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1790 Colles Survey of Roads - First American Road Book - Complete
SurveyofRoads-colles-1790Colles placed the year 1789 on the title page in order to make the book's publication coincide with the ratification of the Constitution and the formation of the new government. Indeed, Colles even goes so far as to begin the book's fictional journey on Plate 1 at New York's Federal Hall, which was in 1789, the new national capitol and the recent site of Washington's inauguration. In this way, the book makes the continual literal and symbolic reference to the newly invented nation-state even as it attempts to collect and contain a map to every known space within it in the highly singular space of a book. That it does so in such a way that each represented space can also be experienced locally, by the body hold up any given map on any given road, makes this an exceptional artifact in the production of federalist space.The Work of a Mad Tinkerer
Colles constructed and published a series of sectional road maps which were engraved by his daughter.It should be underlined that Eliza also engraved another of Colles' extremely rare but monumental Geographical Ledger, which appeared in 1794 shortly after the Survey of Roads and bears Eliza's imprint.
Covers and Prospectus Title page 7-Jan New York to Stratford 13-Aug New York to Poughkeepsie 14 Poughkeepsie - Albany 15 - 20 Stratford to Poughkeepsie 21 - 25 Poughkeepsie - Albany 26 - 33 Albany to Newborough 34 - 39 Never published, lacking in all known copies 40 New York to Elizabeth town 41 - 42 New York to Brunswick 43 New York to Kingston 44 New York to Trenton 45 New York to Bristol 45* New York to Cranberry 46 New York to Frankford 46* New York to Allentown 47 New York to Philadelphia 47* New York to Blackhorse 48 New York to Mount Holly 49 - 50 New York to Philadelphia 51 - 60 New York to Annapolis 62 - 63 Annapolis to Bladensburg 64 - 65 Annapolis to Alexandria 66 Annapolis to Dumfries 67 - 68 Annapolis to Fredericksburg 69 Annapolis to Tod's Ordinary 70 Annapolis to Bowling-green Ord* 71 Annapolis to Head Lynch's Ord* 72 Annapolis to Hanover Courthouse 73 Annapolis to Hanover and New Castle 74 - 75 Annapolis to New Kent Court-house 76 - 77 Annapolis to Williamsburgh 78 - 79 Annapolis to York 80 - 81 Williamsburgh to Aylett's Warehouse 82 Williamsburgh to Sneed's Ordinary 83 - 84 Williamsburgh to Port-Royal 85 - 86 Williamsburgh to Hooe's Ferry
Christopher Colles (May 9, 1739 - 1816) was an Irish-born American polymath, civil engineer, inventor, and publisher active in New York during the late British Colonial, Revolutionary War, and post-Revolutionary War periods. Colles was born in Ireland where as young man, he proved adept at mathematics and mechanics under the patronage of his uncle, William Colles, and the tutelage of Rochart Pococke, an English clergyman and anthropologist. His first mapping projects included 1777 surveys of Limerick, which were later collated and compiled into a published map. When his uncle/patron William Colles died, in 1771, Colles emigrated to Philadelphia where he attempted to established himself as an engineer. Failing to draw clients to his grandiose visions, he instead turned to lecturing, advertising courses on hydraulics, mechanics, hydrostatics, pneumatics, and geography, among others. Shortly before the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War (1775 - 1783), Colles relocated to New York City, where he convinced the Municipal Council to fund an ambitious water management and distribution project. By the time the British invaded New York, in 1776, the project was well underway, but was sadly demolished by the invading army. Sympathizing with the Continental cause, Colles fled the British controlled city, first to New Jersey, then to Kingston New York, and possibly as far as Albany. Following the war, he petitioned George Washington and the New York State legislature for funds to complete major waterway projects in the Ohio River and Mohawk River Valleys. Both projects, failing to secure funding, were abandoned. From 1789 - 1790, Colles published one of his most significant works, A Survey of the Roads of the United States, detailing, two or three maps to a sheet, American roads from New England to Virginia. This important project was the first comprehensive road atlas published in the United States. While A Survey of Roads of the United States is a seminal work of great historical significance, it was financial failure. Over the subsequent years, Colles continued to propose high-minded civil engineering projects, ranging from a proto 'Erie Canal' to a raised New Jersey 'Timber Canal.' During the War of 1812, Colles worked in the New York optical telegraph office, only the second to have been established in the United States. He was also a commissioned captain of the New York Militia. As he grew older, Colles' careers floundered and he fell into a state of extreme poverty, ultimately taking work as the janitor of an alms house. He died shortly thereafter. In describing the Geographical Ledger, one of Colles' great unpublished works, the historian Trish Longhran, gives us a great understanding of the genius's character and tragic life marked by ambition and failure:
