old map questions(ca/or area)

redbull

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Just wondering what are some good places to find old maps. Mainly looking for maps pre 1910 and lower around the old jacksonville,ca area(now under water)and up to/including 50 mile radius.(basicly or/ca border maps) having a hell of a time tracking them down. Also any help on tracking down pre 1910 mining rights for southern OR/ca area would be awsome.
 

kuger

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.......good luck!!
 

kuger

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Good luck in finding a source for old maps or good luck in general? Lol

:laughing7:...good luck on maps for places Like Jacksonville.As you likely know many towns had later Sanborn maps but I dont think J.Ville ever did?
 

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redbull

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Dont need a map of jville itself. Just looking for maps 1825-1910ish that would have had other communities on it. Tryin to track down the apparent haphazard route the expidition that found crater lake took(was actually found several times tracking the path the first exp took)
 

kuger

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Dont need a map of jville itself. Just looking for maps 1825-1910ish that would have had other communities on it. Tryin to track down the apparent haphazard route the expidition that found crater lake took(was actually found several times tracking the path the first exp took)

Hmmmm,I will keep an eye out,but I have never seen one.Very interesting.Keep me posted!
 

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redbull

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If anyones interested im mainly wondering about the general j c. Fremont expiditions in the area. In 1846 they apparently stumbled on to a sunken hole as well as torched a indian village as a retalitory attack and found gold in the village. But there is also a gold legend in the area(personally think the gold would be further west as its been said it was a days ride to the nearest city and crater lake from the hillman exp is way over what a loaded horse or even a horse can travel.)
 

kuger

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BosnMate

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Fremont traveled down the east side of the Cascade Range to Klamath Marsh, where he camped on a point of land that stuck well out into the marsh. At that location the marsh has been drained now, but his camp site is easily located. However, the bad news is there's a federal wildlife reserve right there, and if you pick up an arrow head or break out a detector you will end up in federal prison. It's also the Winema National Forest, and anything over 50 years old, get caught and do time. Probably the most hen house part of Oregon is the Klamath Marsh. At the Marsh camp Fremont fired the cannon to scare the Indians. I never heard that they had a problem with Indians other than that, and in that case the Indians came to their camp the next day, to see what kind of gun they had. Fremont crossed over the marsh and traveled up the Williamson River, and ended up above Summer Lake. They topped out at the top of winter rim in three feet of snow, and the looking down at the lake it was perfect summer weather. Hence the name of the lake. Here are some google earth pictures.
Klmath MarshA.jpg
klmath marshB.jpg
klmath marshC.jpg
From Summer Lake, Fremont went south into Nevada, through High Rock Canyon, now a BLM wilderness area, crossed the Black Rock Desert, went south along the shore of Pyramid Lake, south to the Carson and Walker rivers, then over Sonora Pass in the winter, where he abandoned his cannon. At the base of Sonora Pass, there is a large meadow named "Pickle Meadows." The marines have a mountain training base there, that I call Fort Pickle, I don't know the real name. But if you decide to go look for Fremont's cannon, you have the United States Marines to deal with. Oh yes, the cannon was found years ago, and the barrel removed. However there might be iron parts of the cannon still there, but again, the Marines probably have something to say about that. Needless to say, I've done a lot of research, and was very disappointed. I've tried to drive to Fremonts camp, there was a road of sorts at the time, but there was a very stout fence, locked gate, and a huge no trespassing sign. That's about all I can tell you. Someplace in my pictures I have a long distance photo of the camp site, taken from the Military Road. Oh yes, the Military road is dirt and deep dust in the summer. It's a road the army built when they were fighting the Indians over east, but that's another very interesting story. If I find the picture I'll post it.
 

BosnMate

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Here are a couple of pictures I've taken.
Marsh1.jpg
This photo, I'm standing on the Military road where it crossed the marsh. The far mountains are the Cascade Range, the pointed one is Mount Thielsen. Crater Lake is to the left out of the picture. The roof you see is where the land owner lives. Most of the Marsh is Federal Wildlife Refuge, but there is some private property that has been drained and cows are pastured on it. There is also a large herd of Buffalo south where the paved road crosses the Marsh.
marsh2.jpg
This is a telephoto photo looking north towards Fremont's camp site. I'm still standing on the road where the first picture was taken, which by the way is also a telephoto shot. In Fremont's day, the Indians lived out on the marsh in houses built on stilts. Fremont thought they were acting unfriendly, and fired the cannon, and the ball exploded over the marsh. All the fires on the marsh were instantly put out. The next day the Indians visited the camp to see the gun that shot twice. That was the only problem the they had with Indians, and that really wasn't a problem. Ten years before the Umpqua Indians had wiped out most of Jed Smith's men, and Fremont had no idea how far away that was, (probably 300 miles and no relation to the Klamath's that lived on the marsh) but he was taking no chances. Said so in his journal. I'm probably more disappointed than you about the way it turned out, because I wanted to look for the friction primer, but there aint no chance of that now, I'm not willing to do the time and over there you'd be right out in front of God and everybody. For an isolated place, there are lots of people around. Over the years, a lot of people have found tons of artifacts along the edges of the marsh. You go there now, and there are signs telling you what's gonna happen if you so much as pick one up and look at it. Seriously, I had a lot of fun tracking Fremont down, to the point that I've been through High Rock Canyon, which is now a wilderness area, and I have no idea if you can still drive through there. It aint the same as it was, and that's not necessarily for the better.
 

