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Morden's map is one of the earliest obtainable English maps of the Carolinas.
Beginning in the 1670s, the English fortunes in North America took a dramatic turn upward, resulting in a booming interest in the British American Colonies and, in turn, the issuance of maps to satisfy this interest. A map of the Carolinas first appeared in the 1680 edition of Morden's Geography Rectified. A second edition, with revised maps, was published in 1688.
The map is a reduced version of Thornton, Morden & Lea's A New Map of Carolina, published in 1685, with one signficant change, the Camabh and May Rivers do not intersect inland. The map covers the region from the May River and Colleton County to the Outer Banks and Albermarle County, centered on Cape Fear. Scots Settlement, Charles Town, Charles Towne, Port Royal, Barkin County, Craven County, Clarendon County, Albermarle County and Colleton County are all named, as are the Appalachians. The Tar-Pamlico (Pantegoe) River appears. Lederer's Savana and Lake Apalacha are no longer shown.
Charleston is correctly located at the intersection of the Cooper and Ashley Rivers. The outline and angle of the coastline is significantly improved from the earlier edition of the map. This is the second state of the map, which includes a page number (74) in the upper left corner.
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.
![A New and Exact Map of the Dominions of the King of Great Britain on ye Continent of North America . . . [Beaver map]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/101277.jpg)