US Northeast

Historical maps and views of the American Northeast.

Archival Category: Regional Cartography | Era: 19th Century | Geography: North America | Holdings: 9 items.

Cataloged Works in this Collection

Map of the State of New Jersey, Reduced from T. Gordon's Map
Cartographer / Artist: Thomas Gordon
Date: 1841
Medium: Engraving with original hand-colored county outlines
Dimensions: 14.8 × 18.0 inches
Location: New Jersey, United States
This finely executed early 19th-century engraved map portrays the State of New Jersey in notable detail, highlighting its internal county divisions, major townships, postal routes, early railroads, and canals. Originally reduced from the prominent larger surveys conducted by surveyor Thomas Gordon and copyrighted in 1841, this plate exemplifies the transitional era of transportation in the mid-Atlantic region, featuring canal linkages and developing rail lines crossing between New York harbor and the Delaware River corridor. Surrounding waterways including Delaware Bay, the Atlantic coastline, and New York Harbor/Long Island Sound are depicted with coastal soundings, islands, and shoals. Prominent settlements across northern, central, and southern counties are clearly delineated alongside mountain ranges depicted with delicate hachuring. A neat scale of miles and a concise symbol explanation box are placed in the upper-left quadrant.
State of New York Agricultural & Natural History Reports: 'The Apples of New York' (Vols. I & II) and 'Seventh Report of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission'
Cartographer / Artist: S. A. Beach; New York Forest, Fish and Game Commission (J. B. Lyon Company, Printers)
Date: 1902–1905
Medium: Three volumes in original publisher dark green cloth with decorative gilt titles and cover vignettes; profusely illustrated with full-page color lithographs, color process plates, and halftone photographic views.
Dimensions: 📐 9.25 × 6.25 in / 23.5 × 16 cm (Apples); 11 × 8 in / 28 × 20 cm (Forest Report)
Location: New York, United States
A fine three-volume group of official early 20th-century New York State natural history and state commission reports, richly illustrated with striking color plates. Included are: 1. 'The Apples of New York' (Volumes I & II, Albany, 1905) by S. A. Beach, assisted by N. O. Booth and O. M. Taylor. Published as part of the Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station, this seminal pomological study provides exhaustive technical descriptions and beautiful full-page color illustrations of historic and heritage apple cultivars (including 'Black Ben Davis' and 'Fanny'), alongside landscape photo-engravings of historic orchards in the Lake Ontario fruit belt. 2. 'Seventh Report of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission of the State of New York' (Albany, 1902). Transmitted to the Assembly in 1902, this handsome state report features celebrated wildlife art plates, including a full-color moose frontispiece after Oliver Kemp and vibrant bird lithographs by acclaimed American ornithological illustrator Louis Agassiz Fuertes (including a notable plate depicting the Nighthawk and Whip-poor-will). Together, these volumes stand as important monuments of early American state-sponsored horticultural science and wildlife conservation.
CONNECTICUT AND RHODE ISLAND
Cartographer / Artist: Thomas Gamaliel Bradford
Date: c. 1838–1842
Medium: Engraving with hand coloring
Dimensions: 13.0 × 12.4 in (33.0 × 31.5 cm)
Location: Connecticut and Rhode Island, United States
A finely engraved antebellum regional map showing town divisions, roads, canals, proposed railroads, and coastal geography of Long Island Sound.
CONNECTICUT
Cartographer / Artist: Henry S. Tanner
Date: 1839
Medium: Steel engraving with original hand color
Dimensions: 15.5 × 14.5 in (39.4 × 36.8 cm)
Location: Connecticut, United States
A finely engraved 1839 map of Connecticut by Henry S. Tanner showcasing county divisions, transportation routes, a statistical demographic table, and inset street plans of Hartford and New Haven.
Johnson's New Jersey
Cartographer / Artist: A. J. Johnson
Date: c. 1862
Medium: Hand-colored lithograph on wove paper
Dimensions: 13.5 × 16.8 inches
