An informative, attractive and rare wall map of Boston in 1835, depicting the city at a time of rapid and transformational change in demographics, infrastructure and topography.

This appealing and informative map depicts Boston and parts of Cambridge, Charlestown, East Boston, South Boston, Dorchester and Roxbury. By the 1870s all but Cambridge would be annexed by the City.

The map portrays the Boston area in considerable detail, including the street plan and street names; bridges, rail lines and wharves; and interesting details of the urban landscape such as the allées of trees surrounding and criss-crossing Boston Common, the facilities of the Charlestown Navy Yard, the cluster of factories in Roxbury, and the Revolutionary-era fortifications on Dorchester Heights. One particularly nice feature is the use of shading to differentiate built-up areas from those awaiting development. The map’s visual appeal and documentary value are greatly enhanced by side panels bearing views of the State House, the old City Hall (featuring now long-gone porticoes), Faneuil Hall Market, Tremont Street, the original building of the Massachusetts General Hospital (designed by Bullfinch), and several churches, and hotels.

Boston in 1835 was in the midst of rapid demographic change: due in large part to Irish immigration the 1840 census showed a staggering population growth of more than 50% in just ten years. The city’s infrastructure and even its geography were also changing at a striking pace, a phenomenon well documented on this map. Just for example, the city’s first three rail lines can be seen crossing the Back Bay (here labeled “Receiving Basin”), with each having its depot on new-made land along the Shawmut Peninsula. Likewise, Boston Neck has been widened to accommodate several avenues for residential development, and the street plan of South Boston has been laid out though development not yet begun.

That very year the map was published it was purchased and reissued by A. Williams and Co., with the only changes being a new imprint, the deletion of the copyright statement, and the addition of the date “1835” to the title block. The map is very rare in any form: I find fewer only a handful in institutional collections (see below), Antique Map Price Record does list any impressions having appeared for sale, and per Rare Book Hub the last (and only) one to appear on the market was offered by Goodspeed’s in 1916.

In all, an informative and visually appealing documenting Boston at a time of rapid and transformative change.

References

Boston Engineering Department, List of Maps of Boston 1600-1903, p. 106 (citing examples of the Bewick edition at the Boston Athenaeum, Boston Public, the Engineering Department, Harvard, and two private collections, as well as an example of the Williams edition at Boston Public. As of July 2017 OCLC locates but a single example of the Bewick edition (#166645907, Clements Library) and one of the Williams edition (#779618213, Massachusetts Historical Society). Not in Phillips, Maps of America or Rumsey.