The first official map of
Rhode Island, and a vast improvement over all earlier
mapping of the state.
By Michael Buehler
BostonRareMaps.com
Background After the
Revolution the individual states needed to produce accurate
and useful maps of their territories. Such maps were
necessary for monitoring and stimulating settlement,
commerce, and development of transportation networks, as
well as for delineating public lands available for sale.
With a weak Federal government unable to provide support and
themselves short on cash, states had to come up with
creative models for funding these labor-intensive projects.
With the exception of Rhode Island, all New England states
were mapped, Vermont in 1796, Massachusetts (and Maine) in
1801, Connecticut in 1812, and New Hampshire in 1816.
For reasons unclear, no similar effort was attempted in
Rhode Island until 1821, when New York mapmaker Amos Lay set
out to map the state. Despite modest encouragement from the
General Assembly, Lay soon abandoned the project as
financially unworkable and sold his interest to one Ariel
Van Horn, Principal of the Westerly Academy. Horn in turn
entered into a partnership with “topographer and civil
engineer” James Stevens, with each having a half interest in
the project. At this time the General Assembly formally
acknowledged Horn and Stevens’ assumption of the project and
committed to paying them sixty dollars upon satisfactory
completion of the map. Horn however entirely failed to
deliver on his commitments, and Stevens terminated the
partnership and took the entire project on himself. (Providence
Patriot, Oct. 24, 1829, p. 2)
The survey was
based on a triangulation of the state, following the most
advanced practices of the time.
“[Stevens] appears to
have pursued the same course as that followed by the
Topographical Engineers, which is the establishment of a
Base Line between two noted and favorable objects, and on
this line forming a Triangle, each of whose sides are made
the basis of other triangles, and so on throughout the
survey–these forming a system of Triangles, angular points
of which serve as points of verification for all objects
included within their areas; so that the least error in the
position of an object in any triangle, would be shown by the
lines drawn from the angles and directed towards this
object, intersecting in more points than one.” (Providence
Patriot, Oct. 24, 1829, p. 2)
This was the first time
this procedure had been employed on a map of any state, and
it was soon followed in Massachusetts, where Stevens was
hired to assist Simeon Borden in producing an official map.
Stevens expended more than $2000 of his own money on
his surveys and repeatedly implored the Rhode Island
Assembly for financial support. The state’s finances
apparently being no sounder at the time than they are today,
rather than funding the project outright the Assembly in
1829 authorized a lottery:
“On Wednesday, July 14
will be drawn in this town the Rhode Island state map
lottery scheme got up for the purpose of publishing a
correct and authentic map of Rhode Island projected by Mr.
Stevens under the authority of the state. At this period,
when Rhode Island is assuming an important station among the
members of the confederacy, every citizen must feel an
honest pride at having her geographical lines and resources
made known.” (Providence Patriot, July 14, 1830, p.
3)
Stevens was allowed to
draw up to $2000 from the lottery proceeds, in return for
which he was to supply the State with 100 copies of the map
by June 15, 1830.
The project seems to have hit many
snags, and in fact the map was not copyrighted until 1831
and published in 1832. Some time in 1829 Stevens stopped
work for a time after threatened with a lawsuit by creditors
of his former partner Ariel Van Horn. Then in March of 1831
his papers were stolen from a coach in Boston, with the loss
of material crucial to the Rhode Island map:
“We noticed the other day
the loss sustained by major James Stevens of Newport in
Boston his trunk having been stolen from the stage. We
regret to learn that among his valuable papers which the
thief destroyed, was the manuscript map of Rhode Island,
upon which he is devoted such assiduous attention.
Fortunately the map had been entirely traced upon the
copperplate, except the names of places, & c. These Major
Stevens had collected with great care; and his business to
Boston was, in part, to have them traced on the plate, which
would then be complete to give the impression. Mr. Stevens
is allowed by act of the Gen. assembly, until July next, to
complete the publication of his map. He will now have to
collect all the names of places, &c. which have been lost.
To aid in this very desirable object he has forwarded to us
several proof impressions of the map, without names of
places, &c. which he is desirous of having filled up.” (Providence
Patriot, March 14, 1831, p. 4)
The theft appears to have
delayed the project significantly, which likely explains why
the map bears a copyright date of 1831 but was not published
until the following year.
The map
Executed at the scale of 1 ½ miles to the inch, the map is
far more detailed than any previous depiction of Rhode
Island. In 1829, when it was still a work in progress,
Stevens had promised that
“The topography of the
map will define the hills and valleys, the swamps and
marshes, the forests, meadow and cultivated lands. The map
will show the places first settled by our ancestors; the
Indian settlements, and the places where the principal
battles were fought with the natives, together with the most
remarkable places connected with the history of the first
settlement of the state; and will also show the position of
all the forts and readouts thrown up by the Americans, and
by the British troops during the Revolutionary war, together
with the fortifications and other public works proposed by
the military engineers, and now constructing by the United
States.– The scale from which the map is drafted is
sufficiently large to show all the sinuosities of the
shores, the meandering of the Rivers, the Turnpike roads,
Post roads, and all those generally traveled, and will show
every turn in the roads, the intersection of the crossroads,
and very distinctly even the streets in the towns, and all
the forts, bridges, canals, factories, mills, taverns, and
places of public worship throughout the whole state.” (Providence
Patriot, October 24, 1829, p. 2)
Stevens was true to his
word, and the map is a trove of detail about the state’s
natural and human geography.
One feature not
mentioned by Stevens is the rather extensive hydrographic
data in Narragansett Bay, primarily soundings but also
occasional notes of navigational hazards such as Brenton’s
Reef off Newport. The source of this information is not
known, but could not have been the Wadsworth Navy surveys,
which were only conducted in 1832. Ristow suggests it was
adapted from the work of the United States Coast Survey (p.
100), which he claims had completed surveys of Narragansett
Bay by 1830. This assertion should be discounted, however,
as the Coast Survey was inactive between 1818 and 1830, and
prior to that time its work had been confined to the New
York area.
Sale of the plate, and
Stevens v. Cady In 1846
Stevens was forced to sell the copper plate for his map to
pay off a court judgment. The plate was purchased by Isaac
Cady, who had it revised by Samuel Cushing and Henry F.
Walling and then reissued it under his own imprint (This is
incidentally the earliest known publication bearing the name
of Walling, who went on to become America’s leading mapmaker
of the third quarter of the 19th century.) Stevens sued,
arguing that ownership of the plate did not entail ownership
of the copyright and that by implication Cady’s printing of
the map was an act of intellectual piracy. The case made its
way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of
Stevens. This is said to have been the first copyright
infringement suit in the United States to involve a map.
Both editions of the map are rare, with OCLC listing
only a Harvard example of the 1831 first edition, with
others held by the Rhode Island Historical Society, the
Naval War College Museum in Newport, the Library of
Congress, and at least one private collection. The Rhode
Island Historical Society holds the only example of the 1846
edition known to this writer. Antique Map Price Record
lists but one example (of the 1831 edition) offered for sale
in the past quarter century.
References
Chapin, Maps of Rhode Island, #65, citing the example
at Rhode Island Historical Society. OCLC #751893745 and
#173190362 (both apparently citing the same example held by
Harvard). Phillips, p. 745. Ristow, American Maps and
Mapmakers, pp. 99-100.
|