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Description

An American Cartographic Rarity and Landmark For the History of Female Mapmakers in the United States – One of Two Extant Sets of the Complete Signed Work of Eliza Colles, America's First Female Map Engraver.

Fine example of the extremely rare magnum opus of Christopher Colles – the most ambitious, and quixotic, American mapping project of the eighteenth century. This work was only the second American "atlas" and includes the signature of Christopher’s daughter, Eliza, America's first female map engraver. It is only the second known complete set of her signed work in existence.

The present example of The Geographical Ledger and Systemized Atlas includes all five engraved sheet maps showing the northeast United States and the printed “Introduction” and “Geographical Ledger” to accompany sheet 1548 (Pennsylvania and New Jersey). Three of the five sheets are previously unknown first states, two of which have meaningful manuscript additions. 

The present atlas has never appeared on the market, nor is it recorded in Sabin, Church, or Phillips.

Overview

Colles intended The Geographical Ledger and Systemized Atlas to expand on his previous project, a treasure of American cartography in its own right, A survey of the roads of the United States... (1789). The present work, a grand-format mapping of the nation (and, eventually, as intended, the world), was supposed to establish him as America's preeminent mapmaker. However, Colles was an iconoclast and a visionary: simply making the largest and most detailed map-atlas of the United States would not suffice. He found fault in nearly every aspect of contemporary map and atlas construction and, in this work, he attempted to improve upon all that had come before.

To Colles, the Mercator and stereographic projections "much distorted... and disproportioned" all other maps. So, for this work he employed his own conic projection. In his estimation, large maps were "exceedingly unweildy [sic] and troublesome -- if hung up they are speedily discouloured [sic] with smoke or flies, and if rolled up (especially if not lined with linnen [sic]) are quickly torn to pieces." So, he composed his atlas of unbound folio sheets that could be "carried without damage in a port folio, and occasionally laid together upon a clean floor or carpet and examined with satisfaction to any extent." As competitor's maps typically had one or maybe two standards of longitude, Colles included three (London, Paris, and Philadelphia). Simply graticulating latitude on his map was also not good enough; he measured alongside it the "greatest length of days and nights, agreeable to the latitude and situation of every place laid down on the sheet." 

Colles' most novel (and problematic) innovation was to pull the toponyms off his maps and put them in separately-printed indexes. A grid system of letters on the map referenced the index. He chose this method:

…in order to accumulate a large portion of information upon a small extent of map...In this manner most of the matter of Samuel Holland's elegant map of New-Hampshire, and that of Claude Joseph Sauthier's of the state of New-York, will be comprised in the maps of this work, although the surface, according to the scale, is only one fourth part.

Unfortunately, this method takes considerable practice to use with ease and efficiency, and the utility of the maps are dependent on having the accompanying indexes.  Ultimately, the expense and novelty of the project were its undoing; not only was The Geographic Ledger and Systemized Atlas not a commercial success, it seems that it might not have been formally published at all. The work's extreme scarcity suggests that it probably did not make it far beyond the copyright-deposit stage, making this surviving example a true rarity.

Colles' distinctly American ambition and his rejection of centuries-old cartographic orthodoxy did not earn him a fortune, but they did earn him and his works an important place in American history.  The Geographical Ledger and Systemized Atlas is the second American "atlas" – it was barely edged out by Matthew Carey's General Atlas for the Present War, which was published earlier the same year. Even more importantly, Colles' employment of his young daughter, Eliza, as an engraver of the Atlas gave the United States its first signed work by a female map engraver. The present Atlas is one of only two sets of her complete body of work that is signed.

As a work of cartographic science, the Geographical Ledger is a singular work.  As noted by Matthew Edney:

The Geographical Ledger was stunningly audacious. I am not even sure that Colles actually appreciated just what he was doing. . . .  

But at the scale of each sheet, it would take some 3,600 sheets to cover the entire world. Even if sheets covering only ocean were omitted, Colles would still have to design, engrave, print, and sell as many as 2,000 sheets. Colles knew this: the five known sheets all bear sheet numbers in the 1000s. But how he could think that he could profitably produce so many maps within New York’s fledgling economy is simply beyond me. . .  

https://www.mappingasprocess.net/blog/2018/12/19/the-first-international-map-of-the-world

Physical Description

Five engraved map sheets (each 20.5 x 14 inches at neatline), constituting one large map of the American northeast (intended to eventually extend over the whole world); with the letterpress “Introduction” and the “Geographical Ledger” to sheet 1548: 8vo. Original blue laid paper wrappers, sewn. Collation:  2 parts in 1 volume. viii pages (being the general introduction to the project with letterpress title); vi pages (being “REFERENCES to No. 1548.”, “DIRECTIONS.”, and “INDEX | TO THE | GEOGRAPHICAL LEDGER, &c. | -No. 1548-”); two engraved diagrams on one folding sheet (“Fig. 1” signed “Eliza Colles Sculp.”, both figures are intended to illustrate Colles’ projection.)

