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To: muawiyah

I didn’t know any of that. Are you going to publish a list of the towns laid out in accordance with the Spanish Law of the Indies?


36 posted on 07/24/2012 7:47:24 PM PDT by aposiopetic
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To: aposiopetic
Yes ~ you realize this is hard work because I have to examine the street layouts ~ very tedious. There are some towns that've managed to keep the old plaza ~ usually as a park. Seymour Indiana appears to have been TWO TOWNS and has two separate layouts, with their own plazas.

It was later part of a major land purchase by a group of Swedish noblemen (almost all Swedes are noblemen of course).

Although all of its history starts with that purchase, the "RENNO" on the oldest map, right there adjacent to the fording spot on the White River, means, en espanol, REINDEER! About 5 miles from that spot is the only location known in Indiana to have a plant called REINDEER MOSS, vital to their survival.

The Ten O'clock line begins just outside of town at the Indian council circle ~ so this was a rather important spot in between Indian lands and American lands. Earlier, this was the Northernmost part of the Louisville French furniture complex, and before that it was settled by people who lived in quite primitive log cabins (Indian or Spaniards ~ ). The main business was fur and possibly native copper (once available in this area) and possibly aluvial gold ~ now all worked out.

The money guys in Europe who bought large tracts in America were frequently in possession of old maps that identified valuable farm lands, potential mineral wealth, useful rivers and lakes.

DeSoto, who crossed the Mississippi at Evansville Indiana, sent a wagon cross country to just NE of Seymour ~ to roughly the Whitewater park area ~ and came back with a pile of iron pyrite (fool's gold, but actually an important source of iron for the Spanish) and some native copper. That was in 1541.

NOTE: Back in the day before DesIsles drew his maps the Mississippi took a big right turn and became what we now call the Ohio ~ which, BTW, provides 90% of the flow in the Mississippi. Always keep this in mind when you read the old stuff ~ their idea of where the Mississippi was located is really different than our own.

71 posted on 07/25/2012 4:51:20 AM PDT by muawiyah
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