. KOHL.
Maine Historical out
WITH AN APPENDIX
ON THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS. BY M. D'AVEZAC, OF PARIS.
PUBLISHED BY THE MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AIDED BY APPROPRIATIONS FROM THE STATE.
PORTLAND: BAILEY AND NOYES. 1869.
.
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VALUABLE HISTORICAL WORK.
1774458
HISTORY of the Discovery of the Atlantic Coast of North America, written by the celebrated Geographer and Historian, Dr. J. G. KOHL, of Bremen, Germany, has just been issued from the Press. It gives a summary of all the voyages of Europeans to our coast, from the Northmen down to the time of Sir Humphrey Gilbert. It is illustrated by copies of the original maps and charts, from the year 1400, which have been reduced and lithographed in Bremen, under the eye of Dr. Kohl, and are accom- panied with his explanations and comments. In an Appendix, a Letter is given on the Voyages of Cabot, written by M. D'Avezac of Paris.
This volume contains a portion of the materials obtained by Dr. Leonard Woods, in his recent visit to Europe. It is published by the Maine Historical Society, and edited by William Willis, LI .. D), assisted by the Rev. Edward Ballard, D. D. It contains 535 pages, with 23 maps and charts, and is now for sale at $5.00 per copy, by Bailey & Noyes, Portland, Me., and by Wm. Parsons Lunt, (late Wiggin & Lunt,) 221 Washington Street, Boston, Mass ; by whom orders will be received. .
A second volume will be issued by the Society in the course of the present year, and will contain a Discourse of RICHARD HAKLUYT, hitherto unpublished, written in 1584, by request of Sir Walter Kaleigh, in behalf of his project of Colonization.
PORTLAND, Me., June, 1869.
4
THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 1871.
John George Kohl, the distinguished German writer and navigator, died in Bremen, the place of his birth, on Wednesday. He was born on April 28, 1808. He studied science in his native city, law at Göttingen, Heidelberg and Munich, and on the death of his father, who was a merchant, in 1832, he became a private tutor in the family of Baron de Manteuffel. After five years' service he trav- elled over Livonia and a great part of Rus- sia. Settling in Dresden in 1838, he be- gan the travels which have made him famous. He wrote many books of travel be- fore sailing for the United States in 1834. He re- mained in this country four years and wrote "Travels in Canada," "Travels in the Northwestern Parts of the United States," and "Kitahi Gamis; or Tales from Lake Superior." In 1857 he contri- buted to the Smithsonian Institute two Treatises on the Maps and Charts or the New World at dif- ferent periods, and wrote as a supplemental volume to Hakluyt's great work a descriptive catalogue of all maps, charts and surveys relating to America. In 1861. he published a "His- tory and Commentary on Two Maps of the New World made in Spain at the Commencement of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V." Mr, Kohl, who has lectured before various learned so- cieties, has written some works of a more purely scientific character. A translation of his "History of the Discovery of America" was published in England in 1862.
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EARLY AMERICAN CHARTS.
In an account of the proceedings of the Maine . Historical Society we alluded to the criticisms made by Mr. Henry Stevens on the recent pub- lications by Dr. Kohl of some of the early charts of America. We are now able to give a full account of Mr. Stevens's paper .*
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He is known as a zealous and learned biblio- grapher as well as antiquary, and who, from an independent study of the same materials from. his own point of view, has arrived at diametrical- ly opposite conclusions from Dr. Kohl. One of them must certainly be in error, and an error too of no minor proportions. Mr. Henry Stevens, of Vermont, has resided in London for the past twenty-five years, and his studies have been in ' the specialty of early American books and charts. His trenchant review of Mr. Harrisse's pretentious volume on early American biblio- graphy, some years ago, in the London Athe- næum, is well remembered, and inspired the hope in all interested in these studies-in none perhaps more forcibly than in Mr. Harrisse him- self-that Mr. Stevens would take the field as an original writer. This wish is now realized, and we shall watch with interest to see what comes of it.
