1776 Sayer and Bennett Holster Atlas - Revolutionary War

This is Sayer and Bennet's 1776 'Holster Atlas', one of the most sought-after cartographic works of the American Revolution. It was published at the beginning of the Revolution and presented as a collection of maps approved by British military authorities for use in the field.

For the Field, and For the Public

Sayer and Bennett trumpeted the work as an answer to the recommendation of British colonial official and politician Thomas Pownall (1722 - 1805). That the governor and sometime cartographer took an active role in the project is unlikely, but the publishers credited two of the maps at the heart of the work to Pownall himself, and the imprimatur of that British colonial official and politician would have bestowed authority on the work. The atlas's Advertisement presented it as a portable collection of maps useful to a British military officer in the field. Nonetheless, while its maps are too general to be of tactical utility, the atlas may well have been valuable for a junior officer wishing to understand his role in the conflict. In England, the work's presentation as officially sanctioned would have made it attractive to civilians hungry for information about the unruly colonies.

A Closer Look

The publishers chose works relevant to the probable theatre of war but general enough to encompass all likely areas where the conflict might spread. The six maps include a general map of North America, a map of the West Indies, particular maps of the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, and finally, a specific map of the strategically vital lakes Champlain and George.

The General Idea

The first two maps in the atlas first appeared in Samuel Dunn's A New Atlas of the Mundane System, published by Sayer and Bennett two years prior. These were expressly included as an 'introduction' to give the reader a 'General Idea' of the part of the world under discussion. They appear unchanged from their 1774 states.

DUNN, S. North America as divided amongst the European Powers 12 x 17.25 inches. Scale 1:16500000. January 10, 1774. Page number 39 in upper and lower right. Stamped #1 on verso. Original outline color.

DUNN, S. A compleat map of the West Indies 12 x 17.5 inches. Scale 1:9000000. January 10, 1774. Page number 41 in upper and lower right. Stamped #2 on verso. Original outline color.

The Patron's Works

The maps of the Northern British Colonies and the Middle British Colonies represented more current and detailed work. According to Sayer and Bennett's Advertisement, both maps benefited from Thomas Pownall's corrections. The Evans was derived from Pownall's authorized 1776 edition of the map.

HOLLAND, S A General Map of the Northern British Colonies in America 19.25 x 26 inches. Scale 1:3700000. August 14, 1776. Stamped #3 on verso. Original outline color.

EVANS, L. A General Map of the Middle British Colonies in America 19 x 25.5 inches. Scale 1:2200000. October 15, 1776. Stamped #4 on verso. Original outline color.

A Landmark Map of the Southeast

The scarcest perhaps the most important map of the set is Bernard Romans' map of the Southeast. It made its first appearance here and was the first accurate map of East and West Florida. Romans distilled the surveys of De Brahm, Mouzon, and Collet, as well as his own 1774 map. On balance, it represented the finest general cartography of the Southeast then obtainable.

ROMANS, B. A General Map of the Southern British Colonies in America 20 x 25 inches. Scale 1:3000000. October 15, 1776. Stamped #5 on verso. Original outline color.

First Specific Map of Lakes Champlain and George.

William Furness Brasier's 1762 map of Lakes Champlain and George - here in its rare August 5, 1776, first state - is the first separate map of Lake Champlain and Lake George. Of the maps in the Holster Atlas, it is the narrowest in scale and the most specific in detail. The area it presents was already most definitely the theatre of war. Its surveys dated back to the tail end of the French and Indian War (1754 - 1763), but the map remained the best available of a region that had already seen action - the loss of Fort Ticonderoga to Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, and the delivery of its cannon across the Massachusetts wilderness by Henry Knox to break the March 1776 siege of Boston. Even if not for these indignities, General Burgoyne's plan to attack New York from Quebec the following year underscored the region's strategic import.

Moreover, Sayer and Bennett had already long had the map in their possession: it had been languishing in the Thomas Jefferys' stock acquired after that cartographer's death.

BRASIER, W. A Survey Of Lake Champlain, including Lake George, Crown Point And St. John. /A Particular Plan of Lake George. 26 x 18.75 inches. Scale 1:400000. August 5, 1776. Stamped #5 on verso. Original outline color.

Variants

The Holster Atlas is understood to have been printed in a singular edition, which nonetheless exhibits variations. Ashley Baynton-Williams identifies three states of the text, all dated to 1776. He proposes a first state (lacking punctuation after the words 'LONDON' and 'Print-Sellers' on the title page) and a second state (with a colon after 'LONDON' and a comma after 'Print-Sellers'). He identifies a third state, with the title page and the dedication entirely re-typeset. Other variations include the presence or absence of sheet numbers stamped to the verso of the maps and the presence of either the first or second state of map #6, the Brasier map of Lakes Champlain and George. Most observed examples corresponding to Baynton-Williams' first state lack the stamps and contain the second state of the Brasier. Most of the examples of Baynton-Williams' second state appear to have page stamps and contain the first state of the Brasier. (Of the 13 examples we have been able to examine, none have corresponded to Baynton-Williams' third state.) Counterexamples, nonetheless, suggest that the assembly of these books was not systematic and that neither the state of the text nor the specific maps indicate a chronology.

For example, evidence suggests that both states of the Brasier map of Lake Champlain were available for use at the time that this atlas was first produced. Indeed, most examples we have examined, corresponding to Baynton-Williams' first state of the book, contain the second state of the Brasier, suggesting that the publishers chose to expend the most up-to-date version of that map before dipping into their supply of maps without the information pertaining to the Battle of Valcour Island.

Publication History and Census

Sayer and Bennett published this portable atlas in late 1776, no earlier than mid-October, based on the dates assigned on the Evans and Romans maps. The individual maps were later reissued in Sayer and Bennett's other atlases as early as 1778. It is unlikely that the 'Holster Atlas' would have remained in print beyond this. The book is well-represented in institutional collections and can be found on the market.