1794 Christopher Colles Geographical Ledger Map of the United States

Most complete extant example of Christopher Colles' 1794 unpublished and unfinished magnum opus.

The most complete extant example of Christopher Colles' 1794 unpublished and unfinished magnum opus, The Geographical Ledger, a loose-leaf indexed atlas of the United States whose sheets could be combined into a single enormous map. While not the first large-format American map, the Ledger, even unfinished, is unprecedented in its size and detail, and is the first general map to identify such items as early American forges (furnaces), mills, roads, farmsteads, property owners, roadside inns, fledgling settlements, early county configurations, etc. Although Colles is better known for his publication of the seminal 1790 Survey of the Roads, The Geographical Ledger was a work of boundless ambition that exceeded not only Colles' meager funds, but also the needs and values of the time. Nonetheless, the Ledger, even though unfinished, stands out as the masterwork of an unrecognized genius in pursuit of grandiose visions ahead of his time.

Description of the Work

The Geographical Ledger consists of five large map sheets, each measuring about 14.5 x 20 inches, covering roughly 2 degrees of latitude and 4 degrees of longitude. The maps are on a conical projection with coverage extending from roughly Montreal to New York City, and inland as far as Lake Ontario and the Finger Lakes. At the top of each map, there are three lines indicating graduations of longitude from Paris, London, and Philadelphia, respectively. Each map features a key in the upper left with three numbers; the middle number refers to that map, and the numbers above and below refer to the adjoining sheets. Extant map numbers include:

• 1458 - Western New York and Lake Ontario. (LOC, NYHS, GEOG, NYPL ledger only)
• 1548 - Pennsylvania and New Jersey (NYHS, LOC, GEOG w/ledger and manuscript corrections, NYPL ledger only)
• 1369 - Northern Vermont, Northern New Hampshire, Vicinity of Montreal (LOC, GEOG, no ledger known)
• 1459
- Massachusetts, southern Vermont, southern New Hampshire, southern Maine. (LOC, GEOG, NYHS, NYPL w/ledger)
• 1549 - Connecticut, Long Island, New York City, northern New Jersey (LOC w/ledger, NYHS, GEOG)

The The Geographical Ledger remains incomplete, but Colles' vision called for it to be expanded to cover not only the United States, but the entire world, as he notes in the introduction,

As a great number of foreigners are continually arriving in this country, it appears feasible to me, that the maps of some parts of Europe, Asia, or Africa, might be with purchasers. I therefore thought it advisable to form the design universal.

Colles, moreover, intended each map to be accompanied by a 'Ledger' or index. The ledgers are in the same format as the Survey of the Roads. Most examples are bound in Colles' signature blue paper wrappers identical to those used for the Survey of the Roads. He also intended various updated and newly printed maps from his Survey to accompany each ledger. Only the NYPL example of the 1548/1458 ledger features these (maps 40 - 47).

The Colles System

Colles found most of the maps of his period oversized and cluttered, and as a consequence, hard to read, maintain, and use. To resolve the issue, he imagined the The Geographical Ledger as a manageable, ever-expanding, loose-leaf atlas with map sheets measuring no more than 14.5 x 20 inches. He also introduced his novel gridded coordinate-based index system to remove extraneous engraving and yield a more open and spacious yet information-dense map. For the most part, his maps thus lack place names; instead, geographical locations are referenced using the accompanying index/ledger and lettering system. Each 'ledger' has two sections, a 'References' section and an 'Index.

The 'References' section acts as a key to the map's gridded coordinate system, with lower-case letters representing longitudinal and capital letters representing latitudinal lines. Each grid square has a number of locations, including mills, towns, farms, ferries, furnaces, tracts of land, falls, taverns, geographical features, and more, identified by corresponding letters. Thus, by studying the map, with the ledger in hand, one could reference various grid blocks and have a good understanding of the regional transportation network, resources, and infrastructure.

The 'references' section of the individual 'ledgers' is followed by a more traditional 'index', which, like most modern maps, lists towns and villages in alphabetical order with assigned coordinates. In some cases, referenced locations are described textually on the map; in other cases, they are assigned letters in the index, which appear instead of the place name on the maps.

Three Different Engravers?

The maps exhibit at least three different engraving styles. Plates 1369 and 1549 both bear the imprint of Eliza [Elizabeth] Colles - Christopher's 17-year-old daughter. Plates 1459 and 1548 exhibit a complementary style that is similar, but more refined than Eliza's, perhaps the hand of Christopher Colles himself, as it is likely that these were the first plates he would have engraved, given his expertise on the region, a legacy of his civilian work during the American Revolutionary War (1775 - 1783) and shortly thereafter. Plate number 1548, for which we also have the index, exhibits a more professional and formal engraving style - for example, note how the scale at top center and the different techniques employed to illustrate topography.

Engraved by America's First Female Map Engraver - Eliza Colles

The maps were drafted by Colles, but at least two (1369 and 1549, and possibly 1459 and 1548) were engraved by his daughter Eliza [Elizabeth] Colles. Colles used Cornelius Tiebout to engrave his maps for the 1790 Survey of the Roads, but partway through the engraving work, he had a falling out with Tiebout. To complete the work, he recruited his 13-year-old daughter, Eliza, who may have been Tiebout's apprentice. Eliza thus became the first American female engraver. While there is no definitive proof that Eliza engraved for the Survey of the Roads, many scholars note that the engraving style of the individual sheets does change, suggesting at least two different engravers were active. There is no doubt, however, that Eliza, engraved at least two of the plates for the present Geographical Ledger, as they bear her imprint. Her imprint also appears on the two projection diagrams appearing at the back of the 'Ledger'. (Note, there is some evidence that Elizabeth Colles died in 1779, but her imprints on the Geographical Ledger, and her like work on the Survey of the Roads seem to suggest otherwise. Given the vagary of records, it is also possible that 'Elizabeth' and 'Eliza' were different people.)

On Rarity and Known Examples

Since The Geographical Ledger was unpublished, it can be assumed that all known surviving examples are proof states. Examples are held in three repositories: the New York Public Library, the New York Historical Society, and the Library of Congress.

• NYPL - The New York Public Library holds all four of the known existing indexes or 'ledgers', but only one of the 5 large maps (sheet 1459, covering Massachusetts, southern Vermont, Southern New Hampshire, and Southern Maine).
• NYHS - The New York Historical Society holds four of the large maps which have been dissected and laid down on linen in two panels: 1458 (Western New York), 1459 (Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire), 1458 (Pennsylvania, New Jersey), and 1459 (New York City, Long Island, Connecticut). They have only a facsimile of the 'Ledger' for one of the maps.
• LOC - the Library of Congress owns what many consider to be the exemplar Geographical Ledger, including all 5 map sheets, but only a single index (1549) - making it the equivalent of the present offering.

It is of note that the NYHS example is from the estate of Reverend J. E. Strickland of Jersey, England. Strickland received the map from the estate of his ancestor, William Strickland, who arrived in New York City from England on September 20, 1794, and remained in the United States until 1795. It is not clear where he obtained four panels of an unpublished map (possibly from Buel or even Colles himself) but given the nature of his subsequent research, a detailed study of American farming and country real estate, it may be presumed that the Geographicual Ledger would have been an invaluable resource as the first comprehensive American map covering all of New York and New England to contain considerable detail regarding country estates, gentlemanly seats, mills, roads, and farming tracts.

Colles' Own Working Draft

As stated previously, all known examples of the Geographical Ledger are proof states. The Library of Congress example appears to be the most advanced of the series. Our example features extensive manuscript updates to both the Canada sheet (1369) and the Pennsylvania sheet (1548). These updates were resolved to print in the LOC example. The NYHS example features manuscript updates on the New York / Connecticut sheet (1549), including the addition of the Boston Post Road in manuscript, which have been resolved to print on both our example and the LOC example. The NYPL's lone map, the Massachusetts sheet (1459), appears to be a preliminary version with manuscript updates similar to our examples of 1369 and 1548, and the NYHS example of 1549. These have been resolved to print on our copy, the LOC copy, and the NYHS copy. These manuscript updates, probably in the hand of Colles or his daughter Eliza, suggest that a working proof of each map was engraved and printed in a single example that Colles could study and mark up in preparation for revising the plate and printing the final draft.

Separated Ledgers / Maps

Note there are only 3 examples of the Geographical Ledger, and it is likely that they were once together in the possession of Colles and/or Buel and were subsequently divvied up and separated, somewhat haphazardly. For example, our copy, while complete in terms of the 5 main maps, has only the ledger for the Pennsylvania sheet (1548). The NYPL also has the 1548 ledger, but it is bound with the Western New York ledger, 1458. An update to the 1548 'References' section of the ledger appears at the beginning of the 1458 ledger's 'References' section, suggesting that this is how Colles intended it to be issued.

The NYPL example of the ledger, like ours, has introductory material describing Colles' vision for the Geographical Ledger. It also has 8 maps from the survey (40 - 47) covering the route from New York City to Philadelphia. The Library of Congress ledger covers the Western New York plate, 1458. They also have, separately bound in blue paper, the introductory material present in our example and in the NYPL example. Also separately bound in Colles' blue paper are the 7 maps from the Survey of the Roads (40 - 47) that are bound into the back of the NYPL 1548/1458 ledger. This all goes to suggest that our 1548 naturally completes the LOC 1458 set.

William Strickland, the NYPL / NYHS and Buel

Similarly, the NYPL ledger for 1459 and 1549 lacks all prefatory material and contains only the 'references' and 'indices'. However, given that they own all four ledgers (1548/1458, 1459, 1549), it is likely that these were once married to the NYHS maps (which lack the very same ledgers). Likely, the four NYPL ledgers and the NYHS maps were once married in the set collected by William Strickland in 1794, probably from Buel in New York in September of 1794, shortly after he arrived. In November of 1794, Buel sold his magazine, The Columbian Gazetteer, gave up his firm name (John Buel and Co.), and changed addresses, suggesting a critical financial state, which may have contributed to the collapse of the Geographical Ledger project. How and when the Strickland/NYHS maps and the NYPL ledgers were divorced is unclear, as the NYPL records do not record where the ledgers were collected. It does, nonetheless, explain why the NYHS example has only 4 sheets of the Geographical Ledger as these are the only sheets that would have been useful for Strickland, both in relation to the scope of his 1794-1795 voyage and for the subsequent publication of his Observations on the Agriculture of the United States of America, which is essentially a comparative essay on country real-estate, development, and potential productivity in the post-Colonial United States. If this is the case, the NYHS/NYPL/Strickland example may have been the only example of the Geographical Ledger sold in Colles' lifetime.

Historical Significance

The fact that the Geographical Ledger was a financial failure, does not diminish its historical importance. Lloyd W. Griffen, writing for the Bibliographical Society of America, notes,

…the value of Colles' work as a cartographer is not to be measured by the contemporary success or failure of his Survey of the Roads and his Geographical Ledger. Though he was termed by acquaintances as a visionary, he had only the misfortune of being at least a generation or two in advance of his time. He was attempting to force a thoughtful and systematic plan for mapping a new nation on a public which was unwilling - and perhaps unable - to sustain it. The remnants of his two bold schemes preserve for later generations a view of a part of America as it was at the end of the 18th century. Their significance as a primary source material of historical geography and of American cartography cannot be disputed.

Provenance

Given the extraordinary rarity of the Geographical Ledger, some notes on provenance are in order. This map was acquired at auction by a New York gentleman in a trunk with other items approximately 20 years ago, on July 12, 1998. The auction, run by 502 Auctions, was selling the contents of the 1804 Van Horne House Music Conservatory and Carriage House in Van Hornsville, New York (near Cooperstown). The property belonged to the estate of the American industrialist and General Electric founder Owen Daniel Young (October 27, 1874 - July 11, 1962). While it is unclear how the map came into Young's hands, the location of the auction (Upstate New York, Colles' Revolutionary War period stomping ground) and the other contents of the trunk, including various maps used by Colles as source material, suggest that the maps were most likely from Colles' own collection.

Cartographers

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.   Further Details...

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.   Further Details...

John Buel (c. 1768 - 1800) was an American printer and publisher active in New York shortly after the American Revolutionary War. Buel was the publisher of various short-lived New York newspapers, including the Evening Mercury (1793) which folded after three issues. He subsequently began to issue the semi-weekly Columbian Gazetteer (1793 – 1794), which hi sold to Levi Wayland in November of 1794. He also issued numerous books and pamphlets. Buel briefly partnered with Knox under the imprint of 'Knox and Buel.' He also worked with Christopher Colles in attempt to publish the Geographical Ledger, an incomplete early American serial atlas. Buel's financial situation seems to have been dire as indicated by the fact that he moved offices frequent: in 1793 he was located 28 Wall-Street, by 1794 he had moved to 24 Little Q[ueen?] Street, and in 1795-1796 his office was at 151-153 Water Street, by 1797 he was at 74 William Street. On February 25, of 1798, he married the Brooklynite Catherine Carpenter.   Further Details...

Condition

Excellent. Size provided for individual sheets.

References

Library of Congress, G1201.P2 C595 1794 Vault, G1205.C6 1794 (GandM).