Mr. Stevens's paper comprises only forty pages, and is attached to a description of the Tehuante- pec Railway scheme, of which his brother, Simon Stevens, is the chief promoter. It gives a con- densed sketch of American discovery and early chartography." We have only space to notice his # theory as to the assumed identification on the early 'maps of localities on the Atlantic coast of" the United States. He aims to show that the ; pot-hooks, the indentations, and the promon- (tories on the old maps were not intended for Cape Cod, New York Bay, or Cape Henry, but for "India beyond the Ganges," and were, when not wholly imaginary, copied from the chart of Marco Polo, who visited the coast of Eastern Asia in the thirteenth century, or from geogra- ' phers who copied from him.
Columbus, it is well known, when he discov- c'ered Cuba, supposed that he had reached' the coast of Asia, and he gave Asiatic names to dif- ferent parts of the island. When Cuba was, in 1508, found to be an island, these names were transferred to the mainland. Columbus, in his first letter, spoke of the lands discovered as "In- "dia beyond the Ganges;" and he never detected his mistake. On his third voyage, in 1198, he touched the continent at Venezuela, which he named Pana, believing it to be Paradise, whence our first parents were banished. On his fourth and last voyage he sailed up and down the coast to find the river Ganges, that he might deliver a letter to the Grand Khan, and was
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much nonplussed that he could not find it.
In 1501-2 Vespucci explored the coast of Bra- zil for the Portuguese, and supposed that he had come upon a great island lying off Asia. He and Columbus both died without any conception that they had discovered a new continent. Cabot came from England upon the northern coast, in 1497, making his land fall at Cape Breton. He also supposed that he had reached!
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the coast of Asia. Ho explored the shores of Labrador, but it is a matter of doubt whether he came Thìun crag ách thần Cape Sabler The sthe ment made by Peter Martya in 1515, that' Cabot 1 reached the coast on the latitude of Gibraltar and the longitude of Cuba is simply absurd, as that would have landed him near the site of the present city of Cincinnati.
Ruysch's map appeared in 1508, when all that was known of America, was what Columbus and his Spanish followers had discovered in the West Indian Archipelago, what Vespucci and the Por" tuguese bad explored on the eastern coast of South America, and what Cabot had found in the vicinity of Labrador. The coast from Florida to Cape Sable was unexplored. All these voyagers supposed they were on or near the coast of Asia. The Pacific Ocean was not discovered till 1513. Ruysch, therefore, placed the West India Islands near Asia, and supplied the unexplored coast line, of what is now the United States, from Marco Polo's chart of Eastern Asia. It is on this fragment of India beyond the Ganges, that we find, in Dr. Kohl's reduced map of Ruysch, the red border line to signify Maine, and in close proximity familiar Asiatic names. Mr. Kohl (p. 157) is puzzled to know what Ruysch means by "Plisacus Sinus," which he places on the west of Cuba. On Mr. Stevens's hypothes is it is very plain what was intended. Plisacus (variously spelled, but most commonly Polisacus) bay and river are found on the old maps of Eastern Asia, and are now called the Sea of Okhotsk and the Amour River.
The map of Juan de La Cosa, dated 1500, was discovered and elaborately treated by Humboldt, and occupies a conspicuous place in the work of Dr. Kohl. This map, though dated 1500, was doubtless revised by its author up to the year 1509, when he sailed on an expedition in which he lost his life. It contains discoveries which were not made till 1508. Its importance in identifying the coast i line of the United States, Mr. Stevens thinks, has been much overrated. "If," says Mr. Stevens, a "our Maine friends will place, behind their fed- "line border, Marco Polo's name, Mangi- (a dis- "trict of China), they will see that this territory "is further down east than is generally supposed, "being indeed Eastern Asia."
