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This is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, comprehensive federal chart of Puget and Juan de Fuca Sounds and their approaches, produced during the formative years of Washington Territory when the U.S. Coast Survey extended its systematic hydrographic efforts to the Pacific Northwest. Issued in 1862 under the direction of Alexander Dallas Bache, this large-format sheet represents a synthesis of American and British soundings, triangulation, and astronomical observations collected between 1853 and 1861.
The primary chart, centers on the San Juan and Gulf Islands, Haro Strait, and the entrance to Rosario Strait, waters then of critical strategic and navigational importance. The hydrography was conducted by parties under Commander J. Alden and Lieutenant R.M. Cuyler, supported by triangulation and topography from George Davidson and J.S. Lawson. The Coast Survey openly credits earlier British contributions, including work by Captains Henry Kellett and George Richards, whose Royal Navy surveys of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and southern Vancouver Island predated and supplemented the American effort. This transparency reflects a moment of tentative cooperation despite lingering diplomatic tensions from the boundary disputes that culminated in the 1859 “Pig War.”
The chart is engraved in finely stippled and hatched detail, with hundreds of depth soundings in fathoms and careful coastal delineation that distinguishes islands, shoals, and main channels. A radiating rhumbline fan off Lopez Island provides bearings through the inland waters, while tide data, variation of the magnetic needle, and lighthouse specifications (New Dungeness and Point Wilson) offer practical navigational aids.
Inset at upper right is a smaller-scale “Sub Sketch of Admiralty Inlet and Puget’s Sound,” done in 1858. This image captures the sweep of the Sound from Point Wilson to Olympia, including Steilacoom, Seattle, and key headlands like Point Defiance and Point Robinson. Possibly based on Davidson’s earlier surveys, it extends the geographic coverage of the more detailed main field.
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