Creating Accurate Road Maps

I'm writing a story. It's a novel based on a screenplay based on a legend based on a ream of historical documents and letters. It's rich. It's about Early America and includes events like the New Orleans fire in 1788 and the Ratification of the U.S. Constitution that same year.

There's a sea voyage from New Orleans, to Philadelphia, and a covered wagon journey from York, PA to Charlestown, VA (now WV) and there is a dangerous ferry crossing at Harpers Ferry, MD when John Harper actually operated the ferry. The story is filled with political giants (Washington, Jefferson, Franklyn and the Carroll clan) and there are bigoted immigrants, religious zealots, and an unconventional slavery abolitionist.

This week I'm trying to write about the segment of the journey that takes place along 100 miles of frontier road from York to Charlestown. There's a covered farm wagon pulled by two huge conestoga horses named (Calvin and Luther), and two conestoga freight wagons pulled by two teams of four mules driven by teamsters (the predecessors of today's Teamsters).  Tied to the back of the various wagons are four smaller horses and a dairy cow.

There was research about covered wagons, farming, and money. Did you know the conestoga freight wagons were built to ford rivers and streams so the stuff inside stayed dry? This was four years before the 1792 U.S. Coinage Act, so there were some 12 different coinages in circulation all minted in different countries? The Spanish 2-escudo gold doubloon was the most popular.  And a Spanish piece-of-eight (of pirate lore) was used in trade. Very confusing when you wanted to buy something. I had to build am Excel conversion table to keep it all straight.

But what was the trip like from York to Charlestown like in early October 1788? There there many creeks to ford in early October. Did you know few traveled long distances in the spring because the roads were too muddy, and the summer was too hot. So most travel was done in the fall and winter.

I needed to construct a map for the journey, so I could name the towns (if they were around back then). And what about water crossings, and mountains? Was there a road that avoided the mountains, like through a pass?

I tired using Google Maps, which you see below. The problem with Google Maps is that the route you want to trace will only follow existing roads today. And it's hard to see elevations on Google. So, I looked up the cities and towns along the way. Most had elevations listed...but they weren't for the roads, but for hill peaks and airports. This was useful, but there was no real contour information that covered wagons might encounter.

I then found two free resources that were much better than Google Maps. The first was TopoQuest.com. It provided a lot of information and I was able to see where the common roads found their way around hills and between mountain peaks.  See below for Harpers Ferry You can easily read the topographical lines and elevations and where the roads (today) are. There are also labels and the location of actual buildings (at the time of the map's creation).

But the cleanest is at https://viewer.nationalmap.gov/advanced-viewer/
This is the United States Geological Survey site for the Advanced Map Viewer. The ease of zooming in and moving around, and other tools here, is amazing.

There are numerous tools, too, for measuring things, like distances, where you can make your own path. You're not forced to use the existing streets, but you can with little effort. Here's an example.

There are a host of tools at the top that allow you to measure square miles (BTW 1 sq. mile = 640 Acres.) the tool bar allows you to create layers, legends, add data, see elevation profiles, and paint on the map to print out or download.

There are dozens of other features at USGS.gov including historical maps of cities. It's all worth checking out and bookmarking in your browser.