1874 U.S. Coast Survey Separate Issue Map of Annapolis Harbor, Maryland

Annapolis-uscs-1874
$400.00
The Harbor of Annapolis. - Main View
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1874 U.S. Coast Survey Separate Issue Map of Annapolis Harbor, Maryland

Annapolis-uscs-1874

U.S. Naval Academy.
$400.00

Title


The Harbor of Annapolis.
  1874 (dated)     18 x 20 in (45.72 x 50.8 cm)     1 : 60000

Description


This is the 1874 U.S. Coast Survey nautical map detailing Annapolis Harbor, Maryland, in a scarce separate issue example.
A Closer Look
Centered roughly on Annapolis, the chart details the Severn River to Herald Harbor, and parts of the middle Chesapeake including the western parts of Kent Island. The streets of Annapolis are evident, with a few important buildings named, including St. John's College and Ft. Severn (U.S. Naval Academy). Other named forts include Fr. Nonsense and Ft. Madison, underscoring Annapolis' strategic significance. There are four land profile charts - useful for navigators to recognize shorelines, as well as a wealth of practical information for the mariner.
Electrotype
This chart was printed from an electrotype of the original hand-engraved copper plate, a process the U.S. Coast Survey adopted around 1850. Copper plates, being of soft metal, could only withstand small print runs - perhaps 200-300 copies - especially given the large size of many coast survey maps, which put extra pressure on the plates. To enable larger print runs, a mold of the original plate was cast in wax. Then, using an electro-chemical process, hence 'electrotyping,' the mold was coated with copper or steel. Printers were thus able to print from the electrotype copy, while preserving the original engraved plate.
Publication History and Census
This map was initially prepared in 1846 by James Ferguson and Ferdinand H. Gerdes, under the direction of George M. Bache, nephew of Alexander Dallas Bache, Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey. The present example is the 1874 edition, featuring numerous updates and revisions. It was engraved by R. D. Cutts. While well represented institutionally, this chart is remarkably rare on the private market, as it was issued in only the 1846 edition of the Superintendent's Report. Separate issue examples, as here, are even scarcer.

CartographerS


The Office of the Coast Survey (1807 - present) founded in 1807 by President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of Commerce Albert Gallatin, is the oldest scientific organization in the U.S. Federal Government. Jefferson created the "Survey of the Coast," as it was then called, in response to a need for accurate navigational charts of the new nation's coasts and harbors. The spirit of the Coast Survey was defined by its first two superintendents. The first superintendent of the Coast Survey was Swiss immigrant and West Point mathematics professor Ferdinand Hassler. Under the direction of Hassler, from 1816 to 1843, the ideological and scientific foundations for the Coast Survey were established. These included using the most advanced techniques and most sophisticated equipment as well as an unstinting attention to detail. Hassler devised a labor intensive triangulation system whereby the entire coast was divided into a series of enormous triangles. These were in turn subdivided into smaller triangulation units that were then individually surveyed. Employing this exacting technique on such a massive scale had never before been attempted. Consequently, Hassler and the Coast Survey under him developed a reputation for uncompromising dedication to the principles of accuracy and excellence. Unfortunately, despite being a masterful surveyor, Hassler was abrasive and politically unpopular, twice losing congressional funding for the Coast Survey. Nonetheless, Hassler led the Coast Survey until his death in 1843, at which time Alexander Dallas Bache, a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, took the helm. Bache was fully dedicated to the principles established by Hassler, but proved more politically astute and successfully lobbied Congress to liberally fund the endeavor. Under the leadership of A. D. Bache, the Coast Survey completed its most important work. Moreover, during his long tenure with the Coast Survey, from 1843 to 1865, Bache was a steadfast advocate of American science and navigation and in fact founded the American Academy of Sciences. Bache was succeeded by Benjamin Pierce who ran the Survey from 1867 to 1874. Pierce was in turn succeeded by Carlile Pollock Patterson who was Superintendent from 1874 to 1881. In 1878, under Patterson's superintendence, the U.S. Coast Survey was reorganized as the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (C & GS) to accommodate topographic as well as nautical surveys. Today the Coast Survey is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA as the National Geodetic Survey. More by this mapmaker...