Coverage extends from roughly Montreal to New York City, and inland as far as Lake Ontario and the Finger Lakes. The map goes as far northeast as Portland, Maine, and as far southwest as Fort Littleton, Pennsylvania.  At the top of each map, there are three bars indicating graduations of longitude from Paris, London, and Philadelphia, respectively. The maps each feature a key in the upper left with three four-digit identification numbers, the middle set refers to that map and the numbers above and below to the respective adjoining sheets. The maps, with their corresponding numbers, include:

1369 - Northern Vermont, Northern New Hampshire, Vicinity of Montreal. Signed by Eliza Colles.

1458 - Western New York and Lake Ontario

1459 - Massachusetts, southern Vermont, southern New Hampshire, southern Maine

1548 - Pennsylvania and New Jersey

1549 - Connecticut, Long Island, New York City, northern New Jersey.

The initial intention was that two letterpress sections should accompany each map sheet. They would provide an alphabetical index to the creeks, rivers, points, towns, taverns, ferries, falls, mountains, furnaces, etc., alongside their coordinates (Griffin, pg. 180).

The present example includes contemporary manuscript additions to sheets 1369 (northern Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, etc.) and 1548 (Pennsylvania). More about the manuscript changes and their relationship to the states of maps is laid out in Appendix II below.

The Library of Congress card catalog mentions that the copper plates for the Atlas are at the Connecticut Historical Society (CHS), “LC has 3 letters of documentation by Alice H. Leach to Philip L. Phillips, 1921, and photocopy of a portion of the copper plates from the Connecticut Historical Society.” Subsequent inquiries with CHS suggest that the copper plates are no longer in their collection.

Eliza Colles, the first American female map engraver

Elizabeth (“Eliza”) Colles (1776-1799) was “America’s first female map engraver” (see Ristow, “Eliza Colles”, The Map Collector). This fact is confirmed by Ashley Baynton-Williams, who notes that there are only three known female American map engravers or lithographers up to 1850. Her signature is included on two maps and one diagram in this atlas. Those three plates are the only works she signed in her career, and this is only the second known complete set of her signed work.

Eliza was born in New York in June 1776 to Christopher Colles and his wife Anne Keough, both of Irish descent. Eliza worked for her father, perhaps engraving some of the maps for his A survey of the roads of the United States of America (1789), although none of the maps from that work bear her signature.  The majority of the maps in that work, the first American road guide, were engraved by Cornelius Tiebout, who seems to have trained Eliza to engrave. Her date of death is often erroneously given as 1779. This is a mistranscription of 1799, when she actually died, probably in the yellow fever epidemic of that year.

Because Eliza was only 23 when she died, her career as a mapmaker was cut unfortunately short. Indeed, the present atlas is one of only two complete sets of her signed work (the other is held at the Library of Congress). One can only imagine what her output and impact would have been if she had lived; she could have rewritten the early history of American cartography and established the Colles family as a dynasty of American mapmaking.

Cartographic importance

Colles’ Atlas is characterized not just by its extreme rarity, but also by the novelty and ambitiousness of his cartographic approach. According to the work’s general title page, Colles intended the Atlas to be “An united collection of Topograpaical [sic] Maps, projected by one universal principle, and laid down by one scale, proposed to be extended to different countries as materials can be procured.”  For the project, he developed a unique mapping system, which we will refer to as the Colles System.

Colles found most of the maps of his period oversized and cluttered and, as a consequence, hard to read, maintain, and use. To resolve this issue, he imagined the Ledger as a manageable, ever-expanding, loose-leaf atlas with map sheets measuring no more than 20 x 14.5 inches. He thus introduced his novel, gridded coordinate-based index system to remove extraneous engraving and yield a more open and spacious, yet information-laden, map. As a result, although his maps lack most place names, geographical locations are referenced using the accompanying index and lettering system. Each Ledger was intended to have two sections, a 'References' section and an ‘Index’. By studying the map with the aid of the Ledger, one could reference various grid blocks and have a good understanding of the transportation network, resources, and points of interest within the region.

