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Table of Contents > Historic Maps > Lot 206 |
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Browse the Auction in Groups of 25 Lots: |
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Lot Number: 206
Click for a Printable PageSign-in to Bid or Register to Bid Estimate Range: $10,000 - $15,000 |
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1856 Joseph Colton‘s Spectacular Ornate Folding Wall Map of the United States by J Calvin Smith Display Framed |
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        Click an Image to Enlarge It |
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1856 Colton‘s Color Wash and Outline Color Map of the United States, Large framed Engraved paper USA Map showing the lands allotted to the Indian tribes and west of the Mississippi, the various internal improvements, etc., compiled from surveys at the United States land office and various other authentic sources by J Calvin Smith, New York, published by J H Colton and Company, Framed, Very Fine. The Largest Engraved Map of the United States made to date, this truly impressive large Engraved Segmented Folding Wall Map of the United States of America shows the lands allotted to the Indian tribes and west of the Mississippi, the various internal improvements, etc., compiled from surveys at the United States land office and various other authentic sources by J(ohn) Calvin Smith (1809-1890), New York published by J.H. (Joseph Hutchins) Colton and Company, 172 William Street, New York.This is the rarely seen revised 1856 Edition, includes a large Inset map of North America at lower right, plus a smaller Inset of the Southern part of Florida. J. Calvin Smith is vague about the map’s sources and offers only that it was, “compiled from various surveys and documents.” Its ornately engraved border designs include about 22 steel plate engraved scenes and a cartouche, all surrounding the then existing American States and Territories. These scenes including the Hudson river of New York, Baltimore, Maryland seen with ships in the harbor, Washington DC, Charlestown, South Carolina, Kentucky, Cincinnati, Ohio, together with George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon, the Bunker Hill Monument, Boston, Massachusetts, along with Animals including Deer, Fox, Buffalo, Beaver, Alligator and Birds, the top center border design includes a large American Eagle atop of the Shield with an "E Pluribus Unum" legend, further displaying the various State Motto Crests for all States in the Union at that time in the 1850s. This exceptional Map is Professionally Display Framed. It is housed in a Gold-gesso wood frame, protected behind Plexiglass. It measures a significant 88 inches long (7 ft 4 inches) x about 71 inches high (6 feet), being one of the largest, most ornate early pre Civil War American Maps of the United States. This folding map has a linen backing, being printed in steel engraved panels with a highly decorative, ornately engraved outer border design. A spectacular and important map of the then United States, associated with two of the great figures in American commercial cartography in the second quarter of the 19th century. Please note that shipping should be considered due to the size of this important map. G. W. & C. B. Colton was a prominent family firm of mapmakers who were leaders in the American map trade in the nineteenth century. Its founder, Joseph Hutchins Colton (1800-1893), was a Massachusetts native. Colton did not start in the map trade; rather, he worked in a general store from 1816 to 1829 and then as a night clerk at the United States Post Office in Hartford, Connecticut. By 1830, he was in New York City, where he set up his publishing business a year later. The first printed item with his imprint is dated 1833, a reprint of S. Stiles & Company’s edition of David Burr’s map of the state of New York. He also printed John Disturnell’s map of New York City in 1833. Colton’s next cartographic venture was in 1835, when he acquired the rights to John Farmer’s seminal maps of Michigan and Wisconsin. Another early and important Colton work is his Topographical Map of the City and County of New York and the Adjacent Country (1836). In 1839, Colton began issuing the Western Tourist and Emigrant’s Guide, which was originally issued by J. Calvin Smith. During this first decade, Colton did not have a resident map engraver; he relied upon copyrights purchased from other map makers, most often S. Stiles & Company, and later Stiles, Sherman & Smith. Smith was a charter member of the American Geographical and Statistical Society, as was John Disturnell. This connection would bear fruit for Colton during the early period in his career, helping him to acquire the rights to several important maps. By 1850, the Colton firm was one of the primary publishers of guidebooks and immigrant and railroad maps, known for the high-quality steel plate engravings with decorative borders and hand watercolors. In 1846, Colton published Colton’s Map of the United States of America, British Possessions . . . his first venture into the wall map business. This work would be issued until 1884 and was the first of several successful wall maps issued by the firm, including collaborative works with D.G. Johnson. From the 1840s to 1855, the firm focused on the production of railroad maps. Later, it published a number of Civil War maps. In 1855, Colton finally issued his first atlas, Colton’s Atlas of the World, issued in two volumes in 1855 and 1856. In 1857 the work was reduced to a single volume under the title of Colton’s General Atlas, which was published in largely the same format until 1888. It is in this work that George Woolworth (G. W.) Colton’s name appears for the first time. Born in 1827 and lacking formal training as a mapmaker, G. W. joined his father’s business and would later help it to thrive. His brother Charles B. (C. B.) Colton would also join the firm. Beginning in 1859, the General Atlas gives credit to Johnson & Browning, a credit which disappears after 1860, when Johnson & Browning launched their own atlas venture, Johnson’s New Illustrated (Steel Plate) Family Atlas, which bears Colton’s name as the publisher in the 1860 and 1861 editions. J.H. Colton also published a number of smaller atlases and school geographies, including his Atlas of America (1854-56), his Illustrated Cabinet Atlas (1859), Colton’s Condensed Cabinet Atlas of Descriptive Geography (1864) and Colton’s Quarto Atlas of the World (1865). From 1850 to the early 1890s, the firm also published several school atlases and pocket maps. The firm continued until the late 1890s, when it merged with a competitor and then ceased to trade under the name Colton. John Calvin Smith (1809-1890) Smith emerges as an engraver in New York in 1835, and was in partnership with Samuel Stiles and George Edwin Sherman, as “S. Stiles, Sherman & Smith”, from1837-1840. After Stiles’ departure the firm continued as “Sherman & Smith” into the 1850s, with Smith frequently performing work for the Joseph Hutchins Colton, both as an engraver and later mapmaker. The firms, and the individuals involved, were the leading New York map engravers of their day, but Smith also had a prestigious career as a mapmaker, recorded thus into his seventies. As a mapmaker, Smith he is best known for his wall maps. |
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Lot Number: 206
Click for a Printable Page Sign-in to Bid or Register to Bid |
Estimate Range: $10,000 - $15,000 |
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Early American History Auctions, Inc. 1520 Commerce St., # 312 • Winchester, VA 22601 Phone: 858 • 759 • 3290 Email: Auctions@EarlyAmerican.com |
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