Boston Rare MapsSpecializing in rare, important and unusual American maps and prints
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 […]
![[Title on cover:] GUIDE MAP OF NEW YORK CITY Showing present and proposed transit lines and pictures of properties owned by the New York Real Estate Security Company. These properties are the security for the Company’s 6% Mortgage Bonds. [Title on map:] SOME OF THE PROPERTIES OWNED BY THE NEW YORK REAL ESTATE SECURITY CO. MAIN OFFICE 42 BROADWAY, NEW YORK CITY, U. S. A. [New York, 1912-1913.]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/BRM3484-New-York-Real-Estate-Co_lowres-scaled-e1582232074896-150x150.jpg)
An unrecorded ca. 1912 persuasive map of New York City touting bonds offered by the New York Real Estate Security Company. Everything about the map is designed to convey the safety of the Company’s offerings, and yet in 1913 it was forced into bankruptcy and its holdings liquidated. The New York Real Estate Security Company […]
A rare and striking 1922 Ralph Carlyle Prather bird’s-eye view of the Rocky Mountain National Park as seen looking west from an imaginary viewpoint above the town of Estes Park (elev. 7547’), with 14,255-foot Long’s Peak looming in the background. This remarkable image was produced to capitalize on the region’s emerging tourist economy, catalyzed in […]
![William C. Reynolds / Electrotyped by Filmer & Co., 128 Fulton St., New York, REYNOLDS’S POLITICAL MAP OF THE UNITED STATES DESIGNED TO EXHIBIT THE COMPARATIVE AREA OF THE FREE AND SLAVE STATES AND THE TERRITORY OPEN TO SLAVERY OR FREEDOM BY THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. New York: Published by W[illia]m C. Reynolds, No. 195 Broadway, and J.C. Jones, No. 1 Spruce Street [and] Chicago: Rufus Blanchard, No. 52 La Salle Street, 1856.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/BRM3505-Reynolds-Political-Map-United-States-1856_lowres-150x150.jpg)
A rare and remarkable persuasive map promoting the 1856 Presidential campaign of John Fremont and highlighting the threat posed by the southern “Slave Power.” Used as the cover image for Susan Schulten’s Mapping the Nation (2012). The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act established two new territories and repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had hitherto prohibited […]
The 1830 first edition of the Austin map of Texas, arguably the single most important map in Texas history, and one of the great rarities of cartographic Americana. The Stephen F. Austin Map of Texas occupies an important place in American and Texan history and the progress of westward expansion. As the first broadly accurate map of […]
![Gustavus R. Bechler, MILITARY MAP refering [sic] to the CAMPAIGNS OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC in VIRGINIA, MARYLAND, AND PENNSYLVANIA…. 1865…. Compiled from the latest and most reliable sources. New York: H. H. Lloyd & Co., 1865.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/BRM4156-HH-Loyd-Campaigns-Army-of-Potomac-1865_lowres-scaled-e1677861427635-150x150.jpg)
A rare and spectacular map of the theatre of the Civil War in the Mid-Atlantic region, with much information on the many engagements fought by the Army of the Potomac. The Army of the Potomac was created in July 1861, soon after the shocking Union defeat at First Bull Run. Its dual missions were to […]
The single most striking map documenting the Chicago Fire of October 1871. The Chicago Fire began on the evening of October 8, on or near the O’Leary’s property at 137 De Koven Street on the city’s southwest side. It burned out of control until the 10th, leaping the Chicago River and killing hundreds of people, destroying tens of thousands […]
![J[ames] H[amilton] Young, A NEW MAP OF TEXAS WITH THE CONTIGUOUS AMERICAN & MEXICAN STATES. Philadelphia: S. Augustus Mitchell, 1836 [copyright 1835].](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/BRM4228-Mitchell_Young-Texas-1836_lowres-scaled-e1661859002962-150x150.jpg)
The first Republic-era edition (and second overall) of this important map of Texas, published in May 1836 just weeks after it declared its independence from Mexico. The map clearly reflects current events by depicting the Republic as a distinct political entity, much shaped by the land grants to and improvements made by its American settlers. In the […]
![Rand McNally & Co., THE MEXICAN SITUATION, Showing Location of American Fleet and Border Forts. Chicago: The Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, [1914].](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/BRM3752-Mexican-Situation-1913_map_lowres-scaled-e1629725000301-150x150.jpg)
One of the stranger maps I have encountered, this is a Rand McNally map of Mexico, heavily overprinted to reflect the Mexican Revolution in mid-1914, then further adapted as a promotional map by the Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway. After more than three decades of authoritarian rule by Porfirio Diaz, from 1910 on Mexico […]
A rare 1871 edition of a most appealing pocket map of the heart of New Hampshire’s White Mountains region, first issued in 1858 by Harvey Boardman and here updated by H. S. Fifield. Designed for the tourist market, the map shows roads and “carriage ways” (including one on the route of the present-day Crawford […]