The 'References' section of the individual Ledgers is followed by a more traditional 'Index' which, like most modern maps, lists towns and villages in alphabetical order with assigned coordinates. In some cases, referenced locations are described textually on the map, while in other cases they are assigned letters in the index.

Colles compiled his maps from the most advanced regional maps of the day.  New Hampshire is drawn from Samuel Holland's A topographical map of the Province of New Hampshire (1784); New York from Claude Joseph Sauthier's A chorographical map of the province of New York (1779), and upstate possibly from Simeon De Witt's contemporary mapping; Pennsylvania draws on the work of Redding Howell; the work also draws on Colles' own Survey of Roads. 

In typical fashion, Colles was planning for the expansion of the Atlas long before the United States sections were complete. He writes, "As a great number of foreigners are continually arriving in this country, it appeared feasible to me, that the maps of some parts of Europe, Asia, or Africa, might meet with purchasers [.] I therefore thought it advisable to form the design universal" (Introduction, pg. viii.). His goal was to map the entire world, although this intention was never fulfilled.  

The Story of the Atlas

Grand ambition and vision came easily enough to Colles, but actual production proved altogether more difficult. To publish the Atlas, Colles joined forces with New Yorker John Buel (apparently no immediate relation to Abel Buell of "Buell Map" fame). Success eluded Buel throughout his publishing career; his first magazine failed after only three issues, and his second lasted little more than a year before he was forced to sell it in 1794.  Around the same time, his partnership (Buel and Co.) dissolved and he had to relocate. In the six years following 1793, he had six or eight different addresses (Griffin, pg. 181).

The Systemized Atlas was the first recorded document that Buel published under the imprint "John Buel". When looking at the publication of the Atlas in the context of Buel's professional and financial problems, it is not a surprise that the project did not get off the ground. Colles must have hoped for something else from his partner, as he himself was not in any position to provide capital for the project. The two doubtless anticipated subscription sales to finance further printings, as well as the Atlas' potentially-global expansion. Subscriptions were not forthcoming, however, and no advertisement for the Atlas is known.

In The Republic in Print, Trish Loughran accurately summarizes the failure of The Geographical Ledger:

In the end, The Geographical Ledger went the way of all of Colles's projects: it failed because it lacked subscribers, because Colles did not have the resources to produce it on the terms he had proposed it, and because it was, in sort, materially unfeasible for an impoverished New York tinkerer to produce a map of the world that recorded and cross-referenced every imaginable everything. (pg. 298)

The fact that the Geographical Ledger was a commercial failure does not diminish the historical importance of the work. Lloyd Griffin puts it cogently:

…the value of Colles' work as a cartographer is not to be measured by the contemporary success or failure of his Survey of the Roads and his Geographical Ledger.  Though he was termed by acquaintances as a visionary, he had only the misfortune of being at least a generation or two in advance of his time. He was attempting to force a thoughtful and systematic plan for mapping a new nation on a public which was unwilling – and perhaps unable – to sustain it.  The remnants of his two bold schemes preserve for later generations a view of a part of America as it was at the end of the 18th century. Their significance as a primary source material of historical geography and of American cartography cannot be disputed. 

Provenance

Given the extraordinary rarity of the Systemized Atlas, some notes on provenance are in order. The atlas was acquired at auction by a New York collector in a trunk with other items on July 12, 1998.  The auction, run by 502 Auctions, was selling the contents of the 1804 Van Horne House Music Conservatory and Carriage House in Van Hornesville, New York (near Cooperstown).  The property belonged to the estate of the American industrialist and RCA founder Owen Daniel Young (October 27, 1874 – July 11, 1962). While it is unclear how the map came into Young's hands, the location of the auction (Upstate New York, Colles' Revolutionary War period stomping ground) suggests that the material was most likely acquired by, or transferred to, contemporaries of Colles.

From the same collection, we purchased (and subsequently sold) an unrecorded eighteenth-century American atlas of the New York State Military Tract, with extensive manuscript additions by Elkanah Watson.

Our copy of the Atlas was acquired rolled, with the Ledger text wrapped around the map sheets and tied with a very old (probably eighteenth-century) string. This appears to be the format in which the Atlas had been stored for its entire life.

Its extreme rarity, the inclusion of Eliza’s signature, and its historical significance to the history of American cartography combine to make this an extraordinary and practically unique map object. The present atlas has never been offered on the market and would be a major addition to a collection of early American maps and printing.

Appendix I: known copies

Colles' Geographical Ledger and Systemized Atlas is perhaps the most unstable work that we have encountered; not one known example (or partial example) of the Atlas matches any other example in terms of the complement of text or maps. Surely this is because the work never moved far beyond the stage of pre-publication proof.

