Boston Rare MapsSpecializing in rare, important and unusual American maps and prints
A mammoth hand-drawn and –painted school map of the United States produced in 1913 by an ethnic-Armenian immigrant from Turkey, aspiring to citizenship in his adopted country. The map is simple in design, clearly intended to be hung on a wall and viewed at a considerable distance, perhaps in a school hallway or auditorium. It depicts […]
An interesting and most decorative survey of lands in Lamar County, Texas by the hand of the patriarch of a family, in which land bequests to various family members are laid out and precisely described. Best as I can glean from census records, John Onstott (1802-1874) of North Carolina and Mary Polly Wood (1806-1879) of South […]
![[Anonymous], ΧΑΡΤΗς ΤΗς ΜΕΔΒΑς [Map of Medaba]. [Jerusalem, ca. late 1897-1900?]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/BRM3136-Madaba-map_lowres-150x150.jpg)
A rare and lovely manuscript based on the famed Madaba Map. One of the most spectacular cartographic relics of the ancient world, this enormous sixth-century mosaic floor map includes the earliest extant map of the Holy Land. Created in the late seventh century, the mammoth mosaic of the Middle East now known as the Madaba Map […]
![[ Dover Oklahoma ] N. V. Cook, County Surveyor, Kingfisher County, Oklahoma Territory, CITY OF DOVER Kingfisher Co. Oklahoma.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/BRM3562-Dover-OK-Territory-1893_lowres-150x150.jpg)
An 1892 manuscript plan of Dover Oklahoma, perhaps the oldest surviving plan of this important town on the Chisholm Trail. Such early manuscript plans of Oklahoma towns are very rarely encountered on the market. Background In the late 19th century drovers moved vast herds of cattle along the Chisholm Trail from Texas to Kansas, from […]
![[ Containment Policy ] Draper Hill, [Two versions of an untitled Vietnam War-era political cartoon featuring Lyndon Johson, Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara.] Probably Worcester, Mass., ca. 1865-68.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/BRM2941-Draper-Hill-LBJ-cartoon_2-150x150.jpg)
A rare political cartoon by Draper Hill satirizing the United States’ Cold War-era Containment Policy, which sought to limit the expansion of Soviet communism but ended up precipitating the catastrophe of the Vietnam War. Present here in both working manuscript and printed form, enabling one to see changes from conception to the final copy. The […]
![President Walter A. Carl / Draftsman D.W. Gurton, …BREWERY, AND BOTTLING HOUSE PREMISES OF THE BOSTON BEER COMPANY 225/49 & 230/44 W.2ND ST., SOUTH BOSTON, MASS. [with 8 architectural plans of the premises.] Boston, 1938.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/BRM3046-Boston-Beer-Company_1-of-9-copy-e1541157073328-150x150.jpg)
A 1938 plat, floor plans and sections for the brewery and bottling complex of the Boston Beer Company in South Boston. At the time the Company was the oldest operating brewery in the United States. The plat and plans depict the Boston Beer Company premises sprawling across two South Boston blocks bounded by Bolton, D, […]
![Francis Hoskins, A NEW AND CORRECT MAP of the WORLD According to the latest Discoveries. [with:] W.G. Krebs, A NEW AND CORRECT MAP of the WORLD According to the latest Discoveries. [Maryland or Virginia?]: Washington Academy, Oct. 13, 1814.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/BRM3102_3-Hoskins-and-Krebs-composite-1813-copy-e1555451429774-150x150.jpg)
Two nearly-identical schoolboy maps of the world, large in size, detailed in content and refined in execution. Remarkable for having been produced at the same school on the same date. Aside from the intrinsic appeal, these schoolboy maps are significant in having been drawn essentially simultaneously by two young men at the “Washington Academy.” The […]
![Anonymous, [Untitled plan docketed “Fort Moultrie” on verso.] [Charleston, early 1861-ca. 1863?]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BRM1335-Fort-Moultrie-ms_edited-scaled-e1665587791271-150x150.jpg)
A remarkably detailed plan of Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor, likely dating to the Secession Crisis or soon thereafter. The first Fort Moultrie (originally Fort Sullivan) was constructed of palmetto logs on the southern end of Sullivan’s Island in early 1776 to command the entrance to Charleston Harbor. Later that year this first, crude structure […]
![Jean-Claude Dezauche, MORBIHAN. [No place of publication, bearing the date 1800 in manuscript, but likely later.]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/BRM3553-Dezauche-Morbihan-1800-150x150.jpg)
A unique composition, being a pasted-up composite map of the département of Morbihan, France. The body of the map has been cut from Dezauche’s 1800 Carte itinéraire de la Bretagne, then squared off with a mix of printed and manuscript borders, with the map area outside the department infilled in manuscript. The map, the key […]
![[Anonymous]. Devizes Prison BLOCK PLAN. [No place, ca. latter part 19th century.]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/BRM3391-Devizes-Prison_lowres-150x150.jpg)
Fascinating 19th-century manuscript architectural plan of a Wiltshire prison on a revolutionary design, owing a debt to Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. Devizes Prison (properly Devizes County House of Corrections or colloquially “New Bridewell”) was designed by Richard Ingleman (1777-1838). Construction was completed in 1817, and the facility remained in use until being closed and demolished in […]