The Island of Lost Maps Read online

  CHAPTER EIGHT: PATHFINDING

  1 “singularly unfavorable to travel” John Charles Frémont, Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains (1845; reprint, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1966), p. 213.

  2 “did little of importance” Bernard DeVoto, The Year of Decision: 1846 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1942), p. 39.

  3 “The map … radically and permanently altered” Carl I. Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West, 1540–1861, vol. 2: From Lewis and Clark to Frémont, 1804–1845 (San Francisco: Institute of Historical Cartography, 1958), p. 199.

  4 “fixing on a small sheet” Quoted in Seymour I. Schwartz and Ralph E. Ehrenberg, The Mapping of America (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1980), p. 262.

  5 At 10:55 P.M., Police records, Bayonne, N.J.

  6 the boy’s birth certificate Birth records on file with the Marion County, Ind., Health Department.

  7 “the allegations of the complaint” Marion Superior Court records from April 14, 1954.

  8 “was both verbally and physically abusive” Paul R. Thomson, Jr., and James R. Creekmore, “Defendant’s Sentencing Memorandum,” United States of America vs. Gilbertjoseph Bland, U.S. District Court, Charlottesville, Va., October 7, 1996.

  9 his personal effects Police records, Bayonne, N.J.

  10 “loftiest peak of the Rocky Mountains” Frémont, Report of the Expedition to the Rockies, p. 70.

  11 “stupid” and “foolhardy” Charles Preuss, Exploring with Frémont: The Private Diaries of Charles Preuss, Cartographer for John C. Frémont on His First, Second, and Fourth Expeditions to the Far West, trans. and ed. Erwin G. and Elisabeth K. Gudde (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958), p. 55.

  12 “dancing master” John Moring, Men with Sand: Great Explorers of the North American West (Helena, Mont.: TwoDot, 1998), p. 166.

  13 “occasional upholstering” Andrew Rolle, John Charles Frémont: Character as Destiny (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), p. 1.

  14 “No one ever knew why” Moring, Men with Sand, p. 166.

  15 “psychiatric techniques” Rolle, John Charles Frémont, p. xiv.

  16 “fragmented sense of selfhood” Ibid., p. 281.

  17 “Because Frémont’s formative years” Ibid.

  18 “In fact, even while on his expeditions” Ibid., p. 278.

  19 “reckless impetuosity” Allan Nevins, Frémont: The West’s Greatest Adventurer, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1928), p. 114.

  20 “To go back was impossible” Frémont, Report of the Expedition to the Rockies, pp. 74–75.

  21 “flushed with success, and familiar with the danger” Ibid., p. 75.

  22 “Bereft of two nurturing parents” Rolle, John Charles Frémont, p. 281.

  23 “habitual irregularity and incorrigible negligence” Quoted in ibid., p. 9.

  24 “mutiny, disobedience, and conduct prejudicial” Quoted in Moring, Men with Sand, p. 179.

  25 “of strange scenes and occurrences” John Charles Frémont, Narratives of Exploration and Adventure, ed. Allan Nevins (New York: Longmans, Green, 1956), p. 29.

  26 “There was a map of Vietnam” Michael Herr, Dispatches (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977), p. 3.

  27 “has a pattern of problems” Transcript of sentencing hearing in United States of America vs. Gilbertjoseph Bland, U.S. District Court, Charlottesville, Va., December 9, 1996.

  28 massage parlor for American soldiers See Frances FitzGerald, Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1972), p. 351.

  29 “held its own dangers and terrors” John D. Bergen, Military Communications: A Test for Technology (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1986), p. 340.

  30 the invention of maps See G. Malcolm Lewis, “The Origins of Cartography,” in The History of Cartography, vol. I: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, ed. J. B. Harley and David Woodward (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 50–53.

  31 “trying all of the apartment doors” Police records, Ridge-field Park, N.J.

  32 “a land rich in gold” Quoted in Stephen Clissold, The Seven Cities of Cíbola (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1961), pp. 101–102.

  33 “It must exist” Bernard DeVoto, The Course of Empire (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952), p. 63.

