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Description

A very rare separately issued map of Colonial America, published by Robert Morden, it is regarded to be one of the most important 17th-century maps of America.

The present map was considered to be the definitive map of the English North American colonies when it was issued around 1685. Archival records show that examples were consulted by colonial governors and proprietors on both sides of the Atlantic. It depicts the colonies at a critical time, following the foundation of new provinces and a wave of territorial expansion.

The main map embraces the entire Northeast, including Chesapeake Bay, the Mid-Atlantic colonies, New England, as well as much of New France (Quebec) and Nova Scotia (the Canadian Maritimes), plus an inset detailing the Carolinas. The present map represents the second of three states, the first being issued in 1678/9 by Morden in partnership with William Berry.

Importantly, this second state includes many improvements over its predecessor. Most critically, it depicts the new colony of Pennsylvania, founded by William Penn in 1681, along with its capital, Philadelphia. Unlike in the first state, New Jersey has been updated to reflect the division of the colony, in 1674, into 'East' and 'West' Jersey, whose northern boundaries are erroneously shown to extend as far north as Kingston, New York.

In the west, one will see three of the Great Lakes (Lakes 'Hurons,' 'Ontarius' and 'Lake Erias or Felis'), while the first state only pictures one lake, being Lake Huron, which is misidentified as Lake Ontarius. Betraying the limited knowledge that the English then had of the backcountry, the headwaters of the Potomac River appear to connect directly with the Great Lakes, while the upper reaches of the Hudson River are conjecturally depicted, and Lake Champlain is named 'Lake Iroquoise'.

The portrayal of New England is quite detailed, as efforts are made to label every town and major river. It shows how English civilization had by then extended inland as far as 'Dierfield' (Deerfield, Massachusetts), on the Connecticut River. Entertainingly, one of the earliest depictions of whaling in America can be viewed just off the Nantucket Shoal. True to English claims, New England is shown to extend northward to the southern bank of the St. Lawrence River, the heart of New France, where Montreal and Quebec City are noted. Geographically, the depiction of the Mid-Atlantic is largely based on the charts of John Seller (c.1675) and earlier Dutch sources, although the shape of Long Island had been considerably improved.

Chesapeake Bay is shown in an exaggeratedly elongated form, although the level of detail in tidewater Virginia is truly impressive. The map is continued southward within the inset to the lower right which includes a map of the relatively new colony of Carolina, founded in 1670. Inland, one will notice the 'The Apalitean Mountains' (Appalachians) and numerous inland Native American settlements, based on the backcountry explorations of John Lederer in 1669 and 1670.

Robert Morden (c.1650-1703) was one of the preeminent English mapmakers of the latter part of the 17th-century. A bookseller, publisher, and maker of maps and globes, he was one of the first entrepreneurs in London to make a successful enterprise out of geographical publications. As noted on the imprint cartouche, from 1675 until his death, Morden was based at his premises 'at ye Atlas in Cornhill neer ye Royal Exchange,' although he often worked in partnership with other mapmakers. His most important works were his suite of maps of the English American colonies, of which the present map is especially significant. However, Morden's production was varied, as he produced the Atlas Terrestris and Geography Anatomiz'd (1687), an edition of Camden's Britannia (1695), and an important map of Scotland (1695).

Little is known of the maker of the original map, Richard Daniel. Curiously, while Daniel's name appears on the first state within the title cartouche, for this second state, Morden erased his name from the plate to make room for the word 'Pennsilvania'.

 

The present separately issued map is very rare and we are aware of examples appearing only twice at auction in the last 25 years, and are not aware of any examples appearing in dealers' catalogs over the same period.

 

Condition Description
Top margin trimmed into neatline, with top margin and neat line expertly reinstated. Tear at lower left corner expertly repaired. Small tear at lower centerfold below cartouche expertly repaired.
Reference
Cumming, ‘The Southeast in Early Maps’, no. 103; Déak, Picturing America, 63; Phillips, ‘Maps’, p. 563; Pritchard & Taliaferro, ‘Degrees of Latitude’, no. 69, Stevens & Tree, ‘Comparative Cartography’, 19b.
Robert Morden Biography

Robert Morden (d. 1703) was a British map and globe maker. Little is known about his early life, although he was most likely apprenticed to Joseph Moxon. By 1671, Morden was working from the sign of the Atlas on Cornhill, the same address out of which Moxon had previously worked. Most famous for his English county maps, his geography texts, and his wall maps, Morden entered into many partnerships during his career, usually to finance larger publishing projects.