Fac-similes on a large scale of this and the other early maps may be seen in M. Jomard's "Monuments de la Géographie," an uncolored copy of which is in the library of the Boston Athenaeum. A comparison of Dr. Kohl's re- duced copy with M. Jomard's fac-simile' will ex- . hibit some important variations. Dr. Kohl has placed the legend "Mar descubiente por Yng- "leses" much too far to the west; and he has, by a droll blunder, supplied three rivers which are not laid down in the original. La Cosa drew his inap on an entire ox-hide. As the north- eastern part of Asia was unexplored, he painted that portion of his map a deep green color, to signify terra incognita. In order to relieve the barrenness of that portion of the map,-for he was a draftsman of taste as well as of skill, -he painted in here and there small circles in blue and other colors, to which be attached a way-
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ing flourish . or tail, the whole some- what resembling ... a > tadpole in the
act of swimming. Theo tails of ,these
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¿ polliwigs extend in every direction, but three of Ethem towards the coast, and on Dr. Kohl's map .. : these three appear as rivers having their source in, lakes. These harmless accessories, though wholly imaginary, may serve to illustrate the hydrographic resources of the State of Maine. Dr. Kohl's book is a truly valuable one; but his enthusiasm sometimes carries him off his feet, and beyond the limits of an historical basis. He sees-if we may be allowed to indulge in parody-sermons in stones, rivers in tadpoles' tails, and Maine in everything. The coast line of La Cosa's map is evidently like that of Ruysch, a copy of the old Asiatic charts, and has no ref- erence to the shore of the United States.
Even in modern maps there is a general re- semblance between the eastern coast lines of Asia and America. The Japanese Archipelago ans- wers for the West Indian, the Yellow Sea for the Gulf of Mexico, Corea for Florida, and the Sea of Kamtchatka for the Bay of Maine, a local designation (not yet found on modern maps) of the west part of the North Atlantic Ocean. The general direction of the eastern coast line of both continents is the same, namely, northeast, with a tendency to the east in the higher latitudes. It is not surprising that the substitution of one for the other on the old maps has been over- looked.
Mr. Stevens's paper contains also reduced fac- similes of early maps, not published by Dr. Kohl. The writer has certainly set forth a new and startling theory, and one which he must not ex pect will be received without some hesitation and distrust.
It should be understood that the maps published by the Maine Historical Society are only a small part of the collection which Dr. Kohl made for the United States, and which are now in the De- partment of State, at Washington. That collec- tion consists of more than five hundred titles. We earnestly concur in the wish expressed by the American Antiquarian Society and the Maine Historical Society, that the State Department will take measures for the proper publication of a list of them, with fac-similes of those which are of special rarity or value.
* Historical and Geographical Notes, 1453-1969. By Henry Stevens, G. M. B., F. S. A., &e. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1969. 40 pp , svo. Appended to the Tehu- antepec Railway, Its advantages, location, etc.
1
1
COLLECTIONS OF THE
MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
SECOND SERIES.
---------
F 841 .5405
Maine historical society.
Documentary history of the state of Maine ... Published by the Maine historical society, aided by appropriations from the state. Portland, 1800-1916.
21 v. plates, maps (part fold.) facsims. (part fold.) 23-25}em. Volume 2 published at Cambridge (Mass.]
Half-title : Collections of the Maine historical society. Second series. Not to be confused with the society's "Collections and proceedings", 2d ser., v. 1-10. 1800-99. No more published ? Rec'd 24 val.
CONTENTS .- L A history of the discovery of Maine, by J. G. Kohl. 1869 .- IL A discourse on western planting, written ... 1584, by R. Hak- luyt ... Preface and an introduction, by L. Woods ... ed. ... by C. Deane.
(Continued on next card)- 6-7005
(30-35g2,
F 84 .53
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by the MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, in the District Court of the United States for the District of Maine.
2450
B. THURSTON AND CO., PRINTERS, PORTLAND.
1
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
IN offering this first volume of a new series of its publica- tions, the Maine Historical Society believes it will confer a high gratification, not only upon historical students in our own State, but on all who take an interest in the early annals of our coun- try residing within the limits of the charter granted by James I. in 1606, to the Council of Plymouth. .
The Society, having long had the impression that the archives · of the chief commercial nations of Europe contained rich mate- rials relating to the discovery of. these shores, and of the early attempts to colonize them, were anxious to explore those store- houses of hidden treasures. For this purpose they appealed to the State, and, in 1863, obtained a pecuniary grant to enable them to make a preliminary investigation. Sufficient encour- agement was given by this appropriation, to induce the govern- ment to enlarge its bounty ; and, in 1867, the Governor and Council were authorized to contract with the Society for the publication, annually, of a volume " containing the earliest doc- uments, charters, and other State papers illustrating the history of Maine."