The Geographical Ledger went the way of all of Colles' projects: it failed because it lacked subscribers, because Colles did not have the resources to produce it on the terms he had proposed, and because it was, in short, materially unfeasible for an impoverished New York tinkerer to produce a map of the world that recorded and cross-referenced every imaginable everything. (Longhran, T., The Republic in Print, page 298)Christopher Colles was buried at St. Paul's, in New York City, in an unmarked grave, a remarkable man driven by a vision and genius, that, ahead of its time, was also his downfall. Colles was survived by his wife Anee Keough Colles and their surviving children, including his daughter, Eliza [Elizabeth] Colles (1775 - 1799), who engraved many of his maps becoming, as such, America's first female map engraver. More by this mapmaker...
Elizabeth Colles (1775 - 1799) or Eliza, was an American engraver of Irish descent, the daughter of visionary inventory and mapmaker, Christopher Colles. She was the first American female map engraver. Working for her father, Eliza engraved many of the plates for A Survey of the Roads of the United States, the first American road book, and the unpublished/unfinished Geographical Ledger (New York plate, Canada/Vermont Plate, and the two diagrams in the index). Eliza was probably taught engraving by either her father or Cornelius Tiebout, and appears to have become involved with the Colles Survey of Roads at just 13 years of age, when her father, Christopher Colles, had a falling out with Tiebout. Her name is often represented as Eliza Coles. Elizabeth died at 23 or 24, probably in the 1799 Yellow Fever Epidemic. Learn More...
Cornelius Tiebout (c. 1760 - February 1832) was an American engraver of portraits and maps, possibly the first American-born engraver. He is credited with engraving most of the maps for Christopher Colles' 1789-1790 A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America and for introducing English stippled portraiture to America. Tiebout was born to Tunis Tiebout and Elizbeth Lamb in New York City. They were an hold Huguenot family with lands on the Delaware River as early as 1656. He was initially apprenticed as a silversmith under John Burger (1747 - 1828), but began engraving on copper to make extra money. His imprint appears alongside that of Burger on a collection of psalm tunes from about 1780-1785 - suggesting this is apprentice work. Apprenticeships ran from about 14 - 21, and his master adding his name to the imprint suggesting a late apprenticeship stage, meaning he was likely born about 1766 - 1765. Most references regarding his birth place it around 1773 - 1777, but this latter range seems a stretch. As early as 1789 he was working with Christopher Colles on various projects including A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America. In 1790, Tiebout had a falling out with Colles, abandoned the incomplete road book project, and took work engraving for New York Magazine and Brown' Family Bible. Early in 1793, Tiebout traveled to London where he studied English stipple engraving under James Heath. Returning to New York in 1796, he completed a stipple engraving of John Jay, the first strong example of that style by an American, establishing his reputation as a portraitist. Tiebout remained as an engraver in New York until 1799, after which he relocated to Philadelphia where he achieved some success selling portrait prints, becoming in the process wealthy. In a turn-around, in 1825 most of his riches were lost in a failed business venture of uncertain aspect. Shortly after his financial collapse, Tiebout relocated to New Harmony, Indiana, where he founded a free school of printing and engraving with industrialist William Maclure. He died in February of 1832. Tiebout maintained offices in New York at 24 Golden Hill and 273 Pearl Street. Learn More...
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This copy is copyright protected.
Copyright © 2024 Geographicus Rare Antique Maps