  34 “it had become … a mighty stream” Carl I. Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West, 1540–1861, vol. 1: The Spanish Entrada to the Louisiana Purchase, 1540–1804 (San Francisco: Institute of Historical Cartography, 1957), pp. 140–141.

  35 “the existence of a great river” Frémont, Report of the Expedition to the Rockies, p. 196.

  36 “with every stream … to see the great Buenaventura” Ibid., p. 219.

  37 “appallingly foolhardy” Nevins, Frémont, p. 168.

  38 “nervous disorder” Jail docket, Bergen County Sheriff’s Office, July 6, 1971.

  39 “denie[d] illnesses” Jail docket, Bergen County Sheriff’s Office, January 21, 1971.

  40 “going crazy” Gilbert Bland, letter to Gov. William T. Cahill, September 29, 1972. Records of Gov. William T. Cahill, New Jersey State Archives.

  41 a warrant for his arrest Bench warrant issued in Sussex County, N.J., June 22, 1973.

  42 “give consideration to retaining legal counsel” Gov. William T. Cahill, letter to Gilbert Bland, October 5, 1972. Cahill mistakenly spelled the name Blond.

  43 “’snitching’ as they call it” Gilbert Bland, letter to U.S. District Judge Ben Krentzman, May 10, 1976.

  44 “I have no intention” Gilbert Bland, letter of unknown date to U.S. District Judge Ben Krentzman; received by Krentzman, April 6, 1977.

  45 “Frémont’s march south” John Noble Wilford, The Mapmakers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981), p. 199.

  46 “no hesitation in asserting” The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike: With Letters and Related Documents, vol. 2, ed. Donald Jackson (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), pp. 26–27.

  CHAPTER NINE: THE WATERS OF PARADISE

  1 “a spring of running water” Quoted in Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages, A.D. 1492–1616 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 504.

  2 “noble and beautiful well” The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, trans. C.W.R.D. Moseley (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1983), p. 123.

  3 el enflaquecimiento del sexo See Morison, European Discovery of America, p. 503.

  4 lowest proportions of locally born citizens In the 1990 U.S. Census, Florida ranked dead last for its percentage of residents born in-state. And, according to Census Bureau statistics, Florida was the tenth fastest-growing state in the country between 1990 and 1998.

  5 “His interest in maps” James R. Creekmore, letter to author, October 30, 1996. This letter included a “Statement Concerning Mr. Gilbert Bland,” responding to a detailed list of questions I had sent to the map thief through his attorneys. Although the statement was only four paragraphs long—less than one full page—and contained almost no direct answers, it was the only response Bland would ever make to my inquiries about his life and motives.

  6 owned by Karen Bland Records of Maryland Department of Assessment and Taxation, Corporate Division.

  7 “major customers” Paul R. Thomson, Jr., and James R. Creekmore, “Defendant’s Objections to Presentence Investigation Report,” United States of America vs. Gilbert joseph Bland, Charlottesville, Va., September 16, 1996.

  8 “no longer … economically feasible” Transcript of sentencing hearing in United States of America vs. Gilbert joseph Bland, U.S. District Court, Charlottesville, Va., December 9, 1996.

  9 “everyplace looks like noplace” James Howard Kunstler, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), p. 131.

  10 “For God doth know” Genesis 3:5. 232 “eastward in Eden” Genesis 2:8.

  11 an orchard surrounded b
y a wall See Jean Delumeau, History of Paradise: The Garden of Eden in Myth and Tradition, trans. Matthew O’Connell (New York: Continuum, 1995), p. 4.

  12 “wall of fire” Quoted in ibid., p. 44.

  13 “great evidence of the earthly Paradise” Christopher Columbus, “Narrative of the Third Voyage,” in The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus, trans. J. M. Cohen (New York: Penguin, 1969), pp. 220–222.

  14 “the flood, and other accidents of time” Walter Raleigh, The History of the World, book one (1614; reprint, London: printed for G. Conyers, et al., 1736), p. 23.

  15 “shaped … when opened” Quoted in Simon Berthon and Andrew Robinson, The Shape of the World (London: George Philip, 1991), pp. 57–58.

  16 “See you later” See Frank D. Roylance’s account, “Fla. Man Is Sought in Book Cuttings: He and Wife Abruptly Close Map Shop,” in Baltimore Sun (December 16, 1995): 1A.

