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G. W. & C. B. Colton was a prominent family firm of mapmakers who were leaders in the American map trade in the nineteenth century. Its founder, Joseph Hutchins Colton (1800-1893), was a Massachusetts native. Colton did not start in the map trade; rather, he worked in a general store from 1816 to 1829 and then as a night clerk at the United States Post Office in Hartford, Connecticut. By 1830, he was in New York City, where he set up his publishing business a year later.

The first printed item with his imprint is dated 1833, a reprint of S. Stiles & Company’s edition of David Burr’s map of the state of New York. He also printed John Disturnell’s map of New York City in 1833. Colton’s next cartographic venture was in 1835, when he acquired the rights to John Farmer’s seminal maps of Michigan and Wisconsin. Another early and important Colton work is his Topographical Map of the City and County of New York and the Adjacent Country (1836). In 1839, Colton began issuing the Western Tourist and Emigrant’s Guide, which was originally issued by J. Calvin Smith.

During this first decade, Colton did not have a resident map engraver; he relied upon copyrights purchased from other map makers, most often S. Stiles & Company, and later Stiles, Sherman & Smith. Smith was a charter member of the American Geographical and Statistical Society, as was John Disturnell. This connection would bear fruit for Colton during the early period in his career, helping him to acquire the rights to several important maps. By 1850, the Colton firm was one of the primary publishers of guidebooks and immigrant and railroad maps, known for the high-quality steel plate engravings with decorative borders and hand watercolors.

In 1846, Colton published Colton’s Map of the United States of America, British Possessions . . . his first venture into the wall map business. This work would be issued until 1884 and was the first of several successful wall maps issued by the firm, including collaborative works with D.G. Johnson. From the 1840s to 1855, the firm focused on the production of railroad maps. Later, it published a number of Civil War maps.

In 1855, Colton finally issued his first atlas, Colton’s Atlas of the World, issued in two volumes in 1855 and 1856. In 1857 the work was reduced to a single volume under the title of Colton’s General Atlas, which was published in largely the same format until 1888. It is in this work that George Woolworth (G. W.) Colton’s name appears for the first time.

Born in 1827 and lacking formal training as a mapmaker, G. W. joined his father’s business and would later help it to thrive. His brother Charles B. (C. B.) Colton would also join the firm. Beginning in 1859, the General Atlas gives credit to Johnson & Browning, a credit which disappears after 1860, when Johnson & Browning launched their own atlas venture, Johnson’s New Illustrated (Steel Plate) Family Atlas, which bears Colton’s name as the publisher in the 1860 and 1861 editions.

J.H. Colton also published a number of smaller atlases and school geographies, including his Atlas of America (1854-56), his Illustrated Cabinet Atlas (1859), Colton’s Condensed Cabinet Atlas of Descriptive Geography (1864) and Colton’s Quarto Atlas of the World (1865). From 1850 to the early 1890s, the firm also published several school atlases and pocket maps. The firm continued until the late 1890s, when it merged with a competitor and then ceased to trade under the name Colton.

Place/Date:
New York / 1857
Size:
15.75 x 18 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
95068
Place/Date:
New York / 1855
Size:
20.5 x 28 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
60108
Place/Date:
New York / 1865
Size:
31 x 28.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
66179mj
Place/Date:
New York / 1855
Size:
28 x 17.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
89964
Place/Date:
New York / 1859
Size:
27 x 18.5 inches
Condition:
Good
Stock#:
84622
Place/Date:
New York / 1859
Size:
26 x 16 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
90086
Place/Date:
Boston, Cleveland, and New York / 1857
Size:
15 x 13 inches Map Size
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
69729
Place/Date:
New York / 1856
Size:
15.5 x 13 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
83973
Place/Date:
New York / 1856
Size:
16 x 13 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
82975
Place/Date:
New York / 1856
Size:
16 x 12.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
90083
Place/Date:
New York / 1866
Size:
13 x 15.5 inches
Condition:
Good
Stock#:
76723
Place/Date:
New York / 1859
Size:
26 x 16 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
84856
Place/Date:
New York / 1859
Size:
16 x 13 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
88460
Place/Date:
New York / 1853
Size:
26.3 x 20.7 inches
Condition:
Good
Stock#:
98712
Place/Date:
New York / 1860
Size:
12 x 15 inches
Condition:
Good
Stock#:
91538
Place/Date:
New York / 1859
Size:
16 x 12.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
81397
Place/Date:
New York / 1859
Size:
16 x 13 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
88159
Place/Date:
New York / 1860
Size:
16 x 13 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
94908
Place/Date:
New York / 1856
Size:
13 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
89715
Place/Date:
New York / 1856
Size:
26.5 x 17 inches
Condition:
Good
Stock#:
90067
Place/Date:
New York / 1860
Size:
15.5 x 12.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
103039
Place/Date:
New York / 1855
Size:
13 x 15.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
79756
Place/Date:
New York / 1860
Size:
16 x 13 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
90107
Place/Date:
New York / 1856
Size:
13.5 x 14.5 inches each
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
98321
Place/Date:
New York / 1859
Size:
13 x 16 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
99477
Place/Date:
New York / 1856
Size:
16 x 13 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
99558
Place/Date:
New York / 1855
Size:
16 x 13 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
101136
Place/Date:
New York / 1857
Size:
15 x 12.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
53060
Place/Date:
New York / 1855
Size:
13 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
70974
Place/Date:
New York / 1855
Size:
16 x 13 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
76144
Place/Date:
New York / 1855
Size:
16 x 13 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
78692
Place/Date:
New York / 1855
Size:
15 x 12 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
78708
Place/Date:
New York / 1856
Size:
13 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
82736

Archived

Place/Date:
New York / 1833
Size:
21 x 17.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
14149
Place/Date:
New York / 1853
Size:
37.5 x 40 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
69882
Place/Date:
New York / 1855
Size:
20.5 x 28 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
8004
Place/Date:
New York / 1855
Size:
20.5 x 28 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
35251
Place/Date:
New York / 1855
Size:
20.5 x 28 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
59671
Place/Date:
New York / 1846
Size:
22 x 24.25 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
96495
Place/Date:
New York / 1852
Size:
42 x 31 inches
Condition:
Good
Stock#:
70154
Place/Date:
New York / 1857
Size:
24 x 26 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
69906jc
Place/Date:
New York / 1853
Size:
16 x 12.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
20541
Place/Date:
New York / 1853
Size:
16 x 12.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
55034
Place/Date:
New York / 1854
Size:
27 x 16 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
19950
Place/Date:
New York / 1863 circa
Size:
29 x 17.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
34035mb
Place/Date:
New York / 1849
Size:
20.5 x 18 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
8729
Place/Date:
New York / 1862
Size:
27 x 19 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
10343