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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Rafinesque, C. S. (Constantine Samuel) (1783-1840) [Plans for a fort and monument in Tennessee]

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC02475.12 Author/Creator: Rafinesque, C. S. (Constantine Samuel) (1783-1840) Place Written: s.l. Type: Autograph manuscript signed Date: 1810 Pagination: 1 p. ; 24.5 x 20 cm. Order a Copy

Top half of the page depicts the "Plan of the Stone-Fort at the fork of Duck River, in Tennessee." Lower half of the page contains plans for a "Monument Six miles above Nashville on the Cumberland River." Both establishments are marked as "surveyed by 1810" and copied by Rafinesque, a naturalist and philologist.

The "fort" and "monument" were remains from an ancient American Indian culture.

[illustration of a stone fort survey and area surrounding it]
Stone Walls
12 feet high
20 feet wide at the base
8 to 10 on the top.
Plan of the Stone-Fort at the fork of Duck River, in Tennessee
Surveyed by…….1810. Copied by C.S. Rafinesque

[illustration of a land survey along with the area surrounding it]
Survey in 1810 by……..
Copied by C. S. Rafinesque
River Cumberland
Monument
Six miles above
Nashville
On the Cumberland River
~
It contains about 7 Acres. It has a Parapet; but no ditch. There is a semicircular platform in the middle on which stands the dwelling house of Mr. Craighead.

Rafinesque, C. S. (Constantine Samuel), 1783-1840

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