“This extremely rare map in any state” is one of the earliest and best general maps of the English colonies in North America. It shows the entire Atlantic Seaboard from Nova Scotia to the Chesapeake, but the Carolinas shown in an inset (Burden). This is the second state of three, Burden locates just two examples of the first state (British Library and NYPL), and Deak notes an additional copy at JCB. A handful of copies of the second state have been identified.

The first state evidently was published in 1679, when a map with a virtually identical title, by “R. Daniel Esquire,” was advertised in the ‘Term Catalogues’. The first state has the imprint below the title of Daniel, Morden and William Berry. Daniel’s and Berry’s names were removed from the second state, and the name of recently founded Pennsylvania was added to the title in the resulting blank space. This second state was in fact one of the earliest maps to include the new colony of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia founded October 1682 is shown, and the watersheds of the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers have been re-engraved to reflect a more accurate geography.

The map is particularly important for New England. The cartographer, “R. Daniel,” is believed to be Richard Daniel, the author of ‘The Present State of New England by Richard Daniel, Gent.’, c.1689. That work, and the interesting detail the map includes for New England, suggest that Daniel was a resident of Massachusetts. Burden notes that the map is “the first to include roads in North America,” all of which appear in New England. The lower course of the Connecticut River is displayed for the first time with any degree of accuracy and the map is interesting as the only one to follow the 1652 declaration of the Massachusetts General Court that Lake Winnipesaukee was the source of the Merrimac River. It is also the first to show “Woster” (Worcester) Massachusetts, settled in 1684, and called “Quinsigamond” until the inhabitants petitioned to have the name changed to Worcester on September 10th of that year. Worcester must have been added to this second state, which must have been published in 1685 rather than the traditionally assigned date of 1684.

In the first state the influence in the depiction of the Chesapeake is from John Ogilby’s 1671 map, but many details are taken from Augustine Herrman’s 1673 map, especially in this second state, where the upper part of the bay and the upper course of the Potomac have been completely redrawn and improved. Many interesting details from Herrman are included, such as “Green Springs,” Governor Sir William Berkeley’s home near Jamestown on the Lower Peninsula. The Carolinas are shown after John Lederer’s map of 1673, with Lederer’s line of march omitted. The last example of the second state to appear on the market was a poor example that brought $60,000 at Christie’s NY 21 June 2005 (lot 13). Provenance: private American Collection. Burden ‘The Mapping of North America’, 514; Cumming, ‘Southeast in Early Maps’, 82 (state 1) & 103 (state 2); Deak, ‘Picturing America’, 63 (state 1); McCorkle, ‘New England in Early Printed Maps’, 679.1 (state 1); Pritchard & Taliaferro, ‘Degrees of Latitude’, pp. 360-61 (state 2); Stevens & Tree, Comparative Cartography, 19.