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This is the earliest published map of both York and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania, rendered with considerable precision and local detail by Daniel Small and William Wagner (1800-1869) in 1821. Printed and published locally, the map exemplifies early American county cartography prior to the standardization of state-funded surveys.
The counties lie between Harrisburg and the Maryland border and include Gettysburg and York. Symbols identify individual mills and churches, and a special notation highlights the Springettsbury Manor Line, a remnant of colonial proprietary land grants associated with the Penn family. Place names are abundant, offering a near-comprehensive record of early 19th-century settlement patterns across south-central Pennsylvania, from the Susquehanna River in the east to the Maryland border in the south.
The map features an elaborate allegorical cartouche, engraved by Wagner (one of the co-publishers), in the upper right, where a classical female figure sits beside a U.S. shield and a wall map, with a tablet dedicating the map “to the Citizens of York & Adams Counties.”
The map’s scale of 3 miles to the inch allowed for relatively fine resolution, useful for travel, landholding reference, and local planning. Its appearance in 1821 places it within a period of growing demand for county mapping in Pennsylvania (much of it filled more famously by John Melish), following state mandates for internal improvements and increasingly formalized judicial and administrative boundaries.
Owing to its local and ephemeral production and folksy engraving, the map is a wonderful relic of cartographic Americana.
Rarity
The Library of Congress has an example of the map and a prospectus that also acts as a copyright application.
![1794 Land Survey Signed by Alexander McDowell D[eputy] S[urveyor]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/101014.jpg)
