Mr. Philip D. Burden
P.O. Box 863,
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UNITED KINGDOM
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This is the first plan of the city of Washington as laid out before its construction. This example is the first full size foreign printing of the official Thackara and Vallance plan printed in Philadelphia, 1792, which was made from L’Enfant’s original manuscript. It was issued just three years after the original in London. It was included as one of nine maps in H. D. Symonds’ ‘The American Atlas’, an English edition of Matthew Carey’s atlas of the same title published in the same year.

It is recorded that President Washington got frustrated at the delay in publication by the engravers in Philadelphia and wrote “that he believed the Philadelphia printers were delaying their work in order to undermine the project of creating the new capital”. He asked Jefferson to have a printed version prepared in Boston, or even London. The streets of old Georgetown are included. A rare and desirable plan. Phillips, maps, p.1005; Reps Washington on View pp. 36-7; Ristow, American Maps, p.153; Verner, 13.

RUSSELL, John

PLAN of the CITY of Washington, in the Territory of Columbia, ceded by the States of VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND to the United States of America, and by them established as the SEAT of their GOVERNMENT, after the YEAR 1800.

H. D. Symonds and J. Ridgeway, London, 1795

405 x 530 mm., with original folds as issued. Margin extensions where removed to facilitate binding into the book, no loss of image. Some of the folds split at the margin, repaired, none serious. A decent example of an important map.

Stock number: 4905

SOLD

Rare Maps and Prints

PLAN of the CITY of Washington, in the Territory of Columbia, ceded by the States of VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND to the United States of America, and by them established as the SEAT of their GOVERNMENT, after the YEAR 1800.