A Map of Pensilvania, New-Jersey, New-York, and the Three Delaware Counties - photo 1

A Map of Pensilvania, New-Jersey, New-York, and the Three Delaware Counties

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$ 138 600
Auction dateClassic
17.01.2024 11:00UTC -04:00
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CHRISTIE'S
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ID 1119173
Lot 96 | A Map of Pensilvania, New-Jersey, New-York, and the Three Delaware Counties
A Map of Pensilvania, New-Jersey, New-York, and the Three Delaware Counties

Lewis Evans, 1752

EVANS, Lewis (c.1700-1756). A Map of Pensilvania, New-Jersey, New-York, and the Three Delaware Counties: By Lewis Evans. Mdcclix. [Philadelphia]: Lewis Evans, 1752.



"I have omitted Nothing in my Power to render this Map as complete as possible. And tho' no Distance could be taken but by actual Mensuration (the Woods being yet so thick) I can declare it to be more exact than could be well expected" (author's note at lower left)



Lewis Evans's extremely rare first map: "the first occurrence of a large area of colonies mapped in detail" (Schwarz & Ehrenberg). State III (second edition). Lewis Evans was the first great colonial American cartographer, though he produced only two maps: this one and the celebrated 1755 General Map of the Middle British Colonies, for which the present map is the chief source. "Evans was born about 1700 in Caernarvonshire, Wales, and he traveled to India and South America as a young man. Although it is not certain when he arrived in North America, he was established in Pennsylvania by 1736. He married in 1744, and [Benjamin] Franklin's wife stood as godmother at the christening of their daughter ... In 1757, a New York historian, William Smith, wrote that Evans was 'a Man in low circumstances, his Temper precipitate, of violent passions, great Vanity and rude Manners.. He pretended to the knowledge of everything, and yet had very little learning.' In spite of this, if this portrayal is accurate, Evans remained a friend until his death of both Franklin and the influential Thomas Pownall ... A keen student of natural phenomenon, a traveler and a surveyor, Evans kept detailed journals. His journal, for example, of a trip in 1743 from Philadelphia to Onondaga, included not only descriptions of the topography and rocks, but also complex theories of the formation of the mountain ranges. For some of his reasoning he referred to a set of Chinese geography volumes of the early seventeenth century! His theories concerning electricity astounded contemporaries" (Snyder). Governor Pownall would suggest that it was the provocative comments about lightning storms on this map which inspired Benjamin Franklin's experiments in electricity.



Evans acquired the cartographic knowledge for this map beginning in 1737 when he was commissioned to survey the upper parts of Bucks County, which had recently been apportioned to the Pennsylvania proprietors. "In 1743, while on a diplomatic mission to Onondaga, seat of the Iroquois confederacy, he mapped the western territories of Pennsylvania and New York. Evans ... secured permission to make the trip because he was aware that adequate surveys for the upper Susquehanna regions did not exist. By 1749, Evans had assembled enough information to publish his first major work, [the present map]" (Pritchard & Taliaferro 34). The first edition was published in 1749 from a plate engraved by Lawrence Hebert of Philadelphia. It was revised twice in 1752 and the original plate reworked to add new places names and alter county boundaries. This is the third and last state with the addition of new names and roads north of Trenton. Correspondence with Thomas Penn indicates that these corrections were made in 1752. It cannot be said for certain, but it is very likely that Benjamin Franklin and David Hall printed this map; they were the presumed printers of the first edition in 1749 and certainly the printers of Evans's successor map in 1755. VERY RARE: There are only two copies of the first edition in the auction records, the T.W. Streeter copy sold in 1967 and one other sold in 1991. No copies of the second edition appear in these records. Schwartz & Ehrenberg, pl.91, Snyder, Mapping of New Jersey, pp.42-45; Wheat & Brun Maps & Charts published in America before 1800, no. 297. See Wroth, American Bookshelf, Appendix VI.



Engraved map by Lawrence Hebert, 650 x 497mm plate size on 770 x 565mm sheet (two horizontal folds with toning/creasing, two tiny holes near Wioming Falls, some marginal stains, top edge stained and with old reinforcement).

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