Tag: Location: Pennsylvania
Pensylvania, Nova Jersey et Nova York cum regionibus ad Fluvium Delaware in America sitis
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This is a map by Tobias Lotter focused on Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. It is an extraordinary map for lots of reasons. The depiction of the geography and political boundaries of the day reflect the way things were in the 1760s. Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey — great prominence; and Philadelphia is, at the time, the largest city reflected, marked as it is by a very large red eight-pointed star in the middle. Several comments are in order.
This map was made by a German mapmaker, Lotter, and he made it in response to great interest back in Germany about the area depicted. Eastern Pennsylvania was, after all, one of the principal places in which Germans emigrating to the Americas settled, and there would be more to come in part because of maps like this. They answered a felt need in Europe to tell a little bit more about what it is that this “New World” would look like if they came. In the upper left-hand corner, is a huge cartouche[1] – a colorful cartouche reflecting William Penn trading with indigenous people, and running through the rest of the cartouche are a variety of animals – a wild turkey in the middle, a stag with great horns in the upper-right – and throughout there is activity that immediately draws the eye.
Another interesting feature of the map is the distortion of New England, which may, in part, have been intentional or, in part, simply for lack of knowledge. But New York is squeezed beyond recognition. Connecticut, the same. Rhode Island is a mere blip. Massachusetts is highly narrowed and, remarkably, Cape Cod is reflected as being part of Connecticut. So, a lot of re-organizing of the understanding of this part of the world was yet to come. But as a map, and as a piece of attractive propaganda for coming to this part of the New World, the Lotter map is hard to surpass.
[1] “Cartouche, in architecture, ornamentation in scroll form, applied especially to elaborate frames around tablets or coats of arms. By extension, the word is applied to any oval shape or even to a decorative shield, whether scroll-like in appearance or not.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/art/cartouche Accessed 9 Mar. 2021.
For more details, view the catalog record: https://library.villanova.edu/Find/Record/1935659
A map of Pennsylvania exhibiting not only the improved parts of that Province, but also its extensive frontiers
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This very large and wonderful map is a map of Pennsylvania that was made in approximately 1770, before our Declaration of Independence and before our Constitution, but the colony of Pennsylvania was well established at that point, and the surveyor-mapmaker, Scull, in this case, has done an extraordinary job in rendering the colony in its then-glory. There is so much here that one could spend an hour-and-a-half just pointing to this part or that part, but some of the things that stand out are that it is really a snapshot. It is a freeze-frame of what Pennsylvania looked like at the time. In the lower right-hand corner, in the area where the red patch appears, that’s the street plan of Philadelphia. One sees all manner of locations, streams, uh, historic spots, etc. And then as one moves more to the center and to the left, not surprisingly, the amount of detail starts to disappear. In the very left-hand-most part where the two rivers that form the Ohio come together at what is now Pittsburgh, one sees the indication that that was the location of Fort Pitt, formerly Fort Duquesne – of course “Duquesne” was the name when the French dominated that section. Pitt when the British later took that part over. There’s vast empty spaces on the left-hand side of the map because, to a large degree, colonists, explorers just hadn’t gotten that far, hadn’t gotten to find all the wonderful detail that one might find today.
Unfortunately, the map of the colony is not complete because we don’t see Lake Erie in the upper left-hand corner. But, again, if we go back over to the right, up in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, we see reference to the Pocono Mountains. We see reference to the “Endless Mountains” up toward Wyalusing. There is a reference here to the “Great Swamp.” And, of course, as one goes back down south toward Philadelphia tracing the route of the Delaware River, one gets back into the part of the world that we are familiar with here in southeastern Pennsylvania. There is a reference here to Radnor, and, of course, we are here in Radnor Township. There’s a reference to Lower Merion, and there are a number of historic spots that are picked up by this methodical and wonderful mapmaker. One could spend, literally, hours and hours enjoying all of the many facets that are backed up by Mr. Scull. A wonderful map. An extraordinary map.
For more details, view the catalog record: https://library.villanova.edu/Find/Record/1691581
