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Description

One of the Earliest Large Format Maps of Detroit

Rare separately published map of Detroit, published by Silas Farmer & Company in Detroit.

This is one of the earliest large format separately published maps of Detroit, being significantly larger than the earlier maps listed below. The map captures Detroit during a perior of significant growth, having expanded from 21,000 in 1850 to 45,600 in 1860, with the population to double again by 1870

Drawn by Eugene Robinson, Detroit City Surveyor, the map shows the city expanding from its original footprint centered on Woodward Street, as originally conceived by Augustus Brevoort Woodward in the first decade of the 19th Century  The map includes a small inset plan at top left of the Junction of Grand Trunk with Michigan Central and Michigan Southern Railroads.

On the back of the map, Farmer includes  34 ads for local businesses and railroads, including a 7-panel ad for J. H. Farmer, M. D. Dentist. This dental office is located at the same address as the map publisher, so this is undoubtedly a member of the same family.     

Mapping Detroit

The history of the mapping of the City of Detroit begins with Augustus Brevoort Woodward, (1774-1827), the first Chief Justice of Michigan Territory. Thomas Jefferson appointed Woodward Chief Justice on March 3, 1805. Woodward arrived in Detroit (then Territorial Capital of Michigan) on June 30, 1805, several weeks after the fire of June 11, 1805 wiped out virtually the entire town.

Woodward and Governor William Hull began planning the new city based upon Pierre L'Enfant's model for Washington D.C. Woodward's plan attempted to live up to the newly-adopted city motto, Speramus Meliora, Resurgit Cineribus ("We hope for better days, it will rise again from the ashes"). The plan began the process of shifting the town away from the river and beginning to develop inland. Woodward Avenue in Detroit, originally called Court House Avenue and other names, was popularly named for Woodward's efforts in rebuilding. Woodward, somewhat in jest, claimed the road's name as nothing more than the fact that the road traveled toward the wooded area to the north of the city.

Rarity

The map is very rare on the market.  No copies have appeared at auction reported by RBH or in dealer catalogs reported by AMPR.  Only a later example appeared on the market in 1957 (Decker, 1870 edition),

We note examples at the Huntington Library; New York Public Library;  University of Michigan and Wisconsin Historical Socity.

Woodward proposed a system of hexagonal street blocks, with the Grand Circus at its center. Wide avenues, alternatively 200 feet and 120 feet, would emanate from large circular plazas like spokes from the hub of a wheel. As the city grew, these would spread in all directions from the banks of the Detroit River. When Woodward presented his proposal, Detroit had fewer than 1,000 residents. The plan was abandoned after only 11 years, but not before some of its most significant elements had been implemented. Most prominent of these are the six main "spokes" of Woodward, Michigan, Grand River, Gratiot, and Jefferson Avenues together with Fort Street.

The earliest maps of Detroit begin to appear in the 1830s, beginning with Mullet's maps of 1830 and 1831, Endicott's Part of the City of Detroit (circa 1835) and the early maps by John Farmer, suchs as Farmer's 1831 Plat of the City of Detroit and 1835 Map of the City of Detroit in the State of Michigan, which extend north to Montcalm Street, whereas the present map by Endicott extends another 6 blocks to the north.

 

Condition Description
Original stiff printed boards, detached. Lined on verso with very thin archival paper, to support a number of old folds that have split with minor loss. Very small areas of loss, almost all at fold junctions.
Reference
Karpinski 644.