  17 declared Chapter Seven bankruptcy Papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of Florida, Fort Lauderdale Division, November 3, 1995.

  CHAPTER TEN: THE JOY OF DISCOVERY

  1 “I discovered” Christopher Columbus, “The Barcelona Letter of 1493,” trans. Lucia Graves, in Mauricio Obregón, ed., The Columbus Papers: The Barcelona Letter of 1493, the Landfall Controversy, and the Indian Guides (New York: Macmillan, 1991), pp. 65–69. All further quotations from the letter come from the Graves translation, with one exception: I use Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s choice of wording for the phrase “the conquest of what appears impossible.”

  2 “He was charmed” Gianni Granzotto, Christopher Columbus, trans. Stephen Sartarelli (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985), p. 34.

  3 OLD MAP POX This poster was created by the map dealer F. J. Manasek.

  4 “the first map of the whole world” Peter Whitfield, The Image of the World: Twenty Centuries of World Maps (San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1994), p. 50.

  5 “chanced to notice a small copper globe” Henry Stevens, Recollections of Mr. James Lenox of New York and the Formation of His Library (London: Henry Stevens & Son, 1886), p. 141.

  6 “the final thrill” Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking My Library:A Talk About Book Collecting,” in Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968), p. 60.

  7 “I have not a hair upon me” Christopher Columbus, “Letter of Columbus to Their Majesties,” in Select Documents Illustrating the Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus, trans. and ed. Cecil Jane (London: Hakluyt Society, 1933), pp. 108–110. The other Columbus quotations in this paragraph are from the same letter.

  8 “Almost anyone … would rest content” Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Columbus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 192.

  9 “search—successful or not” Werner Muensterberger, Collecting: An Unruly Passion (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 162.

  10 “There is reason to believe” Ibid., pp. 10, 13.

  11 “The quest is never-ending” Ibid., p. 162.

  12 “an all-consuming passion” Ibid., p. 6.

  13 the notorious Don Vincente See Nicholas A. Basbanes, A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books (New York: Henry Holt, 1995), pp. 33–34.

  14 the story of the Unknown Pilot See Samuel Eliot Morison’s overview in Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus (Boston: Little, Brown, 1942), pp. 61–63, as well as Gronzotto’s account in Christopher Columbus, pp. 45–47.

  15 “a protective figure” Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2d ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 69, 71.

  16 “power-imbued fetish[es]” Muensterberger, Collecting, p. 54.

  17 “set [his] mind ablaze” Quoted in Granzotto, Christopher Columbus, p. 57.

  18 “still more inflamed” Quoted in John Noble Wilford, The Mysterious History of Columbus: An Exploration of the Man, the Myth, the Legacy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), p. 76.

  19 “Some, to beautify their Halls” Quoted in John Goss, The Mapmaker’s Art: An Illustrated History of Cartography (Skokie, Ill.: Rand McNally, 1993), p. 344.

  20 “As Freud has shown” Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 51.

  21 “Something hidden. Go and find it” Rudyard Kipling, “The Explorer,” in Complete Verse (London: Kyle Cathie, 1990), pp. 86–88.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE ISLAND OF LOST MAPS

  1 El Wakwak See Raymond H. Ramsay, No Longer on the Map: Discovering Places That Never Were (New York: Viking Press, 1972), p. 113.

  2 “sirens abound” Quoted in William G. Niederland’s essay “The Pre-Renaissance Image of the World and the Discovery of America,” in Maps from the Mind: Readings in Psychogeography, ed. Howard F. Stein and William G. Niederland (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), p. 111.

  3 “men who murdered their fathers” Quoted in ibid., p. 111.

  4 “produces all crops and all fruits” Quoted in Jean Delumeau, History of Paradise: The Garden of Eden in Myth and Tradition, trans. Matthew O’Connell (New York: Continuum, 1995), p. 100.

  5 “there are trees that yield birds” Quoted in ibid., p. 103.

  6 “have tails like animals” Quoted in E. G. Ravenstein, Martin Behaim: His Life and His Globe (London: George Philip & Son, 1908), p. 88.

  7 “One of these islands [is] inhabited by men only” Quoted in ibid., p. 105.