Stimulated by this liberal benefaction, the Society availed itself of the opportunity of a visit to Europe by the Rev. Leonard Woods, D. D., LL. D., late President of Bowdoin College, to obtain his aid in the necessary examinations. This accom- plished scholar, being accredited by the highest recommendation in the country, and aided by his learning and personal address, had access to various public and private collections of rare and valuable documents, and an introduction to scholars of similar
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PREFACE.
taste, availed himself of those advantages to promote the objects of his inquiry.
He explored the archives of the British State-paper offices, under the guidance of Mr. W. Noel Sainsbury, the familiar spirit of those obscure regions, through whom he obtained tran- scripts of valuable documents relating to our early history. He also visited the British Museum, and especially the map depart- ment, rich with early and authentic maps, and conducted by its head, the learned R. H. Major, F. s. A., etc., whose historical and geographical works have placed him among the first-primus inter pares-in those pursuits, gained access to that unrivalled collection. He also conferred with M. D'Avezac, the learned archaeologist at Paris, from whom he obtained interesting infor- mation pertinent to his object, and has since received from him a valuable communication which is placed in our Appendix. He then proceeded to Germany, where, in Bremen, he made the acquaintance of Dr. J. G. Kohl, whose reputation as a traveler, author, and cartographer, was eminent in this country, as well as in Europe. In him he found a congenial spirit, and a ready and hearty sympathy in the objects of his pursuit. It was not long, therefore, before he came to terms with Dr. Kohl, to give to our Society and State the benefit of his great learning and practical experience, in the accomplishment of our purposes.
Dr. Kohl was born in Bremen in 1808, and educated to the law at Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Munich. Several years after this, he was occupied as a private tutor in Courland and travel- ing in Russia. On his return, in 1838, he settled in Dresden, from which place he made excursions.in all directions, visiting every important district of Europe, and published the observa- tions and experience derived from his various expeditions, in a series of volumes. In 1854, he came to America, where he traveled four years, during which time he prepared for the gov- ernment of the United States, a series of valuable maps relating to America. Since his return, he has been engaged upon a minute geographical survey and history of this continent. Ilis
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PREFACE.
life has been filled with useful literary labor, and a portion of its fruit has been given to the world in nearly twenty distinct publications. Among these are "Travels in Canada," 1855 ; " Travels in the United States," 1857 ; "Kitahi Gama, or Tales from Lake Superior," 1860. Another interesting and impor- tant work, published by him in 1861, after a severe course of study and preparation, is entitled " History of, and commentary on, the two oldest charts of the new world, made in Spain on the command of the emperor Charles V."
To secure the services of a man so distinguished, and so peculiarly qualified for the task by long experience in similar studies, was at once honorable to Dr. Woods, and most accepta- ble and valuable to our Society and community. The result of his labors, so promptly and amply furnished, are presented to the public in the volume before us. And I may venture to say, that the amount of authentic information here brought together on the discovery and early voyages to America, so fully and clearly illustrated by fac-simile copies of the earliest maps known to exist, has never been collected in so brief and limited a space. The maps, twenty-three in number, the latest of which is Mercator's of 1569, with the learned explications of them, reduced and lithographed in Bremen under the superintend- ence of Dr. Kohl, throw fresh light, not only upon the voyages and discoveries with which they are connected, but upon the condition of science and art in those departments of knowledge during that period. The value of the work is greatly enhanced by these illustrations.
The maps, of course, give an imperfect and inaccurate view of our coast, from the desultory and cursory manner in which the visits were made to it ; but they furnish a general outline of the north-castern shores; in most of them are represented the promi- nent points of Cape Cod, Penobscot Bay, the numerous islands along the coast of Maine, Cape Sable, and Cape Race, points which could not fail to arrest the attention of even a common observer. The ancient Norumbega, embracing sometimes the
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PREFACE.
whole of New England, has a conspicuous place on nearly all the early maps, and retained its name far into the next century, but over a narrower region.
