The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Army reconnaissance limits and the cartographic origin of Kissimmee and Istokpoga in 1836–1837

No United States Army field survey, reconnaissance sketch, or campaign map produced during 1836 or the first half of 1837 names Lake Istokpoga or the Kissimmee River.[scott-johnston-1836][linnard-1837] The absence of both toponyms from the military cartography of the early Second Seminole War reflects an operational reality: American forces possessed no direct knowledge of peninsular Florida south of Tampa Bay and Lake Tohopekaliga until late 1837.[linnard-1837][bridges-2006]

When the names “Kissimmee Creek” and “Istòcpoga” first appeared in print on an army sheet compiled in Washington in 1837, the hydrography rested not upon instrument traverses by army topographers, but upon accounts provided by Seminole and Black informants interrogated at Tampa Bay.[linnard-1837][haas-1837-map]

The southern limit of 1836 military mapping

The official campaign map forwarded to the War Department by Major General Winfield Scott on 20 March 1836, drawn by First Lieutenant Joseph E. Johnston, marks the geographic boundary of army operations during the war’s first winter campaign.[scott-johnston-1836] Johnston’s map focuses entirely on the northern theater around the Withlacoochee River, Fort King, Fort Drane, and Volusia, terminating its coverage along an east-west line running across Tampa Bay and the headwaters of Pease Creek between latitude 27°30′ and 28°00′ N.[scott-johnston-1836]

The entire Kissimmee River basin, Lake Istokpoga, and Lake Okeechobee lay south of the sheet’s neatline, completely unmapped and unreconnoitered by federal forces.[scott-johnston-1836][schubert-floyd-1988]

Informant transmission of interior geography

The boundary of American military geographic knowledge remained fixed until late summer 1837.[linnard-1837] On 2 September 1837, Lieutenant Thomas B. Linnard, serving on the staff of Major General Thomas S. Jesup at Fort Brooke on Tampa Bay, submitted an official memoir to accompany a compiled map of military operations.[linnard-1837] Linnard recorded explicitly that federal forces knew nothing firsthand of the southern interior:

“Of the interior of the Country South of a line from Tampa Bay to Cape Cannaveral we have no knowledge except what has been gathered from the accounts of Indians and negroes. According to them the trail from Tampa to Kissimmee, (the stream which flows from the south end of Tohapikaligu Lake), after crossing the Alafia river fifteen miles from Tampa Bay, passes over a barren desert country — crosses Pease Creek near its head at a ford… thence over a rolling sandy Country, much of which is covered with water in the wet season to a stream flowing South, called (‘Wee okufka’) or Muddy Water… The Kissimmee is about seven miles beyond Wee o Kufka — where the trail crosses it, the stream is deep and about 100 or 120 yards wide — the bottom is hard sand.”[linnard-1837]

Linnard further recorded that an Indigenous informant provided the army with its first understanding of regional drainage into Lake Okeechobee:

“It has been stated by a very intelligent Indian, quite familiar with the interior, whose account has been corroborated by other Indians, that the Kissimmee flows into a large lake called ‘Okee chobee’ or Big water; from this a river called Locha hatchee or turtle Creek flows south into a vast lake called Pa-hai-okee… The Indian informant distinctly stated that no communication existed between Tohopekaliga & the Coloosahatchee…”[linnard-1837]

The 1837 Haas map sheet

These intelligence reports gathered at Fort Brooke during the spring and summer of 1837 provided the geographic data for the earliest printed map depicting the river and lake: the Map, Teatre of Military Operations in Florida during 1835, 36 & 37, published at the Headquarters of the Army under Commanding General Alexander Macomb.[haas-1837-map][bridges-2006]

The imprint line directly beneath the bottom neatline of the sheet reads “Lith. by P. Haas, Washington City.”, identifying the lithographer as Philip Haas, an active Washington craftsman.[haas-1837-map] Modern catalog listings that attribute the sheet to “P. Hans” reflect a clerical misreading of Haas’s cursive lithographic signature.[haas-1837-map]

The Haas sheet incorporates the specific toponyms recorded in Linnard’s memoir, labeling “Kissimmee Creek”, “Wekokufka”, “Buffalo ford”, and “Istòcpoga”.[haas-1837-map][linnard-1837] Reflecting its secondhand, unmeasured provenance, Istòcpoga is rendered with a speculative dotted shoreline, in contrast to the firm, hachured borders of northern lakes that had been surveyed by troops.[haas-1837-map] The table of military operations engraved along the sheet’s right margin lists actions only through mid-1837, and the map omits Zachary Taylor’s march, Fort Gardiner, Fort Basinger, and the Battle of Lake Okeechobee, placing its publication in the summer or autumn of 1837.[haas-1837-map]

Transition to instrument survey

Direct American military surveying of the Kissimmee corridor and eastern Highlands County began only in December 1837, when Colonel Zachary Taylor advanced south from Fort Gardiner along the river to establish Fort Basinger and fight the Battle of Lake Okeechobee.[bridges-2006][schubert-floyd-1988]

Route sketches and field notes from Taylor’s column were transmitted to the Topographical Bureau in Washington and drawn by Lieutenant Washington Hood into the 1838 Map of the Seat of War in Florida.[schubert-floyd-1988] These observations were subsequently synthesized with line officers’ field traverses by Captain John Mackay and Lieutenant Jacob E. Blake in their definitive 1839 campaign map, replacing secondhand Indigenous descriptions with measured instrument topography.[bridges-2006][schubert-floyd-1988]

References

Where this comes from

Evidence
corroborated — More than one independent source agrees.
Review
unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
Rights
society

Sources

  1. Thomas B. Linnard (ed. Frank Laumer and Joe Knetsch), Memoir to Accompany Map of Military Operations in Florida (1837) · archival
  2. Joseph E. Johnston and Winfield Scott, Map of the Seat of War in Florida Forwarded to the War Department by Major Genl. W. Scott, U.S.A. (American State Papers: Military Affairs, Vol. 7, Plate asma0701) (1836) · archival
  3. United States Army and Philip Haas, Map, Teatre of Military Operations in Florida during 1835, 36 & 37 (1837) · archival
  4. Edwin L. Bridges, Historical Accounts of Vegetation in the Kissimmee River Dry Prairie Landscape (Proceedings of the Florida Dry Prairie Conference) (2006) · secondary
  5. Frank N. Schubert and Dale E. Floyd, The Nation Builders: A Sesquicentennial History of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, 1838–1863 (Engineer Pamphlet EP 870-1-37) (1988) · official

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