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1846 Bradford Map of Virginia (including West Virginia)
Virginia-bradford-1846-2$400.00
Title
Virginia.
1846 (dated) 12 x 15.5 in (30.48 x 39.37 cm) 1 : 1900800
1846 (dated) 12 x 15.5 in (30.48 x 39.37 cm) 1 : 1900800
Description
An example of Thomas G. Bradford's 1846 map of Virginia (with West Virginia), published in his A Universal Illustrated Atlas.
This map is notable because it coincided with the tail end of a canal building boom and the early phases of a railway building boom in the United States. The expanding rail network links Richmond to Washington, D.C., and Baltimore to the north, and with Petersburg and on to North Carolina to the south. Additional lines are also recorded, including the Baltimore and Ohio, crossing the Potomac River at Harper's Ferry, the only rail crossing of the Potomac until the late 19th century. At bottom-right, the Dismal Swamp Canal is noted. Opened in 1805 to provide an easier and safer means of transportation for coastal communities in Virginia and North Carolina, it is the oldest continually operating canal in the United States.
A Closer Look
Coverage ranges from Ohio and Kentucky to the Chesapeake Bay and from Pennsylvania and Ohio to Tennessee and North Carolina. Highly detailed, each county is labeled and shaded a different color for easy differentiation. Myriad cities, towns, enterprises (such as salt works), and villages are labeled, along with rivers, mountain ranges, and other physical features. The Allegheny Mountains mark out a clear geographic divide between the eastern and western half of the state, hinting at its later division (the Blue Ridge Mountains form a similar north-south line further to the east). The entire Chesapeake Bay is illustrated, along with rivers and cities in Maryland. The District of Columbia, or Washington D.C., is also depicted. Just after this map's publication, Alexandria, here still part of the District of Columbia, retroceded to Virginia.This map is notable because it coincided with the tail end of a canal building boom and the early phases of a railway building boom in the United States. The expanding rail network links Richmond to Washington, D.C., and Baltimore to the north, and with Petersburg and on to North Carolina to the south. Additional lines are also recorded, including the Baltimore and Ohio, crossing the Potomac River at Harper's Ferry, the only rail crossing of the Potomac until the late 19th century. At bottom-right, the Dismal Swamp Canal is noted. Opened in 1805 to provide an easier and safer means of transportation for coastal communities in Virginia and North Carolina, it is the oldest continually operating canal in the United States.
Publication History and Census
This map was engraved by George Boynton and published in the 1846 edition of Bradford and Goodrich's A Universal Illustrated Atlas.CartographerS
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...
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...
Source
Bradford, T. G. and Goodrich, S. G., A Universal Illustrated Atlas, exhibiting a Geographical, Statistical, and Historical view of the World, (Boston: Charles D. Strong) 1846.
The Universal Illustrated Atlas is one of the great American atlases of the first half of the 19th century. The atlas was first published in 1838 under the imprint of Charles D. Strong. It replaced and superseded Bradford's earlier smaller format Illustrated Atlas, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of the United States and the Adjacent Countries. Numerous reissues of the Universal Illustrated Atlas followed until about 1848. Although there are minor variations between the editions, most contain about 50 maps, the majority of which focus on the United States. Bradford's atlases are significant for recording North America during the Republic of Texas Era. In later editions, particularly the 1846 edition, Bradford illustrates the boom in railroad construction, possibly with the idea that his maps would aid travelers in planning journeys by rail. It was compiled by Thomas Gamaliel Bradford and Samuel Griswold Goodrich with most of the plates engraved by George Washington Boynton (fl. c. 1830 - 1850). Other contributors include Thomas Gordon (1778 - 1848), Fielding Lucas Jr. (1781 - 1854), Samuel Edward Stiles (1844 - 1901), Sherman and Smith (fl. c. 1829 - 1855), and Horace Thayer (1811 - c. 1874).
Condition
Very good. Even toning. Some foxing.
References
Rumsey 0089.025 (1838 edition).