1864 Eldridge Blueback Nautical Chart Map of Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket

This is George Eldridge’s enormous and important large-format 1864 blueback nautical chart of the waters around Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, including Vineyard Sound and the Nantucket Shoals. Most likely Eldridge's most important and useful publication, this chart offers hundreds of depth soundings, along with notations about shoals and other hazards, lighthouses and other aids to navigation, tides, currents and compass variations, sailing directions, and other information pertinent to the mariner. The staggering size of this map as well as its extraordinary overall detail underscore the importance of these waters not only as an international shipping channel, but also for the vibrant local maritime community, of which included Eldridge. The present chart is one of Eldridge’s most important charts with an active period of more than 40 years.

Charting Nantucket Waters

The waters around Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket were long considered dangerous and difficult to navigate despite being both an important maritime artery on the London-New York shipping route, and an essential fishery. The harsh conditions, including rapid unexpected swells and frequent heavy fog, contrived to make the hazards south of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard some of the most dangerous and challenging areas to hydrographically survey. Moreover, there were a plethora of poorly realized, outdated, and outright speculative commercial charts, many coming from British publishers incorporating data dating to the Revolutionary War. For these reasons, the U.S. Coast Survey chose the Nantucket-Martha's Vineyard-Buzzard Bay corridor as the focus for their earliest charting efforts. Under Lieutenant Commander Charles H. Davis, these waters slowly took shape, with excellent detailed surveys, performed over numerous years under harsh conditions ultimately revealing the inaccuracies of earlier efforts. What the U.S.C.S. failed to produce until around 1860, were large format nautical charts useful for the mariner - instead their publications were limited to small format maps in bound congressional reports. Until the U.S.C.S. began issuing its own superior large format charts, most of their charting efforts, as they impacted the day-to-day mariner, were consolidated by private chart publishing houses, like Blunt and Eldridge. In particular, Eldridge's work around Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, became highly influential and remained in use well into the 20th century.

Blueback Charts

Blueback nautical charts began appearing in London in the late 18th century. Bluebacks, as they came to be called, were privately published large format nautical charts known for their distinctive blue paper backing. The backing, a commonly available blue manila paper traditionally used by publishers to warp unbound pamphlets, was adopted as a practical way to reinforce the low-quality paper used by private chart publishers in an effort to cut costs. The earliest known blueback charts include a 1760 chart issued by Mount and Page, and a 1787 chart issued by Robert Sayer. The tradition took off in the early 19th century, when British publishers like John Hamilton Moore, Robert Blachford, James Imray, William Heather, John William Norie, Charles Wilson, David Steel, R. H. Laurie, and John Hobbs, among others, rose to dominate the chart trade. Bluebacks became so popular that the convention was embraced by chartmakers outside of England, including Americans Edmund March Blunt and George Eldridge, as well as Scandinavian, French, German, Russian, and Spanish chartmakers. Blueback charts remained popular until the late 19th century, when government subsidized organizations like the British Admiralty Hydrographic Office and the United States Coast Survey, began issuing their own superior charts on high quality paper that did not require reinforcement.

Publication History and Census

George Eldridge first issued this chart in 1857 as an update to his earlier Chart of Vineyard Sound, From Chatham Lights to Gay Head. The map is copyrighted, 1857, in partnership with Samuel T. (Thaxter) Cushing (1821 - 1882), the publisher. It was updated and reissued in 1864, as the present example. In 1865 a new copyright was filed, and subsequent editions bear an 1865 copyright, leading some to mistakenly believe 1865 the first edition. Subsequent editions are cataloged in 1874, 1883, and 1891. The map was engraved George Washington Boynton, and published by Samuel Thaxter and Son of Boston.

Although we have identified many examples of this chart in other editions, this is one of only two examples of the 1864 issue known, the other being in the British Library. It is conceivable that Eldridge and Thaxter, aware that the major copyright update of 1865 was about to be issued, chose to limit production of the 1864 issue.