Maps > North America(578 items) > U.S. / Midwest (2 items)
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	NICHOLSON, Walter L. (topographer of the U.S. Post Office Department) Post Route Map of the States of Michigan and Wisconsin with Adjacent Parts of Ohio Indiana Illinois Iowa and Minnesota Washington: 1871 [updated 1 June 1873]. Engraved map on two sheets, period hand-colouring in outline, sectioned and linen-backed at a contemporary date. Sheet size: 41 1/2 x 62 1/4 inches. Housed in a contemporary brown cloth slipcase, title stamped in gilt on the covers. Provenance: John Henry Devereux, 1832-1886, President of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis Railway (name stamped in gilt on the slipcase). Rare official Post Route map of the Midwest, owned by the Civil War General in charge of all Union railroad lines and the President of a major railroad company following the war. Nicholson, who was responsible for setting up the topographical department of the Post Office during the Civil War, went on to serve as the official Topographer to the Post Office for 22 years. His maps focus on the postal routes and, naturally, towns, as well as political boundaries and railroad routes. Lakes, rivers and other waterways provide the only topographical detail. The postal routes are colour-coded to indicate frequency with which they are used (e.g., black for six times per week, blue for three times per week), with rail routes differentiated by cross-hatching. The distance for each route segment is also indicated. The map includes a legend and an inset table of distances between post offices. The official Post Office Department logo and motto ('With Celerity Certainty and Security') is also present. Nicholson's maps were originally published between 1866-1876, but it was essential to keep updating them, and to this end the map also includes a printed note "The Service on this diagram brought up to date of", followed by a space in which a manuscript date has been added. The relationship between the Post Office and the railroads began very early. The first known contract was in 1832, just two years after the maiden voyage of the nation's first steam locomotive, for transport of mail between Philadelphia and Lancaster, PA. On July 7, 1838, an act of Congress declared all rail routes to be postal routes, and the railways rapidly became the backbone of the postal system. While these maps were distributed throughout the Post Office Department, it is not clear how often these early issues of the maps were given or sold to non-governmental users, like the present. Devereux, the original owner of this map, was the President of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railway at the time of publication. He had served in the Civil War as the officer in charge of all the Union rail lines, eventually achieving the rank of General. Phillips, p. 428 (1881 issue); Cf. Virginia W. Mason. The U.S. Post Office Department, Division of Topography: the Conception, Production, and Obsolescence of Postal Mapping in the United States. (unpublished thesis). Madison, WI: Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2002. #26056$2,800.00
	TANNER, Henry S. (1786-1858) Illinois and Missouri Philadelphia: H. S. Tanner, 1831. Folding pocket map, copper-engraved by Tanner, period hand colouring in outline. Within original roan covers, covers bordered in gilt, the upper cover titled in gilt 'Illinois & Missouri'. (Short separations at folds, light offsetting). Sheet size: 22 3/4 x 27 inches. A rare pocket map issue of Tanner's map of Illinois and Missouri. Henry Tanner's A New American Atlas was the most distinguished atlas published in America during the nineteenth century. The maps were carefully constructed from the best and most recent surveys. They were finely engraved on a large-scale, printed on high quality paper, and carefully hand colored. Tanner's map of Illinois and Missouri, done in 1823, was one of the earliest maps to show Illinois and Missouri as American states. A second edition of the atlas, including the map, was published in 1825 with significant revisions to the mapping of the headwaters of the Mississippi and significant additions. Besides publishing his maps within the two editions of his great atlas, Tanner offered the maps separately in pocket map format. The separately-issued pocket maps by Tanner are less frequently encountered than the sheet maps removed from his atlas. This copy of his pocket map of Illinois and Missouri dates to 1831 and shows a number of improvements and alterations compared to the previous editions. Interestingly, there are manuscript additions to this map in Ashington, St. Francis, Perry and Cape Girardeau counties in Missouri, where platted blocks of land have been shaded presumably by an early land owner. Cf. Rumsey, 4862.023 (1833 edition); cf. Phillips, Atlases, 1376 (1833 edition); cf. Ristow, American Maps and Mapmakers, pps. 191-198. #24808$1,850.00
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