Alexander Dallas Bache (July 19, 1806 - February 17, 1867) was an American physicist, scientist and surveyor. Bache is best known in cartographic circles as the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey from 1843 to 1865. Born in Philadelphia, Bache, a great grandson of the statesman and inventor Benjamin Franklin, had a varied career primarily focused on education. He toured Europe on behalf of Girard College and composed an important treatise on European Education. Later he served as president of Philadelphia's Central High School and was a professor of natural history and chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. On the death of Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, Bache was appointed Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey. Picking up where Hassler left off Bache presided over the Survey during its most prolific period and oversaw the mapping of most of the United States coastline. To this day his name appears on countless marine pilot books and U.S. Coast Survey nautical charts. For his work he was elected Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. Following the Civil War, Bache was elected a 3rd Class Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. He died at Newport, Rhode Island and was buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC, where he is commemorated with a monument built by American architect Henry Hobson Richardson. Learn More...


Ferdinand H. Gerdes (September 15, 1809 - June 27, 1884) was one of the most active members of the U.S. Coast Survey team. His most important work includes several surveys of New York Harbor as well as detailed surveys of Florida, the Gulf Coast, and up the Mississippi River. Gerdes was born in Hanover, Germany (Prussia) and relocated to the United States sometime before 1836, when he joined he fledgling U.S. Coast Survey as an Sub-assistant under Hassler. From 1841 - 1844 he surveyed the New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware Bay Region. In 1844 he was assigned to the Gulf Coast, where he produced his most important and pioneering work. During the American Civil War, like most of the members of the Coast Survey, Gerdes was strongly pro-Union and worked diligently during the Civil War to provide Union commanders accurate surveying and cartographic materials. Gerdes is known to have commanded the ‘Sachem' and, during the Civil War, was heavily engaged with Union efforts to map and ultimately control, the Mississippi River. Following the war he produced detailed surveys of the Passes of the Mississippi. His health and age catching up on him, Gerdes retired to New York, where he completed additional surveys of long island as late as 1883, a year before his death. Learn More...


Richard Dominicus Cutts (September 21, 1817 - December 13, 1883) was an American army officer and civil servant. Born in Washignton, D.C., he attended Georgetown University and graduated in 1835. He volunteered for the Union Army in 1861 and was commissioned as a Colonel and Aide-de-Camp. He served on Major General Henry Wager Halleck's staff until he was made Chief of Staff under Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. He was brefetted to Brigadier General on March 13, 1865, and was mustered out on June 1, 1865. He spent decades working for the U.S. Coast Survey and then the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, where he rose to the position of Assistant in Charge of the Office. Cutts died on December 13, 1883, after contracting an illness during his return from a geodetic conference in Rome. He married Marth Jeffereson Hackley on December 16, 1845. Learn More...


James Hamilton Young (December 18, 1792 - c. 1870) was a Scottish-American draughtsman, engraver, and cartographer active in Philadelphia during the first half of the 19th century. Young was born in Avondale, Lanark, Scotland and emigrated to the United States sometime before 1817. Young was a pioneer in American steel plate engraving, a process superior to copper plate engraving due to the increased durability of steel. His earliest known maps date to about 1817, when Young was 25. At the time he was partnered with William Kneass (1780 - 1840), as Kneass, Young and Company, an imprint that was active from 1817 to 1820. He then partnered with with George Delleker, publishing under the imprint of Young and Delleker, active from 1822 to 1823. Young engraved for numerous cartographic publishers in the Philadelphia area, including Anthony Finley, Charles Varle, and Samuel Augustus Mitchell, among others. His most significant work includes maps engraved for Anthony Finley and later Samuel Augustus Mitchell. Mitchell proved to be Young's most significant collaborator. The pair published numerous maps from about 1831 well into the 1860s. Young retired sometime in the mid to late 1860s. In 1840 he registered a patent for an improved system of setting up typography for printing. ˆˆ Learn More...

Condition


Very good. Minor puncture upper border.

References


OCLC 45666419. Library of Congress, G3844.A6P5 1846 .U5.