Mackaydon

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Regarding the 'torched village', its name was Dokdokwas and it was located near a marshy place where the Williamson River flows into Upper Klamath Lake. Today, that area is pristine; just a swath of reedy shoreline with no markers to indicate what happened there.
I've read no account of they finding gold in that village. Can you cite your source for the gold?
Don......
PS: Dokdokwas was at the mouth of what is now called “Crooked Creek
 

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Tom_in_CA

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I know it's intriguing to want to locate (and some are pinpointed with great accuracy) Fremont's "camp sites". He had surveyors/cartographers in his group, so there are actual primitive coordinates of their sites. But with all due respect for "Fremont's camping sites", it seems to me that where him and his guys camped a few nights is hardly worth knocking yourselves silly to find, or hunt. I mean, if a motley crew camped a few nights in some meadow or hilltop, .... so what? Seems to me a md'r is much better served hunting where travelers came and went nightly, for years. Eg.: stage stops, camping spots, etc.....

For example: If a "singular one-time picnic" occured in a certain meadow, or under a certain tree, in 1890, for a single day or week, is it worth knocking yourself silly to research out, find and hunt? Verses a picnic site that existed for weekly (or daily) picnics from 1880 to 1910 ..... See the difference? So a person is much better served finding out where continual traffic occured, not just a bunch of guys for only a few nights.

"Fremont Peak" is a mere 45 min. from me. Fremont's gang set up camp there for 5 days or whatever. I can hunt sites where little communities or travel hubs or adobe sites existed for 30+ years, with continaul come-&-go traffic. See the difference? Sorry to be a kill-joy.
 

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BosnMate

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...had the Famous Mariposa Land Grant just due south of me...Nor Cal.....and Fremont Peak is smack dead center.....aside from his travels up around Crater Lake...

Kuger, my mother had a close friend that owned a house in Bear Valley right next door to where Fremont's house had been. When I was a kid we went over there to visit, and the General's house was gone, but her house was there, and right next door was the remains of her father's store, just the adobe walls built before gold was discovered. I remember those walls and the iron doors on the front of the store, and I also remember the weather in the foothills was hotter'n a two bit pistol. Her mother was still alive, and of course to a young kid she was older'n dirt. Fremont died in New York in 1890, but that elderly lady could remember him when she was a youngster, sitting on the porch of his house, I distinctly remember her telling me that. The school I was going to at the time was "Fremont School," and so it was kind of a big deal to me.
 

BosnMate

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I know it's intriguing to want to locate (and some are pinpointed with great accuracy) Fremont's "camp sites". He had surveyors/cartographers in his group, so there are actual primitive coordinates of their sites. But with all due respect for "Fremont's camping sites", it seems to me that where him and his guys camped a few nights is hardly worth knocking yourselves silly to find, or hunt. I mean, if a motley crew camped a few nights in some meadow or hilltop, .... so what? Seems to me a md'r is much better served hunting where travelers came and went nightly, for years. Eg.: stage stops, camping spots, etc.....

For example: If a "singular one-time picnic" occured in a certain meadow, or under a certain tree, in 1890, for a single day or week, is it worth knocking yourself silly to research out, find and hunt? Verses a picnic site that existed for weekly (or daily) picnics from 1880 to 1910 ..... See the difference? So a person is much better served finding out where continual traffic occured, not just a bunch of guys for only a few nights.

"Fremont Peak" is a mere 45 min. from me. Fremont's gang set up camp there for 5 days or whatever. I can hunt sites where little communities or travel hubs or adobe sites existed for 30+ years, with continaul come-&-go traffic. See the difference? Sorry to be a kill-joy.

I'm the one on this forum that has probably done the most research on Fremont in Red Bull's area of interest, so I suppose I'm the one that should answer you. I'll start by saying, if you have to ask, then you won't understand the answer, but I'll try. When doing the research, I didn't expect to find anything that I could say "this belonged to Fremont's expedition." On the contrary. I stopped at the park in Summer Lake one time, and they had a sign saying "Fremont fired his cannon here." That got my interest, and I found out they were not exactly telling the truth. So I found out exactly where he fired the cannon, just to satisfy myself. From there I continued to research the area he passed through, mostly because it was interesting, and I was able to go to some of those places as opposed to being able to go to some historic eastern battlefield. I've also researched the California trail through Nevada, and lived on a ranch right were the wagons camped, and yes, I found lots of artifacts there. Looking for Fremont's camp wasn't a search for artifacts, although if possible I sure would have looked for the friction primer, and in 1846 I don't even know if they used friction primers, but I would have looked. So the research wasn't a quest for artifacts, it was a quest for history, and the satisfaction of being able to pin down the location where the event took place. That's all, nothing sinister and no expectations of finding artifacts or hoards of gold. Also, at the time Fremont's lost cannon was supposedly still lost and nobody had ever found it. During that research I found out that a bronze barrel turned up in Carson City and sat on someone's porch for years. They figured that was Fremonts gun, so I've never tried to look for the gun at Fort Pickle, figuring it's been found. But I've been over the pass, and have a pretty good idea what they were up against.
In my research I came across no mention of gold anywhere, gold hadn't been discovered in California or Oregon yet, and the town of Jacksonville didn't even exist. I think the closest town would have been Roseburg, which would have been called Deer Creek in those days, and it's darn sure several days ride to the west. From the marsh to Roseburg on modern roads is 160 miles or so.
Regarding Dokdokwas. Where the Williamson River flows into what was the upper marsh in those days is now a horse ranch, it's all been drained and is pasture land. So I'm assuming you are saying where the river actually flows into the upper lake today is still pristine. If that is the case, my research says Fremont never got close to that village.
 

kuger

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just an added note...I became acquaintances with an ole chap that searched for Fremonts Cannon till he died...I recently learned that the cannon has been discovered....in a drainage that I spent enough time to tell you I walked by that thing numerous times!!
 

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