Location: New Jersey, United States
An attractive 19th-century map of the state of New Jersey, published in New York by Alvin Jewett Johnson for his renowned family atlas series. The map delineates counties in vibrant original hand-applied watercolor washes of pastel pink, olive green, and buff yellow. Neighboring regions, including portions of eastern Pennsylvania (featuring Philadelphia), southeastern New York (including Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Long Island), and northern Delaware, are finely engraved in grayscale relief. The map provides an intricate snapshot of mid-19th-century infrastructure during a pivotal era of industrial expansion, identifying early rail lines, shipping canals, common roads, coastal lighthouses, county seats, towns, and villages. The entire composition is framed by Johnson's iconic strapwork fretwork border adorned with corner stars and rosettes.
Colton's Map of New Jersey
Cartographer / Artist: G.W. & C.B. Colton & Co.
Date: c. 1876
Medium: Engraving with original hand coloring
Dimensions: 16.3 × 26.5 inches
Location: New Jersey, United States
A finely detailed late-nineteenth-century state map of New Jersey published by the prominent American cartographic firm G.W. & C.B. Colton & Co. The map depicts New Jersey divided into its various counties, distinctly delineated with contrasting hand-colored washes in pastel shades of pink, green, and yellow. Comprehensive regional detail extends into surrounding portions of eastern Pennsylvania, southern New York, and Long Island Sound, grounding the state in its mid-Atlantic geographic context. The cartography highlights the rapid post-Civil War infrastructure development across the state, illustrating dense networks of operational and proposed railroad lines, canals, turnpikes, and post roads. Topographical features including coastal barrier islands, marshlands, bays, and mountain ridges are rendered with delicate hachuring alongside fine typography identifying hundreds of towns, villages, depots, and township boundaries.
Partie Septentrionale du New-Jersey, et Positions des Armées Américaine et Britannique Après le Passage de la Riviere du Nord, en 1776
Cartographer / Artist: Pierre François Tardieu (Engraver) / John Marshall
Date: c. 1807
Medium: Copperplate engraving on laid paper
Dimensions: 13.29 × 17.03 inches
Location: Northern New Jersey, New York, United States
An important French-language Revolutionary War military map documenting strategic troop deployments and movements across northern and central New Jersey following the British capture of Fort Washington and the retreat across the Hudson River (Rivière du Nord) in late 1776. The map covers the critical theater of war from Tappan and the Hudson River west to Morristown and south through New Brunswick, Princeton, Trenton, and Monmouth. Fine copperplate hachuring delineates the defensive topography of the Watchung Mountains, the Great Swamp ('Vaste Marecage'), and the First and Second Mountain ridges used by George Washington's Continental Army to monitor British maneuvers based in New York and Staten Island. Engraved military symbols highlight the encampments, skirmish lines, and transport arteries connecting early towns such as Newark, Elizabethtown, Woodbridge, Piscataway, and Bound Brook during the critical campaigns of 1776–1777.
CONNECTICUT
Cartographer / Artist: Thomas Gamaliel Bradford / George Washington Boynton
Date: 1838
Medium: Engraving with hand coloring
Dimensions: 11 x 14 inches
Location: Connecticut, United States
Designed by Thomas Gamaliel Bradford and engraved by G.W. Boynton in 1838, this finely detailed map highlights Connecticut's counties, towns, roads, rivers, and Long Island Sound topography.
U.S. Coast Survey: Sketch A Showing the Progress of the Survey in Section No. I
Cartographer / Artist: Alexander Dallas Bache / U.S. Coast Survey
Date: 1853
Medium: Lithograph
Dimensions: 26 x 28 inches
Location: Coastal New England (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire)
An intricate mid-19th-century U.S. Coast Survey geodetic triangulation chart mapping coastal New England from Rhode Island to New Hampshire, including Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket.