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Description

Rare early 19th Century map relating to the early settlement of western New York.

This undeveloped 100,000-acre tract on the Genesee River in western New York had been used to repay a debt to John Barker Church from financier Robert Morris. Church was a major supplier to the French and American armies during the Revolution and Morris, unable to satisfy his obligations, repaid Church with this property.

On the map, a prospectus appears at lower right by Church's land agent, Evert van Wickle, describing the quality and situation of the land to prospective settlers and outlining incentives to purchase and build around the newly formed village of Angelica in Allegany County. An engraved note in the lower margin describes a "Road (as laid down in Red Ink) from Angelica to the mouth of Ishua Creek, will certainly be opened by next Fall." This would have been attractive to turn of the nineteenth century settlers, seeing Ishua Creek flowing into the Allegheny River, consequently connecting it to Pittsburgh and other points west.

The proposed road appears in red ink in both the larger general map and the inset plan of the tract and is keyed with a manuscript letter A.  

Joseph Mangin was a New York City surveyor whose most important published achievement was a collaboration with Casimir Goerck to create a large-scale detailed plan of the city. That plan was engraved in New York by Peter Maverick and printed in 1803. The present map was also engraved by Maverick in the same year and is similarly scarce.

Rarity

OCLC locates three copies of an 1804 edition and just two examples of this 1803. 
 

Condition Description
Minor repairs and soiling.