MAPs to show the way

 
     
41. Julio Ramon de Cesar.  Mapa sacado con la occasion de la entrada que hizo a su costa a los fertiles y dilatados paises del gran chaco Gualamba, el Governador de la Prova. del Tucuman Dn. Geronimo Matorras.  1774.  Manuscript.

This map records the expedition of Geronimo Matorras, Governor of Tucuman, into the interior Indian country of Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia.  The drawing memorializes the governor’s meeting with “El famoso Indio Paykin.”  “Z” marks the main route from Buenos Aires to Peru (Potosi is at the very top of the map).
 
     
42. Christopher Gist.  The draught of Genl. Braddock’s route towards Fort du Quesne.  15th of Sept. 1755.  Manuscript.

Christopher Gist has been described as the first European to explore carefully the Ohio River valley and northeastern Kentucky.  As a guide he accompanied General Braddock’s army of regulars and volunteers--including a young George Washington--on its ill-fated expedition to attack the French at Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh).  The British troops were surprised and routed by the bush fighting tactics of the French and their Indian Allies.  In the words of Benjamin Franklin:  “[Braddock] had too high an idea of the validity of European troops, and too low a one of Americans and Indians.”
Gist’s sketch of Braddock’s route to Pittsburgh was the first separate map to be acquired by the Library.  It came by accident, folded into a copy of Thomas Mante’s History of the late war in America, London, 1772, bought by John Carter Brown in 1846.
 
     
43. William Alsop.  A map of all Friends Meetings belonging to the Yearly Meeting of Rhode Island.  1782.  Manuscript.

Maps such as this one were prepared for itinerant Quaker ministers to consult for the location of various meetings and the distances between them.  Originally, this map was backed with heavy linen so it could be folded for travel in much the same way as the “holster atlas.”  (no. 38)
 
     
44. Christopher Colles.  A survey of the roads of the United States.  [New York], 1789.

Colles’s Survey consists of eighty-three strip maps of roads covering the area from Albany to Annapolis.  Each section covers twelve miles of road at a scale of one inch to four-sevenths of a mile.  Precise notation of distance was made possible by Colles’s use of a perambulator that measured mileage by revolutions of a wheel attached to the back of a carriage.
 
     
  Exhibition prepared by susan danforth.
on view in the reading room from January 27 to april 23, 2010