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This large J.H. Colton wall map from 1856 provides a detailed depiction of the United States and Mexico with adjacent regions. The map is hand-colored to delineate state and territorial boundaries, and it includes intricate details in the rapidly changing American West. Insets highlight Central America, the West Indies, Newfoundland, and the Hawaiian Islands. The map is further adorned with decorative elements, including illustrations of sailing ships and ornate borders.
The 1856 edition of J.H. Colton's map is notable for being the first to include an inset of the Hawaiian Islands. This addition reflects the growing importance of Hawaii in global navigation and trade, especially as the Pacific Ocean became a critical arena for maritime routes. The inclusion of the Hawaiian Islands signifies the expanding reach and influence of American interests in the Pacific, a prelude to the islands' eventual annexation later in the century.
In contrast to the 1855 edition, this 1856 map no longer calls out the Gadsden Purchase as a separately colored area. This subtle yet significant change indicates the increased assimilation of this territory into the United States, reflecting the nation’s evolving boundaries and the completion of this key acquisition. The Gadsden Purchase, finalized in 1854, added land to the southern parts of present-day Arizona and New Mexico, which was initially marked distinctly on maps to emphasize the new addition. By 1856, its integration is shown through unified coloring, symbolizing its incorporation into the broader national landscape.
Colton’s wall map of the United States is not just a visual masterpiece in cartography; it encapsulates the massive strides that the nation had achieved in only a few generations. Part of a series of wall maps first issued in 1848 and periodically updated for the next decade, this monumental four-sheet wall map of the United States was produced at a time when the Transmississippi West was still taking shape and the violent throngs of Civil War had not yet engulfed the nation. The map was produced in multiple states between 1853 and 1856 and shows the progression of the colonization of the West, from the acquisition of Texas and Upper California, through Bleeding Kansas and the Gadsden Purchase and up to the period immediately prior to the Civil War.
States
The known states of this map are described below.
- First state: 1853. Pre-Gadsden and pre-Kansas-Nebraska Act.
- Second state: 1853 date added.
- Third state: Date updated to 1854: Kansas added as a territory. Indian territory reorganized to match Oklahoma. Nebraska Territory reaches the Canadian Border.
- Fourth state: Date updated to 1855. The present. Gadsden Purchase Recognized.
- Fifth state: Date updated to 1856. Inset of the Hawaiian Islands added in the upper left corner.
Rarity
Institutionally rare. Not in Rumsey. OCLC locates a single example at the National Library of Wales.
G. W. & C. B. Colton was a prominent family firm of mapmakers who were leaders in the American map trade in the nineteenth century. Its founder, Joseph Hutchins Colton (1800-1893), was a Massachusetts native. Colton did not start in the map trade; rather, he worked in a general store from 1816 to 1829 and then as a night clerk at the United States Post Office in Hartford, Connecticut. By 1830, he was in New York City, where he set up his publishing business a year later.
The first printed item with his imprint is dated 1833, a reprint of S. Stiles & Company’s edition of David Burr’s map of the state of New York. He also printed John Disturnell’s map of New York City in 1833. Colton’s next cartographic venture was in 1835, when he acquired the rights to John Farmer’s seminal maps of Michigan and Wisconsin. Another early and important Colton work is his Topographical Map of the City and County of New York and the Adjacent Country (1836). In 1839, Colton began issuing the Western Tourist and Emigrant’s Guide, which was originally issued by J. Calvin Smith.
During this first decade, Colton did not have a resident map engraver; he relied upon copyrights purchased from other map makers, most often S. Stiles & Company, and later Stiles, Sherman & Smith. Smith was a charter member of the American Geographical and Statistical Society, as was John Disturnell. This connection would bear fruit for Colton during the early period in his career, helping him to acquire the rights to several important maps. By 1850, the Colton firm was one of the primary publishers of guidebooks and immigrant and railroad maps, known for the high-quality steel plate engravings with decorative borders and hand watercolors.
In 1846, Colton published Colton’s Map of the United States of America, British Possessions . . . his first venture into the wall map business. This work would be issued until 1884 and was the first of several successful wall maps issued by the firm, including collaborative works with D.G. Johnson. From the 1840s to 1855, the firm focused on the production of railroad maps. Later, it published a number of Civil War maps.
In 1855, Colton finally issued his first atlas, Colton’s Atlas of the World, issued in two volumes in 1855 and 1856. In 1857 the work was reduced to a single volume under the title of Colton’s General Atlas, which was published in largely the same format until 1888. It is in this work that George Woolworth (G. W.) Colton’s name appears for the first time.
Born in 1827 and lacking formal training as a mapmaker, G. W. joined his father’s business and would later help it to thrive. His brother Charles B. (C. B.) Colton would also join the firm. Beginning in 1859, the General Atlas gives credit to Johnson & Browning, a credit which disappears after 1860, when Johnson & Browning launched their own atlas venture, Johnson’s New Illustrated (Steel Plate) Family Atlas, which bears Colton’s name as the publisher in the 1860 and 1861 editions.
J.H. Colton also published a number of smaller atlases and school geographies, including his Atlas of America (1854-56), his Illustrated Cabinet Atlas (1859), Colton’s Condensed Cabinet Atlas of Descriptive Geography (1864) and Colton’s Quarto Atlas of the World (1865). From 1850 to the early 1890s, the firm also published several school atlases and pocket maps. The firm continued until the late 1890s, when it merged with a competitor and then ceased to trade under the name Colton.
