Boston Rare Maps

Specializing in antique American maps & prints

Recent acquisitions

Landmark chart of New England and the Canadian Maritimes from John Seller’s Atlas Maritimus

Very scarce chart of the coasts of New England and the Canadian Maritimes from John Seller’s Atlas Maritimus, the best depiction of the region then available. Published in 1674, at a transitional moment in the history of the English colonies in North America. The chart depicts the coast from eastern Long Island round to Newfoundland […]

The 1811 Fourth of July celebration at Faneuil Hall, with John Adams and Paul Revere in attendance

A manuscript seating plan for the 1811 Fourth of July celebration in Boston’s Faneuil Hall, indicating the presence of both John Adams and Paul Revere. Reconstructed and enlarged in 1806 under the direction of architect Charles Bulfinch, Faneuil Hall served multiple functions: a public market on the ground level, city offices and a Great Hall […]

The first printed map of Milwaukee Wisconsin

An important American map, being the first printed plan of Milwaukee Wisconsin executed by early settlers Byron Kilbourn and Increase Lapham in 1835-36. The plan is a wonderful rarity whose story is intertwined with the founding and early controversies of the city. The plan depicts the future city extending for perhaps 1 ½ miles along […]

Monumental wall map of Fairfield County Connecticut

A lovely, richly-informative and very scarce wall map of Fairfield County, Connecticut published by Richard Clark in 1858 and in entirely original condition. Published in 1858, this was for its time by far the largest and most detailed map of Fairfield County. The area’s topography, particularly in the northwest part of the county, is shown […]

1870 map of California and Nevada by pioneering surveyor Leander Ransom

Scarce and significant 1870 pocket map of California and Nevada, compiled by Leander Ransom and published in San Francisco by Warren Holt. Described by Wheat as “a Nevada map of first importance” and Streeter as “a first rate map of California as it was in 1863 and… especially good for the mining districts in Nevada […]

Lucien Burleigh bird’s-eye view of Amherst, Massachusetts and Amherst College

An attractive and very rare 1886 bird’s-eye view of Amherst, Massachusetts by the prolific artist and publisher Lucien R. Burleigh. Located in the highlands along the east edge of the Pioneer Valley in Central Massachusetts, Amherst was very much on the frontier when it was settled in 1703 and incorporated in 1759. It was named, […]

Extraordinarily rare 1892 flat Earth map by Alexander Gleason

Only the fourth known example of Alexander Gleason’s 1892 New Standard Map of the World, an important example of the migration of flat Earth thought from England to the United States. At first look Gleason’s map is visually striking but otherwise innocuous: a north-polar azimuthal equidistant projection, enlivened by a bright-red horizon ring, with two […]

Unrecorded plat map of John Alexander Dowie’s utopian venture at Zion City Illinois

Large, detailed and unrecorded plat map of Zion City, issued around 1901 as John Alexander Dowie sought to re-establish his Chicago-based Christian Catholic Apostolic Church as a utopian community in northern Illinois. Background Dowie (1847-1907) was a faith healer, founder and leader of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church and the utopian community of Zion City; […]

Spectacular Nav War Map of the Southwest Pacific

A spectacular pictorial map of the Southwest Pacific, issued in 1944 by the U.S. Navy. The map highlights events beginning with the Japanese offensive of late 1941 and early 1942, identified by sweeping orange arrows. American counteroffensives are shown by light blue arrows, beginning with the 1942 landings on Guadalcanal, with the limits of American […]

Lovely—and extraordinarily rare—late-Renaissance cosmography by Van Aelst

Second recorded impression of this elaborate and lovely synthesis of Classical and Christian cosmography, engraved in late-Renaissance Rome by Nicolas van Aelst. Such geocentric cosmographical diagrams are of great antiquity; versions appear, among others, in the writings of Aristotle (385-322 B.C.) and the great Alexandrian geographer and astronomer Ptolemy (fl. ca. 150 B.C.). The Classical […]

A fine, early sea chart of New York and southern New England

This important work provides crucial information on eastern New York and southern New England. The main chart depicts the coast from Rensselaer Hook in New Jersey to roughly the “elbow” of Cape Cod, with extensive soundings and notations of shoals and other hazards. Much detail is given for Long Island Sound, Narragansett Bay and the waters […]

An early manuscript map of the New York City area, with provenance to one of the U.S. Navy’s first frigate captains

An early manuscript map of what is now New York City, based closely on William Bradford’s New Map of the Harbour of New York, one of the great rarities of 18th-century American cartography. Like the Bradford map, our manuscript depicts New York and northeastern New Jersey from roughly present-day Marlboro Township in the southwest, to Little Falls in […]

Battling the scourge of profanity in 18th-century Massachusetts

A scarce 1798 Massachusetts broadside transmitting a new law outlawing profanity and specifying procedures for prosecution and fines to be levied upon conviction. Section I of the Act specifies progressively larger fines to be levied upon repeated instances of profanity, “one moiety of the several forfeitures, aforesaid, to be to the use of the poor […]

Superb map of the Boston area by John G. Hales

A most important 1819 map of the Greater Boston area by John G. Hales. Though little known today, Hales deserves a place among the first rank of early American surveyors and map makers. Hales’ wonderful map depicts the region encompassing Beverly to the northeast, Scituate to the southeast, and Natick, East Sudbury &c. to the […]

Rare handkerchief map of the United States, printed in full color

A rare and decorative 1841 handkerchief map of the United States, one of only four early American cartographic textiles identified in Threads of History. Tuttle’s map depicts the United States to 24 degrees west of Washington, including parts of the territory just west of the Missouri River and of the Republic of Texas. The cartographic prototype […]

Spectacular Old Colony Railroad broadside touting service to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket

A spectacular and previously-unknown late 19th-century broadside touting Old Colony Railroad and Old Colony Steamship Company service to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The Old Colony Railroad is not mentioned on this broadside, but the content points directly to that firm, as it dominated transportation in southeastern Massachusetts for much of the 19th century. Established in […]

Benjamin Harrison’s 1888 presidential campaign gives The Whole Story In A Nutshell

The Whole Story In A Nutshell is a rare and striking cartographic broadside favoring Republican Benjamin Harrison’s 1888 bid for the Presidency against Democratic incumbent Grover Cleveland. The broadside features two persuasive maps of the United States, the upper with Harrison’s image superimposed, the lower with Cleveland’s. Captions on the maps and flanking columns of […]