The defences of Norumbega and a review of the reconnaissances of Col. T.W. Higginson, Professor Henry W. Haynes, Dr. Justin Winsor, Dr. Francis Parkman, and Rev. Dr. Edmund F. Slafter. A letter to Judge Daly, President of the American Geographical Society

Horsford, Eben Norton

Published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Boston and New York, 1891

About this Item

First edition, 4to, pp. [6], 84; frontispiece accompanied by guard sheet with descriptive letterpress, 17 maps (9 folding, 2 double-page), 5 plates; original green cloth stamped in gilt on upper cover and spine, t.e.g.; light rubbing at extremities else very good and sound. Two of the folding maps have become detached from their guards. "Eben Norton Horsford (1818-1893), scientist, Harvard professor, and amateur archaeologist, began his life-long effort in the mid-19th century to prove that an ancient Viking settlement, believed to have been established in the year 1000, once thrived in the Cambridge and Watertown areas along the Charles River, and at the confluence of the Charles River and Stony Brook tributary on the Waltham-Weston boundary. The mythological ancient Norse city of Norumbega was once understood to have been located in the northeastern section of North America, in what the Vikings called "Vineland" (or "Vinland"), long before Horsford s findings . Horsford authored many works on the subject, which included a lot of visual evidence . that supported his theory that Norumbega was located in Cambridge and Watertown. He went so far as to erect Norumbega Tower in 1889 on the Weston-Waltham border of the Stony Brook on the site where he believed the city s fort was once situated. A plaque was also placed along the Charles River in Cambridge that marks the supposed site of Leif Erikson s house, and a statue he commissioned of Erikson can be seen on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston . Horsford claimed to have found etymological connections between Old Norse used in the sagas and Algonquian vocabularies, suggesting that similarities in place names further proved there was Viking influence in the area. His research, though, was not without strong criticism from the academic community . and the archaeological discoveries in L Anse aux Meadows on the island of Newfoundland are widely accepted as being the only true evidence (so far) of Norse pre-Columbian contact with North America" (State Library of Massachusetts).

Seller Inventory # 65551

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The defences of Norumbega and a review of the reconnaissances of Col. T.W. Higginson, Professor Henry W. Haynes, Dr. Justin Winsor, Dr. Francis Parkman, and Rev. Dr. Edmund F. Slafter. A letter to Judge Daly, President of the American Geographical Society
• Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Boston and New York
• Publication Date: 1891
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Seller catalogs:
  • Americana
  • Canada
  • Exploration