A MAP OF THE STATE OF OHIO FROM ACTUAL SURVEY.
Hough, Benjamin, and Alexander Bourne:
Philadelphia: John Melish, 1815. Folding map, 46 x 51 inches, partially handcolored, backed on linen. Laid in original three-quarter roan and marbled boards, linen ties affixed to spine. Contemporary signature on front board. Minor insect damage to linen, not affecting map. A very nice copy in fine contemporary condition. In a cloth clamshell case, leather label. The second map devoted to the state of Ohio, a greatly expanded and revised version of the first, issued in 1807. Hough and Bourne were General Land Office surveyors who took over and improved the work of the surveyor general of the United States, Jared F. Mansfield. Because of his position, Mansfield had access to original working materials of government agents. However, when he issued his MAP OF THE STATE OF OHIO FROM THE RETURNS IN THE OFFICE OF THE SURVEYOR GENERAL (1807), he issued it privately. Hough and Bourne evidently bought the copyright to Mansfield's work after he was killed in the War of 1812, then substantially expanded it, evidently based on their own work. This map, with their revisions, is "the first map of Ohio to show all the actual surveys within the inhabited part of the state" (Ristow). "This large and detailed map of Ohio shows rapid progress of the township grid from the original surveys in the eastern part of the state in the 1790s. In southern Ohio some of the areas claimed by land companies established in the colonial period were surveyed and parcelled out prior to 1795, and their irregular patterns, conforming more to topography than geometry, are in strong contrast to the tyranny of the grid. Similar collisions of old and new systems of land tenure and surveying can be seen elsewhere in the country, particularly along the lower Mississippi where a pattern of plantation strips running back from the river established by the French settlers encounters the later American squares. Such patterns in the landscape are best seen from airplanes; they reward the traveller with an atlas and a window seat" - Reese & Miles. The present copy contains the ownership signature of Charles Shaler, Esq., the former U.S. District Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania during the period from 1853 to 1857. A quite rare map, with no copy appearing in ANTIQUE MAP PRICE RECORDS, nor is there a copy in Rumsey. The Streeter copy, the last to appear in book auction records, was sold by this firm to the Yale Map Collection in 1982. REESE & MILES, CREATING AMERICA 57. OCLC 16881206. STREETER SALE 1354. PHILLIPS MAPS, p.627. SMITH, MAPPING OF OHIO, p.159. RISTOW, p.146.
(Item ID: WRCAM39301) $75,000.00