1838 Bradford Map of Delaware

Thomas Gamaliel Bradford (1802 - 1887) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked as an assistant editor for the Encyclopedia Americana. Bradford's first major cartographic work was his revision and subsequent republishing of an important French geography by Adrian Balbi, Abrege de Geographie published in America as Atlas Designed to Illustrate the Abridgment of Universal Geography, Modern and Ancient. Afterwards Bradford revised and expanded this work into his own important contributions to American cartography, the 1838 An Illustrated Atlas Geographical, Statistical and Historical of the United States and Adjacent Countries. Bradford's cartographic work is significant as among the first to record Texas as an independent nation. In his long career as a map publisher Bradford worked with William Davis Ticknor of Boston, Freeman Hunt of New York, Charles De Silver of Philadelphia, John Hinton, George Washington Boynton, and others. We have been able to discover little of Bradford's personal life. More by this mapmaker...

Fielding Lucas Jr. (September 3, 1781 - March 12, 1854) was an American cartographer, chartmaker, and publisher active in Baltimore during the first half of the 19th century. Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, little is known of Lucas's family and early life, but his lineage seems to have been established in Fredericksburg from at least the mid-1700s. Lucas founded Lucas Brothers, one of America's first stationers located at 116 East Baltimore Street, in 1804 and later, in 1806, he became the Baltimore manager of the Philadelphia based publishing firm Conrad, Lucas, and Company. Lucas is also known to have worked with the Matthew Carey firm in Philadelphia. Lucas entered the map trade around 1814, when he published an atlas of the United States - similar to, but in direct competition with, Matthew Carey, a matter which soured an otherwise profitable friendship. In 1825, Lucas also produced a world atlas. Over the course of his career, Lucas published several smaller atlases and numerous independent issue maps, including an important nautical chart of the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. Many of his maps were engraved by H. S. Tanner, but he also worked with Robert Mills (Atlas of South Carolina) and others. Lucas attained considerable social prominence as a patron of the arts and philanthropist. He was a member of the committee that helped build Baltimore's Washington Monument and was one of the founding members of the Boston Harmonic Society and the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of Mechanical Arts. During the War of 1812, Lucas enlisted in Captain John Kanes' Company, 27th Maryland Regiment, although little is known of his actual service. From 1827 he served as a director of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and, later, as director of the Baltimore and Rappahannock Steam Packet Company. He died in Baltimore on March 12, 1854. (Foster, J. W., Fielding Lucas, Jr., Early 19th Century American Publisher of Fine Books and Maps, 'American Antiquarian Society', October 1955, Volume 64, Part 2, 162-212) Learn More...

George Washington Boynton (fl. c. 1830 - 1850) was a Boston based cartographer and map engraver active in the first half of the 19th century. Boynton engraved and compiled maps for numerous publishers including Thomas Bradford, Nathaniel Dearborn, Daniel Adams, and S. G. Goodrich. His most significant work is most likely his engraving of various maps for Bradford's Illustrated Atlas, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of the United States and the Adjacent Countries and Universal Illustrated Atlas. He also engraved for the Boston Almanac. In 1835, Boynton is listed as an employee of the Boston Bewick Company, an engraving, stereotype, and printing concern based at no. 47 Court Street, Boston. Little else is known of his life. Learn More...