An uncommon plan of the Boston peninsula and Charlestown during the Revolution, side-by-side with a map of the greater Boston area. This image was published in the January 1776 Town and Country Magazine, while the British were still besieged in the town. Two months later the Americans would emplace cannon on Dorchester Heights, giving them command of the town and its water approaches. The British were forced to evacuate, being allowed to do so unmolested in return for not setting Boston afire.

The Boston plan is striking-at the time, the city was essentially an island linked to the mainland via a narrow causeway. Shown are the streets and some street names; as well as landmarks such as the Common (with the Liberty Tree and the “encampment of the King’s troops”), Long Wharf, and numerous fortifications. A rather schematic representation of the Charlestown Peninsula is shown to the North.

Complementing the city plan is a map of the greater Boston area, from roughly the Merrimack River in the North, southward to Plymouth and Providence, and westward as far as Holliston, Sudbury &c. Roads are shown, as are towns and town boundaries. This map would have provided British readers with a geographical context for understanding events in and around Boston, which was the main theatre of action during the first year of the Revolution.

With regard to scale, amount of information and quality of engraving, this is probably the finest geographic depiction of Revolutionary-era Boston issued in a contemporary periodical.

References

Boston Engineering Department, List of Maps of Boston, p. 74; Jolly, Maps of America in Periodicals before 1800, #302; Nebenzahl, Bibliography of Printed Battle Plans, #14 and 14a; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, p. 212.