1848 Dearborn Map of Boston, Massachusetts

This is a scarce 1848 map of pre-landfill Boston published by Nathaniel Dearborn. Presented with a westward orientation, the map reflects Boston's breakneck growth in the early 19th century.

A Closer Look

While recognizable this map pre-dates the dramatic landfill expansions that would follow in the late 19th century. In the years after this map's publication, landfill would expand 'Old Boston' on the Shawmut Peninsula to connect it with South Boston and Roxbury, while the basin created by the misguided Mill Dam would become the Back Bay. Later, additional land was added to Cambridge, Charlestown, South Boston, and East Boston.

The expansion of the city's usable land was necessary to accommodate its growing population, driven from their homelands by disasters like the Irish Potato Famine and drawn by the city's economic opportunities. The City of Boston, chartered in 1822, would go on to absorb many of its nearby communities, though not Cambridge.

When this map was produced, the Mill Dam had been completed, but the Back Bay landfill and other reclamation projects of the mid-19th century had not yet been undertaken. Despite being titled 'Western Avenue' here, the Mill Dam would later adopt the name Beacon Street, of which it was effectively an extension.

The map identifies rail lines (complete with tiny trains), some property owners, businesses, and important buildings. A reference table at bottom center gives the locations of government buildings, churches, and public houses, in correspondence with a grid along the edge. The city's twelve wards are numbered and 'color-coded'.

Publication History and Census

This map appeared in multiple editions through the 1840s-1850s (the OCLC notes editions from 1839, discussed here (boston-dearbornboynton-1839), along with 1840, 1841, 1846, 1850, and 1851, in addition to the present 1848 edition), though today it is rare in any edition. Until 1846, the engraver C.W. Boynton is given credit for the map with Dearborn as the publisher, but afterwards the map was no longer attributed to Boynton, apparently in conjunction with a transition of the printing process from engraving to lithographic stones. The present edition is held by Harvard University, the State Library of Massachusetts, the British Library, and the Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center at the Boston Public Library.