1838 Hood Map of the Territory of Oregon (Oregon, Washington, Utah, British Columbia, California)

Washington Hood (February 2, 1808 – July 17, 1840) was American army officer in the Corps of Topographical Engineers. Hood was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of John McClellan Hood, a wholesale grocer. Hood attended West Point, from which he was the 500th graduate, matriculating with in the class of 1827. Between 1831 and 1846 he completed various topographical surveys in Missouri and Florida (Seminole Wars?). He next worked with Robert E. Lee measuring the Ohio-Michigan line. In 1836, Hood resigned his military commission to work as a private civil engineer. He spent much of 1837 in Cuba, where he performed railroad work. He rejoined the military as a Captain in 1838 and in that year produced his landmark map of Oregon territory. In 1839, President Van Buren sent him to survey the Oklahoma Shawnee lands between the Arkansas and Missouri River. During this assignment, he contracted an unknown illness from which he died less than a year later. A large archive of his important sketches and manuscripts are preserved at the Winterthur Library in Delaware and Beinecke Rare Book Library, at Yale. More by this mapmaker...

Howard Stansbury (February 8, 1806 - April 13, 1863) was an important surveyor, cartographer, and explorer who did his most important work in Utah during the middle part of the 19th century. Born in New York City, Stansbury trained to be a Civil Engineer. Shorty after getting married to Helen Moody of Detroit in 1827, Stansbury took a position with the United States Topographical Bureau. Under that organization he surveyed the James River in 1836, and the Illinois and Kaskaskia Rivers in 1837. In 1838, he oversaw the construction of a road from Milwaukee to the Mississippi River. Later in 1838, when the U.S Corps of Topographical Engineers was created, he joined as a first Lieutenant. With the Topographical Engineers he surveyed the Great Lakes, the harbor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and constructed Florida's Carysfort Reef Lighthouse. During the Mexican-American War he constructed fortification in the Dry Tortugas at the westernmost point on the Florida Keys. Upon achieving the rank of Captain, Stansbury received a commissioned to head a survey of the Great Basin that would ultimately become the crowning achievement of his career. His assignment was to survey the emigrant trails to California, including the Oregon Trail, as well as the Great Salt Lake, and report on the status of the growing Mormon Community in Salt Lake City. Working with J. W. Gunnison and Alfred Carrington, a Mormon scout, Stansbury produced a masterful survey of the region that had a lasting effect not only on the development of the Great Basin, but on the development of the west in general. Upon completion of his survey, Stansbury set out on the road to Washington, completing another important survey in the process. On the way, he fell off his horse, taking an injury from which he never fully recovered. Following the presentation of his report to Congress, Stansbury was charged with additional survey work around the Great Lakes. Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, he was assigned to recruitment duties in Ohio and later Wisconsin. Shortly after starting work at this post he suffered an abrupt heart attack and passed away. He is buried in St. Paul, Minnesota. Learn More...