  8 Drogeo The Drogeo and Icaria legends stem from Nicolò Zeno’s apocryphal sixteenth-century account of his ancestors’ purported adventures. See Nicolò Zeno, The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers, Nicolò & Antonio Zeno, to the Northern Seas in the XIVth Century, ed. and trans. Richard Henry Major (London: Hakluyt Society, 1873), pp. 21–34. See also William H. Babcock, Legendary Islands of the Atlantic: A Study in Medieval Geography (New York: American Geographical Society, 1922), pp. 124–142, as well as Ramsay, No Longer on the Map, pp. 53–76. Ramsay also covers the St. Brendan legend, pp. 77–85.

  9 “full of men agrieving and lamenting” Quoted in Howard Rollin Patch, The Other World: According to the Descriptions in Medieval Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950), p. 35. In addition to Patch, information on Celtic island lore comes from Donald S. Johnson, Phantom Islands of the Atlantic: The Legends of Seven Lands That Never Were, rev. ed. (New York: Walker, 1996), Ramsay, No Longer on the Map, and John Kirtland Wright, The Geographical Lore of the Time of the Crusades: A Study in the History of Medieval Science and Tradition in Western Europe (New York: American Geographical Society, 1925).

  10 “a bird of monstrous size” Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, trans. N. J. Dawood (New York: Penguin, 1973), p. 124.

  11 Island of Jewels See Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2d ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 114–115.

  12 “full of noises” William Shakespeare, The Tempest, act III, sc. 2, lines 133–134.

  13 the tale of Maushope See Seon and Robert Manley’s description in Islands: Their Lives, Legends, and Lore (Philadelphia: Chilton, 1970), pp. 18–21.

  14 “where all the four seasons” J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan, act II, sc. 1, lines 37–38.

  15 “way west of Sumatra” Dialogue from King Kong, screenplay by James Creelman and Ruth Rose, 1933.

  16 “forested slopes were wreathed” Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), p. 79.

  17 “misery acquaints a man” Shakespeare, Tempest, act II, sc. 2, lines 40–41.

  18 “a soul or a life-force” Werner Muensterberger, Collecting: An Unruly Passion (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 55.

  19 “the relationship between collector and dealer” Ibid., p. 159.

  20 as much as half a million dollars No official dollar estimate for the maps exists. This is a best-guess figure, based on my conversations with several map experts and law enforcement officials familiar with the case.

  21 “recovered, unharmed” News release, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Weste
rn District of Virginia, March 1, 1996.

  22 “all possibility of deliverance” Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, ed. Angus Ross (1719; reprint, Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1965), p. 112.

  23 “wild ideas” Ibid., p. 162. Further Defoe quotations in this chapter also come from the Penguin edition, pp. 162–165.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: ELDORADO

  1 Great Indian Trading Path See Douglas L. Rights, “The Trading Path to the Indians,” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 8, no. 4 (October 1931): 403–426. See also Douglas Summers Brown’s chapter on the path in The Catawba Indians: The People of the River (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1966), pp. 69–100.

  2 an Indian village Some experts have argued that the forerunner of present-day Hillsborough is marked “Oenock” on the Ogilby-Moxon map. But R. P. Stephen Davis, Jr., a University of North Carolina research archaeologist who is excavating Indian settlements near downtown Hillsborough, told me that he believes the site is more likely to be a place Ogilby recorded as “Sabor.”

  3 “covetous and thievish” John Lederer, “The First Expedition, From the head of the Pemaeoncock, alias York-River (due West) to the top of the Apalataean Mountains,” in The Discoveries of John Lederer, ed. William P. Cumming (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1958), p. 27. 293 “the great and Golden Citie” This phrase comes from the subtitle of Raleigh’s book, The Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana, with a relation of the great and Golden Citie of Manoa (which the Spanyards call El Dorado), published in 1596.

  4 the first explorer known to have put Manoa See Raymond H. Ramsay’s discussion in No Longer on the Map: Discovering Places That Never Were (New York: Viking Press, 1972), pp. 17–18.

  5 “a man of many characters” Robert Silverberg, The Golden Dream: Seekers of El Dorado (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1996), p. 307.