 

 

1369

1458

1459

1548

1549

Introduction w/ diagrams

Road Maps 40-47

Present Example

Map

1st state, with ms revisions

1st state

2nd state

1st state, with ms revisions

2nd state

 

 

 

Ledger

 

 

 

Present

 

Present

 

Library of Congress

Map

2nd state

2nd state

2nd state

3rd state

2nd state

 

 

 

Ledger

 

 

 

 

Present

 

Present

New York Historical Society

Map

 

2nd state

1st state

2nd state

1st state, with ms revisions

 

 

 

Ledger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New York Public Library

Map

 

 

1st state

 

 

 

 

 

Ledger

 

Present

Present

 

 

Present

 

American Philosophical Society Library

Map

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ledger

 

[References only]

 

Present

 

Present

Present

Alexander Davidson, Jr.

Map

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ledger

 

 

 

 

Present

Present

Present

 

The table above elaborates all known copies of any part of The Geographical Ledger and Systemized Atlas. The New York Historical Society and New York Public Library holdings appear to have come from the same original owner, William Strickland. That combined collection lacks the northernmost sheet, one of the two signed by Eliza. The text owned by Alexander Davidson, Jr. is noted in Griffin's 1954 article.

Colles' other great work, the Survey of Roads, rare as it is, is known in at least 16 complete copies and 13 incomplete copies. The last complete copy of the Survey to sell at auction made $20,900 in 1990. More recently, copies have traded privately for well into the low six figures. The Geographical Atlas and Systemized Atlas is more than an order of magnitude rarer.

It is worth noting that Griffin consistently refers to the work as the "Systematized Atlas", rather than "Systemized" as it appears on our title page and on that of the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library. This is curious because he is careful to note the misspelling of "Topograpaical" later in the title.

We note a partial copy of the text at the Clements, though a shelfmark and collation are not available, and also a possible set of the maps at the New York State Library.

Appendix II: state variation and collations

The progression of the work from state to state clearly shows the project moving away from its founding principles, as more and more toponyms were added to the maps.  Perhaps this reflects feedback that Colles and Buel were getting about the usability of the Atlas.

It is worth noting that separate sections of text are often bound together in an inconsistent manner (as with the present example).

Introduction.

Examples: the present example; Library of Congress; New York Public Library; American Philosophical Society Library; the collection of Alexander Davidson, Jr. (as noted by Griffin).

  • viii pages, two engraved diagrams (the first signed "Eliza Colles Sculp.") on one folding sheet.

1369 - Northern Vermont, Northern New Hampshire, Vicinity of Montreal. Signed "Eliza Colles Scul" in the upper right corner.

1st state: The present example (likely a working proof).

  • Lacks "K" and the related stream northwest of Lake Champlain. (Added in manuscript)
  • Lacks "19" in the northeast quadrant of Lake Champlain. (Added in manuscript)
  • Lacks "1" in the north of Lake Champlain. (Added in manuscript)
  • A stream flowing into Lake Champlain below "Milton" is added in manuscript.
  • "a" and "12" added to the east side of the southern part of Lake Champlain.
  • In northern Vermont the following letters have been added in manuscript:
    • "I" or "L" east of "Smithfld".
    • "L" east of "Fairfield".
    • "d" east of "Fletcher".
    • "Duncans borough" added.
    • "Wey C" and "Otter C" added at the lower neatline.
    • "q", "i", "c" and "p" added to the east of the souther part of Lake Champlain.
  • In Canada, the following manuscript additions have been made:
    • A marker for Montreal added.
    • "R Sr Jean" labeled northwest of Montreal.
    • Letters "i" and "y" added southwest of Montreal.
    • North of Montreal "L'Asso" is labeled.
    • Along the Richelieu River "Gt R du Sud", "St Louis", "L'Assa", "St Denys", and "St Charles" 
    • Around Lake Memphremagog the letters "A", "a" (twice), "b" (twice), "c" (twice), "d", and "f" have been added.
  • In northern New Hampshire the names "Fairfd", "Dartmot", and "Success" have been added to plots.

2nd state: Library of Congress (only other known example of this sheet).

  • The Library of Congress's copy of the map is the later state, with many more place names. The manuscript additions on our map have for the most part been engraved.  Some of the manuscript has not been engraved and some of the new engraving does not appear in the manuscript on our example. This points to our sheet being an early working proof, with the manuscript possibly in Christopher or Eliza's hand.

Ledger: no known copies.

1458 - Western New York and Lake Ontario.

