The Coaquannock Map

I will begin Philadelphia month at an early stage, just before European settlement.

via Historical Society of Pennsylvania

This 1934 map showing the homeland of the Lenape people when the first white settlers arrived in Philadelphia, was funded by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) . The full title is Philadelphia Region when known as Coaquannock "Grove of Tall Pines" and As First Seen by the White Men. 

Here is a detail showing the villages of Coaquannock and Shackamaxon (still a street name having inpired this wonderful song), just north of center city. These are two of the four circular villages of the Turtle Clan, as described in this blog post.

The text on the map provides some place name translations such as Kingsessing (place of large shells) and Wingohocking (a favorite spot for planting) and, of course Manayunk (where we go to drink). There are also now buried creeks with name translations such as "where we were robbed".

This map is listed on the Temple University digital collections as "Map of Philadelphia at the time of the arrival of the first Swedes" and was originally published in the Philadelphia Bulletin, an evening newspaper that died in my youth. If you want to dig into the individual neighborhoods and see what remains, take a look at this post from Philly Trees.