1893 Riverhead Investment Bird's-Eye View Map of Riverhead, Long Island

A striking 2-color 1893 chromolithograph view of a speculative community near Riverhead, Long Island, New York. This map was prepared to promote a late 19th-century Long Island Land scam targeting middle-class Brooklynites. The scam lured prospective buyers with 'free' land in a 'lively' town, only to defraud them by collecting 'title and transfer' fees and promoting too-good-to-be-true offers on adjacent lots - none of which actually existed or were developed.

A Closer Look

The view looks east by northeast over Long Island from a high point above Wildwood Lake. Central to the image is a gracious planned development. The established city of Riverhead is on the left, across the Peconic River and Bay. The Long Island Sound appears at the far left, Shelter Island on the horizon at the center, and the Hamptons and Shinnecock Bay on the far right.

Long Island Land Scams: Boom, Bust, and Imagination

The development of the Long Island Railroad transformed Nassau and Suffolk Counties, Long Island, from hard-to-access rural areas into suburbs of New York City - opening some 400,000 acres of land, all within a short train ride to New York City. Countless existing communities underwent a boom in population, industry, and development. Other new communities popped up seemingly overnight. The fast growth and easy money also attracted speculators and scammers - most in the 1890s.

Riverhead Investment Company (RIC) was a real-estate scam launched in April 1893 by Charles M. Russell, Frank H. Adams, and Henry Armstrong. The scam targeted working middle-class Brooklynites.

The RIC began advertising 'Riverhead' properties near Wildwood Lake in the Brooklyn Daily Eagel in the summer of 1893. The terms seemed too good to be true - the first 500 respondents were to receive their land free! Applicants were presented with promotional materials, including the present bird's-eye view, described in a Brooklyn Daily Eagle article dated March 7, 1897.

In presenting its scheme to the public, the Riverhead Investment Company issued a bird's eye view of the country surrounding its property. It represents a town handsomely laid out with a magnificent park running through the middle of it. Riverhead is close at hand; beautiful hotels appear scattered through the territory; the sound is shown on the north while the Atlantic Ocean and the south side hotels appear in close proximity, and Shelter Island, which is really twenty-three miles distant, looms up near at hand.

A look at the development site on modern maps reveals no trace of this ambitiously planned town, and the east shore of Wildwood Lake remains only lightly inhabited. It was even less so in 1893. Nevertheless, the advertisements attracted numerous respondents eager to claim the free land. The RIC asked only that applicants pay 'title and transfer' fees, usually about 5 USD. They were then frequently offered a reserved 'adjacent lot' for 25 - 50 USD, which most, thinking it a good deal, purchased upfront. Commenting on a similar land scam, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle estimated the actual value of the undeveloped land to be less than 1 USD per acre.

The 'Riverhead' scam appears to have lasted from 1893 - 1895, but we see the Riverhead Investment Company again active in 1903 - 1907 in Southampton.

Chromolithography

Chromolithography, sometimes called oleography, is a color lithographic technique developed in the mid-19th century. The process uses multiple lithographic stones, one for each color, to yield a rich composite effect. Generally, a chromolithograph begins with a black basecoat upon which subsequent colors are layered. Some chromolithographs used 30 or more separate lithographic stones to achieve the desired effect. Chromolithograph color can be blended for even more dramatic results. The process became extremely popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when it emerged as the dominant method of color printing. The vivid color chromolithography made it exceptionally effective for advertising and propaganda.

American Bird's-Eye City Views

The Bird's-Eye view industry emerged in the United States in the middle part of the 19th century and coincided with the commercial development of lithographic printing. Before the rise of lithography, the ability to own and display artwork in the home was largely limited to the extremely wealthy, but the advent of lithographic printing made it possible for everyone to own visually striking artwork. A robust trade developed in portraits of political leaders, allegorical and religious images, and city views.

City views were being produced in the United States as early as the 1830s, but the genre exploded after the American Civil War (1861 - 1865). Bridging the gap between maps and pictures, most 19th-century American bird's-eye views presented cities to the public from high points. Some were imagined, but others were drawn from hot-air balloons or nearby hills. The presentation, combining high elevation, commercial interest, and new printing technology, created a uniquely American art form, as described by historian Donald Karshan,

Some print connoisseurs believe that it was only with the advent of the full-blown city-view lithograph that American printmaking reached its first plateau of originality, making a historical contribution to the graphic arts. They cite the differences between the European city-view prints and the expansive American version that reflects a new land and a new attitude toward the land.

The vogue for bird's-eye city views lasted from about 1845 to 1920, during which period some 2,400 cities were thus portrayed, some multiple times. Although views were produced in many urban centers, the nexus of view production in the United States was Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The major American viewmakers were Stoner, Wellge, Bailey, Fowler, Hill Ruger, Koch, Burleigh, Norris, and Morse, among others.

Publication History and Census

This view was drafted by an unknown artist and published in 1893 by the Riverhead Investment Company. While unattributed, based upon a similar view issued by the 'New York and Brooklyn Suburban Investment Company', we are reasonably confident it is the work of Oakley Hoopes Bailey, one of the most active viewmakers of the period.