1804 Joseph Ellicott Map of New York State West of the Geneseo

This is Joseph Ellicott's rare map of New York State west of the Genesee River, in a magnificent example. It is a remarkable cartographic achievement. Rumsey admiringly notes:

The map is highly detailed, showing every tributary of every tributary of every stream. All the township and range lines are laid down, every town located, all reservations shown and all roads indicated. One has the impression that the ground was expertly surveyed with care and diligence.

Vail hails the map as the 'Most important map of the Holland Land Company, published for the promotion of sale of their Western New York lands.' Nestler praises it as 'the most important map of western NY when Buffalo was still known as New Amsterdam, and when land companies were luring settlers to this new frontier.'

The Holland Land Company

The map shows three and a half million acres of land purchased between 1792 and 1797 from the American banker, Robert Morris, by a group of Dutch bankers. This, combined with an additional 1.4 million acres of Northwestern Pennsylvania from James Wilson, was dubbed 'The Holland Purchase' and the contortium of bankers 'The Holland Land Company.' Joseph Ellicott, having established himself as a surveyor working with his elder brother on the initial survey of Washington DC, was hired in 1797 by the Company to survey the Purchase. After living the next two years in the open executing the monumental survey, he would become agent for the company, administering the sale of the lands around the company's offices in Batavia.

The Ownership of the Land

The presence of reservations, 'Indian Paths' and 'Indian Villages' throughout the map show the traces of the original inhabitants of the land here mapped. Sovereignty over the land was granted to New York in the 1786 Treaty of Hartford, though title to the land had been granted to Massachusetts; Robert Morris - financier and signer of the Declaration of Independence - purchased the land from the Commonwealth in 1791, before selling it along to the Holland Land Company.

A Glimpse Of the Pre-Computer Map Trade

Accompanying this map is a three-page, unsigned manuscript introduction and historical gloss of the map. It is unsigned, but is clearly written from the mapseller to the purchaser of the map. In addition to a description of the Holland Land Company and Ellicott's work, the writer addresses the care of the map:

Would suggest not marking 'X' where your place is located and instead reasonably preserving this nearly 200 year old rag paper original... Mr. Glen (sic) Cantrell of Erie Book Store is an experienced collector of old maps and his daughter Kathy Cantrell, current owner of the store, would be pleased, I am sure, to advise you on how to keep it reasonably well preserved or protectively matted and framed, if you so desire. Even unroll and roll carefully and let no one try to clean it, unless they are experienced experts.

Publication History and Census

An edition appears to have been printed in 1800, either in Albany or in Amsterdam, but this appears to be of the utmost rarity, having been supplanted by this 1804 issue. This latter map is itself quite rare, being separately issued. We see examples in twenty-two institutional collections.