1st state: the present example.

  • Lacking the stream running parallel to the Genessee River in the farthest lower left part of the map.
  • Engraved guidelines for "NEW YORK" visible, especially at the end of the name.

2nd state: Library of Congress and New York Historical Society.

  • The stream in the farthest lower left of the map has been added.
  • Some of the very fine lines from the earlier state are now not printing well or at all.

Ledger: Philosophical Society Library ("References" only)

  • viii pages (section of "Additional References to No. 1548."; 4 pages of "References to No. 1458", 4 pages of "Index to No. 1458")

1459 - Massachusetts, southern Vermont, southern New Hampshire, southern Maine.

1st state: New York Historical Society.

  • No "Boston" label at Boston.

2nd state: The present example and Library of Congress.

  • "Boston" label added on the road into Boston.

Ledger: New York Public Library.

  • [28] pages (13 pages of "References" and 15 pages of "Index").

1548 - Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

1st state: The present example.

  • In the northwestern quadrant of the map, a manuscript road runs from the New York border south the Susquehanna. Nearby there are manuscript letters "b", "c" and "a" (four times).

2nd state: New York Historical.

  • The manuscript road and letters are now engraved.

3rd state: Library of Congress.

Ledger: The present example, New York Public Library, and Library of Congress.

  • vi pages (1 page of “REFERENCES to No. 1548.”, 1 page of “DIRECTIONS.”, and 4 pages of “INDEX | TO THE | GEOGRAPHICAL LEDGER, &c. | -No. 1548-”)

1549 - Connecticut, Long Island, New York City, northern New Jersey. Signed "Eliza Colles Sculp" in the upper right corner.

1st state: New York Historical Society [There is some question as to whether this state is actually an earlier state, as the plate shows more wear.]

2nd state: The present example and Library of Congress.

Ledger: Library of Congress and New York Public Library.

  • [15] pages (7 pages of "References to 1549" and 8 pages of "Index to 1549")

To summarize, the sheets of the extant sets were somewhat haphazardly assembled but trends are discernable. The Library of Congress' Atlas is generally the most advanced, with the manuscript changes of earlier states resolved to print. This stands to reason, as the copyright deposit copy would tend to be the ready-for-publication work. Three of the five sheets in the present example are previously unknown first states -- probably accurately termed pre-publication proofs -- two of which have meaningful manuscript additions. It is possible that the present copy was retained by Colles.

The manuscript changes made to our sheet 1548 are not reflected in the Ledger for that number, however, they have been printed ahead of the Ledger for 1458. This is strong evidence that the 1458 Ledger was printed after Colles determined the updates to the 1548 map.

Condition Description
Fine, as-issued condition
Reference
Lloyd W. Griffin, "Christopher Colles and His Two American Map Series", The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Second Quarter, 1954) pages 170-182. See Ristow, "Eliza Colles: America's First Female Map-Engraver", The Map Collector. Not recorded in Phillips Atlases, Sabin, nor Church. The entry in Evans (Item 26781) is from the copyright registration alone.
Christopher Colles Biography

Christopher James Colles (1739-1816) was an Irish-born surveyor, mapmaker, engineer, and publisher. Whose career spanned the American Revolution into the early Federal period in the United States. In Lloyd Griffin's work on Colles' two major cartographic projects he says of the man: "Christopher Colles was not primarily a map maker; nor, for that matter, did he specialize in any one circumscribed field. A listing of his endeavors proves him one of the most universal jacks-of-all-trades in the whole realm of science in America." (page 171) Griffin goes on to say: "The mere enumeration of Colles' noncartographic activities astounds one. He manufactured bandboxes, paper hangings, rat and mouse traps, Prussian blue and other colors, and fireworks; practiced and taught surveying5 tutored in hydraulics; lectured on any and all scientific subjects; made astronomical calculations for almanacs; tested the specific gravity of imported liquors for the Government; collected, arranged, and sold furs, Indian vases, and tomahawks obtained during his travels in Mohawk country; and constructed what is said to be the first semaphoric telegraph in America and the first steam engine—though the latter was not a success." (page 172)

Colles is known today primarily for his Survey of the Roads of the United States (1789), which was the first American road book. He is also responsible for a much more ambitious, though incomplete, project The Geographical Ledger and Systemized Atlas (1794).

His daughter, Eliza Colles (1776-1799), was "America's first female map engraver" (Ristow), whose signed output consists exclusively of two maps from the Systemized Atlas and one plate in the Introduction to that work. She died aged 23, presumably in the yellow fever outbreak of 1799.