1823 Tanner Map of Kentucky and Tennessee

This is a rare transitional state of Henry S. Tanner's 1823 map of Kentucky and Tennessee. The map captures the creation of Wood Lake following the New Madrid Earthquakes.

A Closer Look

This elephant folio map covers Kentucky and Tennessee in full, with parts of neighboring states. The map is a strong example of Tanner's superb engraving, showing rivers, topography by hachure, cities, towns, and roadways. Various natural features and resources are also marked: in Clay County, Kentucky, for example, a 'Burning Spring' is noted - a stream around which natural gas escapes from the ground, which may be set alight. Salt works, iron mines, colleges, and 'oil springs' all find their way into this detailed map.

New Counties Added following the Chickasaw Cession

Throughout the map, Kentucky and Tennessee's counties are named and made more distinguishable with wash color. In the westernmost counties of Tennessee, we see the greatest change in the map: in the first state, many of these are marked but left unnamed. Here, (in addition to the removal of the reference to Illinois from the title) the counties of Hardeman (Hardiman), McNairy (McVarry), Haywood, Tipton, Dyer, Gibson, Obion, and Weakley ('Weakly') are newly named. This example was included in an 1823 edition of the Atlas, indicating that Tanner updated the work piecemeal before the publication of the 1825/6 edition. That latter edition includes this map, unchanged beyond the notation in the title 'improved to 1825.'

The Aftermath of the New Madrid Earthquakes

The newly-named 'Obion County' is shown with a 'Reelfoot R.' which, though having been identified in a 1785 survey, had ceased to exist 11 years before the engraving of this map. In 1811 and 1812, the whole region was devastated by the New Madrid Earthquakes. As a result, this area subsided and produced an enormous lake and swamp area. On the map, this is shown as Wood Lake and Wood Lake Swamp. Today, it is known as Reelfoot Lake. Eliza Bryan, an eyewitness to the earthquakes, wrote in 1816 of the appearance of this astonishing new lake:

Lately it has been discovered that a lake was formed on the opposite side of the Mississippi River, in the Indian country, upwards of one hundred miles in length, and from one to six miles in width, of the depth of from ten to fifty feet. It has communication with the river at both ends, and it is conjectured that it will not be many years before the principal part, if not the whole of the Mississippi, will pass that way.

The depiction of Wood Lake and its attendant swamp agrees largely with Bryan's report, starting nearly opposite New Madrid across the Mississippi and running south until meeting and presumably emptying into the Obion River.

Why Illinois

The original title of this map was Kentucky, Tennessee and part of Illinois. The Illinois portion of the map is highly detailed here, which is unusual for Tanner in a non-focus region. His 1823 atlas did include a more specific map of Illinois and Missouri. We thus speculate that this map was completed before Tanner committed to producing a dedicated Illinois map.

Publication History and Census

The map was engraved by Tanner (and his assistants) for inclusion in the 1823 edition of his New American Atlas; we see about 20 examples of the originally-titled 1823 edition of this separate map in OCLC. We see the 1825 edition marked 'improved to 1825' in about 17 institutional collections. While we are compelled to make allowances for errors in cataloging, the present example is much scarcer than either the 1823 or 1825, with four or perhaps five examples showing this title without the 1825 note.