Perhaps we ought not to be surprised at the imperfection of these maps, or of the narratives of those early discoveries, when we consider the ignorance which still prevails in Europe on the geography of America. A French author recently did Port- land the honor to make it the capital of New England, and conspicuous points in the south and west of our country are often so transposed in the writings of some of their literary men, that we know not where to find them. It is a familiar fact, that before the Revolution, the name of Boston was often used for the whole of New England. But it is singular that the extraordinary discoveries and transactions of the sixteenth century, so much at variance with the routine occurrences of European societies, should not have been transmitted by con- temporaneous writers with more fullness and accuracy than we have received them. Even Eden and Hakluyt, who may be called partisans in American discovery, fail to give us accu- rate representations of those wonderful and peculiar enterprises, which we should suppose must have made a deep impression upon the public mind. Humboldt says, "the extraordinary ap- pearances of nature, and the intercourse with men of different races must have exercised an influence on the progress of knowl- edge in Europe. The germ of a great number of physical truths is found in the works of the sixteenth century."
But other events nearer home, and of more absorbing inter- est, cast a shadow over those remote, desultory, and excep- tional transactions. Lord Bacon, in his " Reign of Henry VII," affords but two duodecimo pages to the Cabots, whose enter- prises we are accustomed to regard as among the most impor- tant of that reign, and were indeed so, in their influence upon the future course of history; and in those few words, he entirely ignores John Cabot and his first voyage. We place this passage in the Appendix. And Speed, in his "History of Great Brit-
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PREFACE.
aine," published in London in 1611, takes no notice of those events except in these words, "and though some other actions, as Sebastian Cabot's discovery," he thought best " to postpone," that he might "couch all that concerns Perkin Warbeck here together;" so that we have no more of the Cabots, or of any other foreign undertakings to our coasts, in either of those works.
The editor of Bacon's Henry VII, therefore, in his preface justly says, "The original records of the time had not been studied by any man with a genius for writing history, nor gath- ered into a book by any laborious collector. The published histories were full of inaccuracies and omissions, which it is impossible to correct or supply, without laborious research in public archives and private collections."
In the present work, it gives us pleasure to feel, that Dr. Kohl has given, in a most compact and interesting form, the results of a careful and laborious research into the scattered original sources of information, relating to the eventful, but obscure period of which it treats, illuminating it by a compre- hensive, profound, and impressive resume of its record. We cannot but sympathize with him in his repeated lamentations over the loss of reports and charts of voyages, the neglect of the adventurers to indicate the course and progress of their discoveries, and of cosmographers to delineate them. These neglects and omissions will be particularly noticed in his analy- sis-dissection we may rather call it-of the maps introduced. The most elaborate and acute of these discussions is upon the celebrated map of 1544, unjustly, as he thinks, ascribed to Se- bastian Cabot, and on the Cabot voyages, of which there have always existed contradictory opinions.
Dr. Kohl may, perhaps, be thought by some to have traveled beyond the primary object of the work, by introducing the movements of the Spanish and French in Florida. But he thought it not only useful, but necessary to the unity and fulness of the task he had undertaken, to bring these voyages within his
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PREFACE.
comprehensive review of the development of the northern and eastern section of the country in which we are more especially interested, and to which Thevet's account of Norumbega is an important appendage. In a private letter on the subject, he naively says, "You will perhaps at first sight be astonished to find in my work, not only a report on Cartier's voyages and explorations in Canada, but also one on the French settlements and discoveries in Florida. But by looking nearer into the sub- ject, I hope you will find that these matters also, are so inti- mately connected with the history of every part of the east coast of the United States, with that of Maine and New Eng- land, that it was impossible for me to leave them out. More- over, the geographical and hydrographical part of these voy- ages, in several modern works, has not been much cleared up. I hope you will find, that taking this into consideration, I have come to some new results."
The volume now presented to the public derives additional value from the very interesting communication of M. D'Avezac of Paris, to Dr. Woods, and translated by him, which, with his explanatory letter, will be found in the Appendix. It is most gratifying to be able to place side by side the arguments of such distinguished champions in the field of historical inquiry. M. D'Avezac and Dr. Kohl both reason from opposite views of the same admitted transactions -; but Dr. Kohl is more full and minute in his examination of the still doubtful and disputed problem of the Cabot voyages and map. Both, wise and dili- gent seekers after truth, discuss the obscure and indistinct indi- cations of the imperfectly revealed events of the time, in a spirit of impartiality and ability, which is exhaustive of the subject. It is a generous and honorable contest, which cannot fail to interest and instruct the historical student curious in such investigations.
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